Our home desktop was several years old and due for replacement. I still have my Dell laptop, and it's still more than powerful enough to do everything I need it to do. Plus, I have a work laptop that's more than sufficient as well. We moved my wife to a MacBook Pro, because of the ease of use. And for those that have a thing against Macs because of the price, it has been worth it for me. When you consider how much time I spent assisting with what were really basic things on the PC, things she's able to handle just fine on the Mac by herself, so I've made up the difference in cost in the hours I've not had to spend being "support." But given that the Mac is as expensive as it is, we were looking for something for the kids. We homeschool, so it had to be powerful enough to do basic word processing, spreadsheets, etc. while also being able to access the Internet so they can do research, play games online, and the like. I wasn't looking for a gaming platform or even a more robust laptop to do development and SQL Server related work. So that put us in the netbook category. After doing some research, I decided upon the ASUS Eee PC 1005HA.
Online Ratings:
Online ratings can be misleading. You could have what looks to be a highly rated item, only to see that it has just a handful of reviews. So I was looking for a high rating along with a decent number of folks chiming in. I originally began my search on Newegg.com figuring I would look for what the best deals were. I didn't like the best deals so I started looking at highly rated netbooks. The Eee PC 1005HA had over 100 ratings, with over 80% being 5 eggs. Wanting to see what the ratings were on Amazon.com, I went over there and saw around 100 reviews, with over half giving 5 stars. So there were enough folks having offered an opinion with that opinon being a good one that it looked like the one I wanted.
Price Tag:
Newegg has it for around $350 and that was within the price range for what I wanted to spend. However, when I popped over to Amazon, I realized it was even cheaper. Cheaper than manufacturer's suggested retail price, in fact. It had what I needed. Decent sized hard drive (solid state was on the wish list, but not in the budget), decent screen size for a netbook, full ergonomic keyboard, and decent memory. It came with Windows XP and that was fine. It had everything I needed and was at a great price. Kick in the fact that Amazon was willing to ship with 1 day shipping at an unreal price, and it was a done deal.
Living Up to Expectations:
It took me a little bit of time to setup, as I wanted to make sure each kid had their own limited user account (that's right, no administrator rights). So I needed to set the icons for sign-in, find the right backgrounds to allow them to see at a glance who was currently logged in, etc. But clean-up wise there wasn't too much to do. There's just not a lot of junk on it. I removed the trial installation of Microsoft Office, removed Microsoft Works, deleted the installer for one of the big name AV providers, then proceeded to patch it, set up the firewall, set up when Automatic Updates would grab patches and install, upgraded to IE 8, installed Microsoft Security Essentials for AV, installed OpenOffice, and configured the defaults in OpenOffice on each user account to save in Microsoft Office format. That only took a couple of hours. Most of that time was in the customization. During this time I spent a lot of time staring at the screen and using the touchpad.
A word about the touchpad. The netbook is light and it's got a plastic shell. However, the area for the touchpad has raised bumps so that you know you're on it. It's really easy to use and stay on for most of it. My four year-old had a bit of trouble with it, but I found it very usable. So if you don't want to use a mouse, you really don't need to. The touchpad is more than sufficient. I actually like it better than the ones I have on my Dell laptop (personal) and my HP laptop (work).
Now about that screen. The one issue I did have with the netbook is an issue with all netbooks. There is a limited screen space. Because there is a limited screen space, the resolution was only 1024 x 600. That's a problem, because some websites like Webkinz (yes, I went there) require 1024 x 768. I tried using Webkinz in 1024 x 600 and it's just not very usable. The bottom dock is lost, and that's how you get easy access to your pets, their items, and the like. Okay! I admit it. I have a Webkinz account. Originally it was for me to keep an eye on what my kids were doing, but some of the games are rather fun. But in any case, I needed to do something about that screen size, because I really didn't want to hook up the flatscreen monitor to the netbook. I'd rather package it all up, wipe the hard drive, and donate it to a worthy cause. Thankfully, I didn't have to cart over the monitor. The Asus Eee PC has a screen compression mode that will display 1024x768 on that 1024x600 resolution screen. I was hesitant to activate it because I figured there would be a nasty loss in overall resolution. But desperate times call for desperate measures so turn it on I did. And I was pleasantly surprised that you couldn't really notice the difference. About the only thing you do see is the screen flicker twice when you originally log on as it activates the screen compression, but then it works fine. Having solved the Webkinz issue, it was time to turn it over to the kids.
