Last week I suggested to others that we institute a little idea theft and put together a few blog posts sharing the things in life we are thankful for.  As the holiday season is upon us and that whole Thanksgiving thing happened in the United States this seemed like a… Read more

Protect Your Password!

As a consultant, I am frequently receiving new passwords at clients and becoming aware of the password practices of others.  One of the most shocking things I’ve come to discover is how loose people are with their passwords.  At times, I am even included in this group. Read more

Earlier this week, I suggested that we share a message of thanks on our blogs.  Since I suggested we put these posts together, I should throw my post in the ring.  Especially since today is Thanksgiving and my food coma is starting to dissipate.  It only took the second… Read more

Learning XQuery can be a pain.  There are a lot of different uses for XML and different languages implement it in many different fashions.  To help clear the… Read more

In the previous post, I discussed the value() method as part of my XQuery for the Non-Expert series.  This next post will deal with a topic similar to…

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Two things happened to me this morning.  First, I woke up and took the written test for the SQL Server Microsoft Certified Master.  Second, I failed said exam.  While that might be a circumstance for pity, we should all be glad.

Where’s the bar?

First off, the exam is tough.… Read more

In the last post, I discussed the query() method in my XQuery for the Non-Expert series.  With this next post, we’ll be working on taking data out of… Read more

Since it’s Sunday (almost Monday), I thought I would chip into Un-SQL Friday.  Before I get down to brass tacks, an explanation is probably in order.  Last week, Jen McCown (Blog | @midnightdba) suggested a new blog round table that has nothing to do with SQL Server but… Read more

About this time last year, Digineer had an internal event where we could share  messages of thanks.  These messages were all gathered up and shared between all of us in our weekly newsletter.  I plan to participate again this year but was going to put it out as a blog… Read more

In the last post, I discussed the nodes() method in my XQuery for the Non-Expert series.  With this next post, we’ll be looking into the query() method. Read more

In the last post, I discussed XMLNAMESPACES in the XQuery for the Non-Expert series.  With this post, we’ll be looking into the nodes() method.

Where XMLNAMESPACES is the… Read more

Let’s talk about XMLNAMESPACE.  Are you excited?  Does your skin crawl with excitement – or rather unease at the thought of leveraging this T-SQL clause?

The goal here… Read more

It’s time for a new series to blog posts – XQuery for the Non-Expert.  The purpose for these posts will be to provide a foundation for using XQuery… Read more

One thing that stuck out for me at the PASS Summit was the changes announced for the SQL Server Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) Program.  The MCM program is Microsoft’s upper tier database administration certification.  It is aimed at providing a validation of skills and knowledge for those with 5… Read more

Check us out today by either traveling down to Bloomington or jumping in and joining us online.  Today Minnesota’s SQL Server user group (PASSMN) will be meeting to talk about separation of duties.

At the meeting, Lara Rubbelke (blog | @SQLGal) will present her session “Si… Read more

Thanks to all those that voted for my Index Black Ops blog series for the SQLServerPedia blog awards.  I am pretty pumped that my series won.

When I originally envisioned the posts, I was just hoping to put together some sample code that I could use to understand how…

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The PASS Summit is complete and we got what we asked for from David Dewitt.  He spoke on the third day of the PASS Summit and received quite the applause when his presentation ended. 

David Dewitt came to us at the request of the community.  When he was mentioned… Read more

The PASS Summit has past and now it ‘s time to mention that the November PASSMN meeting is coming up this week.  If you’ve not registered now’s a great time to get your RSVP in.  We have Lara Rubbelke (blog | @SQLGal) coming in to talk about… Read more

Last week, a new white paper was released that discusses supportability roadmaps for ISVs.  The white paper is Testing and Developing Supportability Roadmaps for Independent Software Vendor Applications. 

What a mouthful… aren’t you glad you aren’t working at an ISV?  Well, even if you aren’t I’d recommend reading… Read more

For the third year in a row, we’ve had a blockbuster PASSMN Board of Directors election.  By that, I mean that we had five nominations for five open positions.  Again instead of an actual election, all of the nominees have automatically won the election.

Please help me to congratulate this… Read more