Since I have Enabled Wireless on Windows Server 2008, and picked up a better-than-average Asus N wireless card, handling the storage needs of the home office network has been taken care of.  Of course, the speeds are not comparable to gigabit transfer, but since data is written to… Read more

Oh gracious sin :) 
No apologies, just that life gets in the way from volunteer work.
My regular political passions have gotten in the way too, with some Pan-Canadian activism that needed some time to ensure a successful movement started.
Anyway, MVP Summit time (my first to attend) is coming up and… Read more

There are times when I wonder why I get so few comments on this blog, however there are assumptions I have made which were confirmed to me recently again by those who wrote to me directly, or spoke with. Some told me that fewer comments are a good thing… Read more

A year after the Telegraph reported that Information Commissioner Graham would pledge a fierce approach to the stonewalling approach of public officials, and enforce the Data Protection Act, he has surely held his word.  Two fines have been delivered, the first to the Hertfordshire County Council, for approximately… Read more

One thing I have gotten wrong before, or not elaborated on during a past presentation on mirroring, although Roman Rehak mentioned it in the Burlington, Vermont PASS chapter meeting back in May, is that we can use Reporting Services on the Mirrored copy, as long as you… Read more

I will be replacing speaker Steven Robidas on Tuesday, 23 November at Microsoft TechDays.ca Montreal. The discussion will be on Managing and Securing IT Infrastructure - session INF315: Guest vs. Host Clustering Virtual Machines: What, When, and Why? Day 1 - 3:40pm - 4:45pm.  The link provides all the… Read more

Ever since I took myself voluntarily off company workstation support by installing Windows 7 on the corporate Dell E6400 laptop, I have noticed some instability due to Remote Desktop Connection Manager: each blue screen occurred while trying to connect to a Server within RDCMon or Powerpoint, but in the end,… Read more

Below is a longer version of the equivalent Technet Article  under Security TechCenter > Learn > Security Columns > MVP Articles >  Database Security Best Practices

The security of corporate databases and related aspects have become increasingly important as enterprises consider the data they store, purchase, or acquire as…

Today we sat through a pizza ‘n pop lunch while listening to a MySQL Offering and Licensing for the company I have been working for as a permanent for about a year now. Since the take-over by Oracle, the joke was that speculators were thinking that the new version… Read more

After having setup my first SQL 2008 R2 Enterprise (build level 10.50.1702) database mirror as High Safety with automatic failover, meaning synchronous commit on both servers (see operating modes), there was an obvious question that followed from those who need to employ this redundant database – which/what… Read more

 The below is a republished version that has been released officially on the Canadian Federal Liberal Party's web site.  Finally get some use out of that old History and Politics degree :)  L'originale en français est disponible ici.

When the Bloc Québécois is a Nuisance for Quebeckers’ Interests: The… Read more

After having a few heated discussions on Facebook in reference to Open-Source Relational Databases, I would like to refer those who think that MySQL will cost your company nothing to the MySQL Enterprise DBA Savings Calculator page.

All Database servers have to be managed, and there are the costs… Read more

If you are having SQL Server Database connection issues, I reckon they could be due to one of two connection string issues. Note that the connection string timeout is the 15s by default, so in the string below I triple it, for example, to 45 second (or on could… Read more

Just a bit of follow up here, to start closing the loop, regarding my multiple written outbursts regarding the institutionalised Pension Fund Manager’s $47 Billion dollar losses during the 2008-2009 crisis. This is Canada’s largest Investment and Public Pension holder (Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec),… Read more

So someone walks in from another department and asks about hosting some new high volume, huge database that pushes data off to a remote site by FTP.

The person specifically asks that it be placed on SQL Server, not understanding that the Oracle DBAs know the application is supposed… Read more

While supporting Microsoft Dynamics for CRM, I was recently quite surprised to have to associate role membership permissions within Reporting Services for users of what I could only assume are extended properties, because up to this point I had thought permissions for reporting services were handled on the database… Read more

I am very happy to see Damon Armstrong take up this touchy subject in Simple-Talk.com `s Opinion section. Worth a read.

http://www.simple-talk.com/opinion/opinion-pieces/contract-coding-ensuring-your-client-pays-up/

Enjoy the summer reading (for those in the Nothern Hemisphere), as currently occupied with all the external housework (garden, gutters, drainage, brick repointing). Also helping out the… Read more

Another positive side benefit from moving has been the re-arrangement of the now two small libraries at home: one sorted for the office and one for the living room. A great rediscovery has been what some tireless English composition professors pushed hard upon young and fresh Vesalius College,… Read more

 NB - to my regular blog readers, excuse the tangent here, but the local provincial extremists attempted something in my 'hood recently that is not acceptable, so I stepped in to protect the community. Normally I would agree with the principle of not disparaging an individual, however the cyber-bullying of… Read more

Dearest Michael Ignatieff, Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, Official Leader of the Opposition,

First of all, 'appy appy Birthday Kanadaa' to you (in reply to your FB Video), in the worlds of our former great Liberal Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Jean Chretien, recipient of the most… Read more