Kid Tested, Kid Approved:
My kids got on the system and have used it quite heavily. As would be expected for pre-teen and younger audience, they make heavy use of flash-based games and YouTube / Tangle.com videos. And they tend to play back-to-back-to-back for several hours at a time. The netbook has held up well and it's performed just fine. I see a bit of a pause when loading flash heavy websites as compared to my personal laptop, but I've got a Core 2 Duo with 4 GB of RAM. The speed is more than sufficient for what they do. The only issue we've had is with the 4 year-old and adjusting to the touchpad. She doesn't have the dexterity yet to be consistent with it. So we ended up getting a travel-sized mouse (perfect for smaller hands) and she's good to go. Playhouse Disney, here she comes! So it's definitely held up in the couple of weeks we've had it.
Would I Use It?
"It depends." For general Internet use, for word processing and basic documents, it's great. For watching videos or listening to music, it's fine. Would I install SQL Server or a dev environment on it? No. It's not built for that. If I had nothing else, then I might consider it as it has a decent hard drive and enough memory to make that kind of setup usable, though just barely. If you use it for what it was intended for, it's fine. Anything more is pushing it. But that's to be expected with a netbook.
Would I Recommend It?
Based on my experience and the cost, yes. It's been a good buy thus far. It fills the needs for the kids and I can use it in a pinch for basic type of productivity. Especially given Amazon's price, I think it's a great deal for what you get. So I would recommend it if you're looking for a netbook and you're sure you just need a netbook.
I'm reading SQL Server MVP John Magnabosco's new e-book, Protecting SQL Server Data, and he includes a database schema to be able to use his examples. The schema doesn't include data and in the instructions he makes reference to Red Gate's SQL Data Generator. To this point I have had SQL Data Generator installed as part of the Toolbelt, but I had used it. After a quick run through, I'm pleasantly surprised. In cases where it can clearly identify the fields, it generates very realistic data, like so:
However, if it can't identify the data, it can come up with some very interesting results, such as the number of years a borrower has owned the residence:
The good news, however, is that you have the ability to determine how the data is generated. The column to the left of Own_Years is Rent_Years and if you notice, the numbers look fine. That's because I've modified the data generation to only allow values from 0 to 10 years:
For text fields, you can build Regular Expressions to generate the data, if the generators (rules to build data based on the type of information that is needed) provided aren't sufficient.
All in all, I was able to generate working data in a matter of minutes, and it was relatively painless to do. I'll have to play with the tool a bit more in the near future, but I'm impressed with how easy it was to build something that looked fairly realistic and at the initial intelligence to determine what type of generator should be used.
A while ago, Brent Ozar pointed me to Remember the Milk to help with task tracking. It's a web-based task tracking system. Some of the nice things about it is it lets you categorize tasks, it lets you set tags, it lets you prioritize tasks, and it lets you set due dates. In addition, you can create repeating tasks and take notes on various tasks. So it's a great application that I can access from anywhere, especially with a BlackBerry. I also like the fact that it has a sync application for Blackberry so I can use BB's native Task app that interfaces with Outlook and I can add a task as I'm sitting at a meeting and I don't feel like going through the web interface. So it's extremely flexible and it just works for me. So much so that I signed up for the Pro version.
Well, it has gotten better with Smart Adds. One of the slight irritants was that while I could enter tasks relatively easily, setting all the other information, such as due date, priority, etc., meant I first had to enter the task, then go to another set of fields to fill out that information. Smart Adds uses certain shortcuts when you enter the task so that it can process everything all at once. I just tried it for a number of tasks I just got from a project meeting and it really improved the time it took to enter six new tasks. So if you're using Remember the Milk, check out the blog post I've linked to about Smart Adds. Definitely a work saver. If you aren't using Remember the Milk and haven't ever investigated it, take a look at it and see if does it for you. I know it's light years ahead of Outlook.
In a recent forum thread, someone asked to see who created/altered a particular object. Starting in SQL Server 2005, this information is contained in the default trace, provided that the default trace is enabled and the information hasn't rolled out of the trace files. The catch is how to report on the information easily. If you've used it before, you're likely thinking of the Schema Changes History report. The catch is that if you're using SQL Server Management Studio from SQL Server 2005, this functionality wasn't available until Service Pack 2. So if you have just installed the workstation tools and you've never applied a service pack, you won't see the option for the reports because it's not there. The same is true if you have a full SQL Server installation that's still RTM or SP1. The only way you see the change to SSMS is to apply SP2.
