The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 160,000 times in 2014. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 7 days for…

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I work for a large organization that over the last few years has been doing a LOT of reorgs. And what comes with reorgs? Lots of security requests. I’m always working to find easier ways to deal with them and I’ve gotten pretty good at it over time. One common… Read more

So I’ve written my second article for SQL Shack. This time instead of an overview of auditing options in sql server I do a walkthrough of the SQL Server Audits feature. It’s probably one of the easiest systems to implement that SQL Server has but it does have… Read more

The log file is one of those parts of SQL Server I find fascinating. For instance it is composed of VLFs (virtual log files). These VLFs are a logical way for SQL to break the physical file down into smaller pieces. These pieces are then marked as “in use” or… Read more

‘Twas 4:45 Friday, and all through the office
not a creature was stirring, not even the bosses.
The code was checked in, into Tortoise with care,
in hopes a release date – soon would be there.

The devs were all slumped – in front of computers,
while prospects of bonuses… Read more

This is just something I was curious about. I ran my tests and got an answer and now I thought I would share.

Before I start I want to point out a few things about my tests. I’m using code to create/modify a PRIMARY KEY. PRIMARY KEYs are not necessarily… Read more

I saw someone ask a few weeks ago if it was faster to drop and re-create an index or do an ALTER INDEX REBUILD. I’m not sure, although I suspect they will take about the same amount of time. And what do I do when I’m not sure how… Read more

Almost four months ago I posted my goals for the next year in my two year anniversary post. I pretty much decided I was going to continue on the same way I’d been going. Actively posting, writing the odd article, and hopefully catching up with my certifications. Well not only… Read more

INSERT INTO SELECT and SELECT INTO may be very similar commands but they have some important differences. Every now and again I see people getting confused by the similarities and missing the differences. So here is a quick check list.

Similarities

• They look similar (I think this one throws people…

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The other day I was answering a question about clustered indexes and it lead indirectly to a twitter conversation on whether a date or int column was better as a clustered index. My contention is that a date column (if it is appropriate and will be useful) is a better… Read more