dataMinds Saturday 2026 – Slides
At Saturday the 21st of February I’m presenting an introduction to dimensional modelling at dataMinds Saturday. It’s a topic close to my heart, and I’ve always wanted to present...
2026-02-20
19 reads
Blog Posts
The Book of Redgate: SQL Server Central
It was neat to stumble on this in the book, a piece by me, just a few years after Redgate acquired SQL Server Central. I’ll let the words speak...
2026-02-20 (first published: 2026-02-13)
296 reads
tSQLt Test Adapter for Visual Studio 2022+
I have had a number of requests for me to update the tSqlt Test Adapter over the years so it would work with more recent versions of Visual Studio....
2026-02-20 (first published: 2025-12-30)
268 reads
Claude AI Convinced Me Not to Build an iPad App
I coach volleyball and I do a lot of stat stuff on paper. I decided recently to see if I could find a way to more easily automate things....
2026-02-18 (first published: 2026-02-09)
519 reads
SQL Server Upgrades: In-Place or New Server?
This isn’t a religious debate. I have a client right now debating how to handle SQL Server upgrades across all of their dev and test environments. And it’s...
2026-02-18 (first published: 2025-12-31)
414 reads
Claude Code Helps Analyze Test Data Manager Log Files
I had a customer ask about analyzing their Test Data Manager (TDM) usage to determine how many people were protecting data in dev databases and how often. TDM creates...
2026-02-16 (first published: 2026-02-04)
249 reads
PowerPoint to HTML with Claude AI
I had an idea for an animated view of a sales tool, and started to build this in PowerPoint. I decided to switch to Claude and ended up with...
2026-02-13 (first published: 2026-02-03)
370 reads
Making Sense of Microsoft’s AI Strategy: Work IQ, Fabric IQ, Foundry IQ
A few weeks ago, I found myself staring at a slide full of new Microsoft AI names and thinking… wait a second. Work IQ. Fabric IQ. Foundry IQ. Agent...
2026-02-12
20 reads
Fix Slow, Bloated MSDB: Purge Old History And Add Missing Indexes
Fix Slow, Bloated MSDB: Purge Old History And Add Missing Indexes
After tempdb, msdb is often the most abused system database, growing unchecked until it tanks...
2026-02-11 (first published: 2026-01-30)
494 reads
SQL Server 2025 CU1 Fixes the Docker Desktop AVX Issue on macOS
Microsoft fixed the AVX instruction issue in SQL Server 2025 CU1. The container now runs successfully on Docker Desktop for macOS without needing OrbStack.
2026-02-11 (first published: 2026-02-02)
106 reads
Blogs
Who Are You Doing It For?
By Brian Kelley
But as I've matured over the years, I came to realize that I needed...
Presenting Twice in May 2026
By alevyinroc
I will be presenting my latest session, Documenting Your Work for Worry-Free Vacations, in-person...
Finding the Next Sequence Value: #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
I saw a question asking about the next sequence value and decided to try...
Forums
DB Design Methods
I've read a few posts regarding what we use to design DB models and...
Auto Update Statistics not triggering on filtered indexes
I've got a table with 186,703,969 rows, about 300GB of data. There are several...
What is the difference between SQL Server and SQL Database?
I created a SQL Database in Azure Portal but I've just noticed it also...
Question of the Day
An Unusual Identity
What values are returned when I run this code?
CREATE TABLE dbo.IdentityTest2
(
id NUMERIC(10,0) IDENTITY(10,10) PRIMARY KEY,
somevalue VARCHAR(20)
)
GO
INSERT dbo.IdentityTest2
(
somevalue
)
VALUES
( 'Steve')
, ('Bill')
GO
SELECT top 10
id
FROM dbo.IdentityTest2 See possible answers