Which brings up a good point. You should be applying service packs to your client systems as well. This was a lesson we learned the hard way on SQL Server 7. It seemed like with every new SQL Server service pack, the definition of DTS packages changed. The only exception was if you encrypted your DTS packages with a password. That didn't change. And so what it meant was if you had different SP versions between your servers and your client systems creating said packages, you had a problem. Because ones with later service packs could read packages created with older service packs, but not vice versa. And as I'm writing this, Aaron Bertrand has just put out a blog post talking about an SSMS issue that is fixed with a hotfix, which you should take a look at, especially if you're dealing with mixed environments. So the point here is that in addition to keeping your SQL Servers up to date. you also need to plan on keeping your SQL Server client tools up-to-date as well. Not only are new features provided, but fixes are included with the updates, too.
Recently, a fellow DBA showed me a set of documentation on a commercially available product. This is a product people pay money for to license and use. It's not an in-house developed application or a community released free sample. The good news is the application is being updated. This update can occur as frequently as each quarter. And as you might expect, some updates require a database update. Fair enough. I can live with all of that. That's all normal, "cost of doing business" type of stuff. Where I stopped in shock was how the database updates were to be done.
I wish I was making this up, but I'm not. This approach is fraught with numerous concerns.
You get the idea. I was stunned that a vendor is suggesting this as a method for keeping the database up to date for their commercial product! I've seen products that send out scripts on a CD/DVD and ask the DBA to run. This was the low-end approach, or so I thought. More typical is to have an installer package which performs all the updates properly and in a synchronized fashion.But that's not the case with this particular application. I wish I knew what to say to this vendor, but I don't think they'd accept it. Obviously, they think that their customers are fine doing the work for them. After all, the customer is generating the change script and executing it manually. Unreal.
Look, if you're a vendor, plan a professional upgrade path for your product, and this includes the database layer. Don't expect the customer to generate the change script for you. At the very least, do it yourself, test it, and then distribute it. Better yet, build a proper installer package that deploys the application updates and database updates at the same time. And if you're smart, you'll even prompt the user to backup the active database first!
When the announcement for Bing came out, I didn't immediately go over and check it out. As a matter of fact, I didn't even look at it. My reasoning was simple: Google was working well and therefore I didn't see any reason to switch. But this past Saturday, Paul Nielsen of SQL Server Bible fame tweeted the following:
Microsoft search engine Bing honors D-Day on their front page. Goggle "honors" Tetris.
To me, D-Day is a bit more important in world history that Tetris. So I clicked over and saw an image of the beach and the land behind it, where Allied forces came ashore 65 years ago. You can still see the image if you go to the Bing page and hover towards the bottom right of the photo. You should get left and right arrows, which allow you to navigate back and forth to see the images that have been posted. The D-Day one was Saturday's. Imbedded in the image are a couple of highlights which can take you to more information on that fateful day.
Now the fact that Bing was honoring D-Day and Google wasn't isn't the reason I switched. However, the difference in their choices is the reason I considered Bing. I took a look at it, ran a couple of searches and was reasonably satisfied with what I got back. So since I was already there, I decided to configure it as my default search provider for both IE7 (sorry, I've not upgraded) and Firefox on my personal laptop. I figure I'll give it a run for a few weeks and see how it does. If I don't like the results, I'll switch back. If I do, I'll leave it alone. If it works great, I'll look at switching over my other systems, too. If you're interested in doing the same, you may want to visit the following link:
FAQ: How to add some Bing to your browser (ComputerWorld)
I was playing around with the endpoint catalog views this afternoon just looking at ways to do poor man's configuration collection on SQL Server and the options avaliable. The endpoints naturally represent the way in to SQL Server and since TCP is the default network protocol for SQL Server 2005 and 2008, I was looking specifically at sys.tcp_endpoints. Basically, I was looking to execute the following:
SELECT [name] , [state_desc] , [port] , [is_dynamic_port] , [ip_address] FROM sys.[tcp_endpoints];
This query would seem to return a lot of useful information. It returns the name of the TCP endpoint, whether or not it's active, what IP address and port it is listening on, as well as whether or not that port was configured dynamically. However, what I got back was 0 for port, 1 for is_dynamic_port, and NULL for ip_address for several servers I hit. basically, these are the three columns in sys.tcp_endpoints that are not in the catalog view sys.endpoints. They represent TCP specific configuration information. But with one glance it's obvious that the information being returned isn't useable. So I went back to Books Online and checked, and sure enough, there was this proviso:
The information that is displayed regarding ports and IP addresses is not used to configure the protocols and may not match the actual protocol configuration. To view and configure protocols, use SQL Server Configuration Manager.
