Fighting Procrastination?

Here is another short video (~ 15 minutes). This is by the author of The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg. In this video, he delves into why we procrastinate...

It’s 2026 and I’m retired, so lets get Visual Basic 6.0 to run on Windows 11

In 1999 I released my first commercial software product. ShutOff 2000 was a Windows application that could log off or shut down Windows in multiple ways. It was successful...

SQL Server 2016 Has Reached End of Support. Now What?

SQL Server 2016 Has Reached End of Support. Now What?

On July 14, 2026, SQL Server 2016 reached the end of extended support. That means regular...

SQL Server Problems You Can Reproduce, Measure and Fix: A Free Demo Library

I built a free library of runnable SQL Server demos. Each reproduces a real production problem on purpose, measures the fixes, and checks its own predictions on SQL Server...

A Pursuit of Lifelong Learning

The following came across my YouTube feed today. It’s an interview with General James Mattis, USMC, Retired, talking about lifelong learning, the expectations of learning in the Marine Corps,...

Announcements from the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference — Barcelona 2026

Microsoft shared a broad set of Fabric, Power BI, and SQL updates at FabCon and SQLCon Barcelona 2026, with approximately 5,000 attendees at the conference. I’ve tried to make...

A Fun Prize at the PASS Data Community Summit

I had a briefing for the 2026 PASS Data Community Summit, which is just a couple of weeks away. Amongst a bunch of admin type stuff, there was a...

DiskANN Experiment — Exploring Entry Points and Graph Neighborhoods

Introduction I was experimenting with vector search in SQL Server 2025 using approximately 3.8 million Hacker News articles that that I used for my talk on SQL Server-based vector...

From three founders to an international Data & AI Team: The story of Joyful Craftsmen

Founded in 2014 by three data enthusiasts, Joyful Craftsmen has grown into an international Data & AI company. Explore our journey, the principles behind our work, and the next...

Lift and shift vs modernizing your data warehouse

If you are migrating a data warehouse, there is a question worth asking before you start: should you recreate the existing solution on the new platform, or use the...