The Second Career
From a well-built cockney who knew how to avoid wheel clamps, to an ex-member of an elite anti-riot unit, some of the best DBAs have a surprising diversity of skills and experiences, according to Phil Factor.
2017-02-13
107 reads
Phil Factor
- Interests: Motorbikes, Beer, gardening, conservation, Local history.
2017-01-23
122 reads
Keeping up to, and down with, Date
It is foolish to insist on reading only up-to-date books on technology. Nothing beats getting the broad perspective.
2017-01-09
93 reads
The Toolchain for the Job?
Phil Factor ponders the use of toolchains in automation, and wonders if there might not be a better way.
2016-12-19
120 reads
2016-12-05
102 reads
2016-11-21
177 reads
I can ODBC clearly now
ODBC is the closest thing we have to a universal standard for data access across platforms, applications and data sources. So why doesn't DocumentDB support it?
2016-11-07
120 reads
Teaching a dog to sing
To survive the inevitable downturns in the IT industry, Phil Factor argues that a IT manager needs to take time to maintain technical skills. It is not enough to understand development; you have to be able to do it.
2016-09-12
109 reads
Towards a Single Management Stack
Phil Factor argues that with both SQL Server and PowerShell now running on Linux, the latter becomes increasingly important in achieving the goal of a single management stack for databases across all hosting environments.
2016-09-05
76 reads
SQL Server docks in Linux
The Database Engine on the Data Platform departs for Linux. A late arrival but worthwhile, says Phil Factor.
2016-08-29
67 reads
Blogs
My Social Media Rules
By Brian Kelley
I developed these rules a while back, before COVID. I had a period of...
Why Use TRY_PARSE(): #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
Someone asked why I would use TRY_PARSE after I posted a question at SQL...
A Guatemalan's Guide to Drinking Coffee Properly
My mugI grew up surrounded by coffee farms in Guatemala and somehow spent most...
Forums
Partitioning a table with TEXTIMAGE_ON option
I have a table that ends in ON [PRIMARY] TEXTIMAGE_ON [PRIMARY]. I'm about to...
OUTER APPLY Fundamentals: Part 2
Comments posted to this topic are about the item OUTER APPLY Fundamentals: Part 2
Building Great Software
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Building Great Software
Question of the Day
The Range of Customers
I have this data in the OrderHeader table in a SQL Server 2025 database (ordered by CustomerID ASC):
orderid orderdate customerid complete 3 2025-05-10 00:00:00.0002 1 21 2024-01-10 00:00:00.0003 1 15 2023-10-28 00:00:00.0004 1 13 2025-03-08 00:00:00.0006 1 11 2024-04-02 00:00:00.0007 1If I run this query, how many rows are returned?
SELECT * from dbo.OrderHeader where customerid between 3 and '6'See possible answers