So if you're looking at trying to extract the IP address and port SQL Server is listening on from this catalog view, don't. It can't be relied upon. The guidance from Books Online says to use SQL Server Configuration Manager and that certainly works, but it's a GUI tool, and not useful for retrieving the information using an automated process. All of the information on TCP endpoints is in the registry, it's just a matter of parsing the information out. So I'll be looking at writing a quick script that does just that.
Not too long ago the developer community got a fantastic resource called Stack Overflow. It's a question and answer site, so it's like forums, only it's not. The interface is well done, finding questions to answer is easy because of the tag system, and the site has in place a capability to give people who are active more and more capabilities to help manage the site. It's a really neat idea. The issue with Stack Overflow is it is development-centric and by design. So the powers over Stack Overflow have created a sister site called Server Fault which is for IT professionals - Same interface, same tags, and same increasing ability to help be responsible for the community site.
Now Server Fault is currently in "private" beta, but that should last only a week or two based on the post about Server Fault in the Stack Overflow blog. If you've been somewhat active on Stack Overflow, check out that blog post, because it tells you how you can get active on Server Fault right now. It is actively being used. If you don't meet the criteria, don't worry, one or two weeks go by fast.
Does this replace technology centric sites like SQL Server Central? Not really, it's just another resource. The great thing about SQL Server Central is it covers all things SQL Server. So there are a lot of great SQL Server pros at SSC and at SSC you don't have to worry about going to a different site if you have a programming question or a system administration/SQL Server administration type of question. SSC covers it all with respect to SQL Server. And you'll see a lot of us on both sites. I'm a bit more active on Server Fault right now only because I'm trying to stay ahead of Brent Ozar on reputation and to get a chance to answer some questions there. Brent is a question hawk who will snatch out your prey right from under you! If you post there on a subject related to SQL Server, SANs, or virtualization, do it quick and do it thorough, lest Brent swoop down from on high! Okay, I'm kidding about that. When he's on, he's just trying to help, just like the rest of us, and he has a very great in-depth knowledge of multiple technologies. He also helps support the actual Stack Overflow site as their DB performance expert.
C# MVP Chris Eargle (@kodefuguru on Twitter), who is also an INETA community champion and president of the Columbia Enterprise Developer's Guild, is starting up a patterns and practices special interest group (SIG) here in Columbia, SC. As with our Midlands PASS Chapter meetings, this group will meet at Training Concepts. The group will meet the 4th Monday of every month. The first meeting will be more of an organizational one and it'll meet this coming Monday, April 27th, at 6 PM. If you're interested in design patterns, please come out to the meeting. I'm hoping to make it out there myself.
This month there were 3 security bulletins released and 1 re-released:
Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for March 2009
First, let's tackle the bulletin which was re-released. MS08-052, which was issued for a remote code execution vulnerabilities in GDI+ (graphics rendering). The bulletin was re-released to cover situations where Windows XP SP2 had been applied, then the security patch, and then Windows XP SP3, or Windows Server 2003 SP1, then the security patch, and the Windows Server 2003 SP2. In these cases the new service pack would have overwritten the files, rendering the system vulnerable once again. The new patch release covers those situations. So if you had Windows XP SP2 or Windows Server 2003 SP1 on a system and patched when the security patch came out but then upgraded the service pack, you will need to re-patch the system.
Next, let's look at the three new security bulletins for the month of March. The first two (MS09-006 and MS09-007) affect the Windows operating system. MS09-006 deals with three kernel vulnerabilities and is rated critical. Of these vulnerabilities, the most serious one can allow remote code execution on the system through a specially crafted graphics file. MS09-007 corrects a spoofing vulnerability which would allow an attacker to gain access to an end user certificate and therefore the attacker could then use the certificate to authenticate as the user when certificate-based authentication is used. The last one, MS09-008, affects DNS and WINS Servers. The security patch corrects 3 DNS Server and 1 WINS Server vulnerabilities. Two of the DNS Server vulnerabilities would allow for DNS cache poisoning to be more likely to succeed. The remaining DNS and the WINS vulnerabilities deal with Web Proxy Auto-Discovery (WPAD) records and the lack of proper validation on the submitter. This would allow an attacker to submit a system as a valid web proxy for any computers doing autodiscovery to locate a proxy server to use. As a result, the attacker could then redirect traffic accordingly. While none of the three vulnerabilities affect SQL Server directly, all three require a system reboot, thereby rendering a potential outage of the SQL Server during the reboot process.
If you're an IT pro but not really a security pro, there is a new resource to help you understand the security bulletins as they are released. It is a podcase entitled:
Security Bulletins for the Regular IT Guy
I've listened to the first one and it is easy to understand, covers the new vulnerabilities, and is over in less than 15 minutes. You can download the podcast directly or subscribe with your Zune or iPod.
As I blogged about previously, I had decided to go ahead and pre-order the Kindle 2. It was slated for delivery on Thursday, February 26, but came a day early.I've had it in my hands now for two days and here are some of the things I've noted:
The Form Factor is Nice:
The form factor is small and handy. I found myself reading in bed and was able to easily hold on to the Kindle in one hand, even being able to navigate the pages fairly quickly.
The Text Is Crisp and Clear:
When I first saw the text, I was reminded me of the original Macintosh computers. My wife was quite amazed at how crisp and readable the text was. There is no glare. And you're not staring at a bright screen, like on a computer. It's very comfortable to read.
Ordering New Books Is Easy and Quick:
The first book I ended up ordering was A Hunger for God: Desiring God Through Fasting and Prayer by John Piper. I wanted to see how quickly I was able to go through the order process. Searching was quick. Ordering was quicker. The one draw back we found is when you use the Kindle Store, you don't have a choice on how to sort. For instance, if you just navigate the categories, it sorts by Bestselling, even if that's not what you want.
There Is a Lot of Free and Inexpensive Content:
Because of the connection to Project Gutenberg, there is a lot of free content in the form of classics available. A lot of the classics are available inexpensively, too. For instance, I've never read The Count of Monte Cristo but I've always wanted to do so. If I go and buy the paperback in the bookstore it'll cost me $7-8. But I was able to get a Kindle version for less than $5. Also, I want to read The Three Musketeers, also by Dumas. That is available free of charge. So once I've read The Count of Monte Cristo, it'll be next on my classics list.
Pictures and Tables Aren't So Great:
While the images that are displayed by the Kindle 2 are great when it's in sleep mode, the images and tables for the two technical books I've purchased haven't been so great. Those books are:
When pictures or tables are zoomed in on, you must rotate your Kindle to view them properly, even if the image or table wasn't large enough to justify such. Also, thus far the images and tables have been a little faded and blurry, though still readable. For instance, there are tables that are composed of nothing but text. However, because they are in table format, when you zoom in, the crispness and darkness of the text is a bit lost.
Searching Is Awesome:
I'm a youth pastor as well as a SQL Server guy so having quick and easy access to a Bible is a must for me. You never know when you're going to get a phone call or a FaceBook chat or the like. I purchased the NASB translation of the Bible that was available through the Kindle Store because the sample was searchable. For instance, I taught a lesson Wednesday night on Ephesians 6:2-3 (Where Paul quotes from the Old Testament about honoring one's parents) and by searching on book and chapter, I could move around in the sample easily (though the sample was limited to the Old Testament). At first, when I downloaded it, I wasn't able to search, for it was indicating it didn't have the index yet. However, when I got up the next morning I tried it again and sure enough, it worked just fine. Jumping through text is quick and the search results return back enough around the searched for text to figure out if that's the right section. For instance, I just did a search for DBCC LOG on Kevvie's book and got back 23 hits. Some of the hits have DBCC and log separately, but I'm given enough context to see that.
eBook Quality Varies:
You can really tell what publishers thought about the medium and crafted their product accordingly. One of the books is obviously just a straight port from the print version. For instance, the font for the table of contents reflects what I would have seen in the print version of the book. That doesn't work so well in an eBook reader. Also, some of the spacing is badly off. I know it's not in the print book, which tells me it happened during the conversion process and wasn't cleaned up. Other books are nice. Everything is designed to fit well on the screen and to flow easily from one page to the next. I think as more and more books go to the Kindle and as publishers become more used to dealing with content for the Kindle, this should improve.
When the Kindle 2 was first announced, I debated about whether or not to get it. Then I realized I had to same sort of debate with myself over the Kindle, and that ultimately there were a couple of times I regretted not having gotten one. One of those times was over Christmas break when I lugged a whole duffel bag full of books with us on vacation for about a week. Some of those books weren't/aren't available on Kindle (and I was without Internet connectivity, meaning I had no access to Safari), but quite a few are. Another time was when my 11 year-old finished the paperback he had brought for what was supposed to be a long roadtrip. He thought it would be enough, as he had also brought his video game gear, but he wasn't in the mood to play games and burned through the rest of the book in record time. I would have loved to have been able to download the next book in the series for him and then hand over the device. But I couldn't.
I also kept up with what Andy Leonard and Steve Jones had to say about their Kindles. Steve, in particular, was who eventually helped me decide to go ahead and pre-order the Kindle 2 based on what he has blogged about his experience with the Kindle. Steve reads a lot of books. Certainly a lot more than I have time to read in a year. However, if I keep up with my goals for the year, I'll average about a book a week when you include technical, faith/theology, and personal/professional development. It would also be nice to get a subscription or two via the Kindle each day rather than consuming all of that paper. I'm slowly but surely doing away with my print subscriptions wherever possible. I have found that the magazines just stack up and I never get around to reading them in that form, simply because they are too bulky to carry around between home and work. So for those subscriptions I can get on Kindle, I'll probably go ahead and do so, depending on how well that feature works out.
So I'm looking forward to getting my Kindle 2 towards the end of the week. I agree with Steve that it looks to be more of an incremental upgrade over the original Kindle, and for original Kindle owners there's probably not much justification to buy a new one. I could look for a used one, but I like the smaller form factor. If it delivers on time, that should work out perfect. I don't have anything in particular for next weekend scheduled, so that should be a good time to put it through its paces, both for me and my oldest. My youngest son (almost 10) is currently reading Brisingr and he's got it in hardback. Since that's the only book he's reading right now, he can lug that book around until he's done with it. After he's done, he can take a look at the Kindle.
I was browsing through the new titles that are on Safari and saw some planning guides around Windows Server 2008 (Active Directory Services, File Services, etc.). Of course, all of these are published as solution accelerators, because they are designed to assist IT professionals understand, plan, and implement solutions quicker (hence the term, solution accelerator). Some of these documents have been around for a while, but the Solution Accelerators section groups them all into one place. If you've not run across them before, you can find them here:
Microsoft TechNet : Microsoft Solution Accelerators
Among them are the Infrastructure Planning and Design Guides. There's guidance on Windows Server 2008, virtualization, and even IIS. But unfortunately, none out there yet for SQL Server. If you're looking on the security side, there are the OS security guides from Windows XP on up, including for Vista and 2008. Sorry, no Windows 7 yet.
I've mentioned before that I was on Twitter and I know that for some the question is still out on whether or not it is of value. For me, it's like any other tool, it depends on how you use it. If you're trying to use a hammer to dig up a garden, you can probably get it done, but it's not going to be very efficient. Twitter is the same way, except it's more along the lines of a Swiss army knife: it can be used multiple ways for multiple things. For instance, Steve Jones blogged about how it gave some levity to an otherwise forgettable day.
I use it mostly to stay in contact with others who are using SQL Server and it does a good job of that. For instance, I was able to learn about the changes in Windows Server 2008 Core with r2 from Jason Massie. It looks like it'll now support SQL Server since it has enough of the .NET Framework to permit it. This is good news. It also lets me help others out. For instance, someone was struggling with using PHPMyAdmin to upload an SQL script to a back-end MySQL database. Because of the searches I have in place, I saw that tweet go out and I was able to send a link back to the GUI tools Sun/MySQL provides. Later, Brent Ozar commented on my blog post detailing the incident indicating Quest's Toad product was free. Speaking of Brent Ozar, he posted a tweet this morning with a link indicating some press on GM's plans with respect to its various car lines. I drive a Saturn, so while it's not SQL Server related news, it was still news I was interested in.
Twitter isn't without its headaches. It can be a constant source of interruption and it has to be managed like any other tool (such as email). Also, there were a couple of times last week where we saw a failure in the Twitter API which caused everything to lag by at least 30 minutes. But all in all, Twitter has become a valuable tool for me to get more information on the tools and products I use and how other people use those same tools and products. And that's good information to have, indeed.
If you haven't gotten on Twitter and are wondering who to follow, you might check out the following links:
This came up on Twitter today. I have a search set for "SQL Server" and it pulled up someone who was struggling with PHPMyAdmin because of a very large SQL text file. He was unaware that there were free GUI tools for MySQL from Sun. Those tools can be found here:
MySQL GUI Tools Downloads
