I’m a DBA. Do I really need to know Kubernetes?
Welcome to February 2020. It’s the second month of the year 2020! I remember sitting at a server with SQL Server 6.5 installed on it, worrying about the Y2K...
2020-02-05
399 reads
Born SQL with Randolph West
What is a strong password anyway?
Background Fellow Microsoft MVP Troy Hunt (blog | Twitter) has been operating the website Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) for a number of years now. For the record, “pwned” is...
2020-01-29
188 reads
My home office setup
That aging hippie (he likes Apple products and has a goatee) known as Brent Ozar wrote a post recently about his home office studio setup, with a big focus...
2020-01-22
55 reads
Don’t install SQL Server from a mounted ISO
Here’s something that seems to keep coming up, but not frequently enough for me to write a blog post about until now: You should not install SQL Server from...
2020-01-15
103 reads
The curious case of the sqlcmd password
In August last year I posted about a command line parser problem I ran into with AzCopy, which I eventually resolved by writing a batch file and escaping a...
2020-01-08
30 reads
Looking ahead to 2020
This week all I want to say is Happy New Year, and may 2020 be the start of a successful decade for you. Live, love, learn. Remember to take...
2020-01-01
19 reads
Temporal Tables, and how to deal with computed columns
Long time readers will know I’m a big fan of Temporal Tables since their introduction in SQL Server 2016. Thanks to my friend Erik Darling (blog | Twitter), I...
2019-12-25
322 reads
Compression in SQL Server: COMPRESS and DECOMPRESS
On Twitter recently, I asked: Does anyone I know use the COMPRESS and DECOMPRESS features in T-SQL? To those who replied in the affirmative, I asked: What made you...
2019-12-18
143 reads
A guide to acronyms, abbreviations, and other technical terms
Here’s a list of some technical terms, acronyms, and abbreviations you may have heard, and what they mean. Some of the definitions are taken from Wikipedia. This list is...
2019-12-11
37 reads
The XML data type is not immutable
Immutability In many programming languages, strings of text are immutable, meaning they don’t change. When you modify a string, a new string is created in memory by copying the...
2019-12-04
116 reads
Blogs
Claude Code Helps Analyze Test Data Manager Log Files
By Steve Jones
I had a customer ask about analyzing their Test Data Manager (TDM) usage to...
PowerPoint to HTML with Claude AI
By Steve Jones
I had an idea for an animated view of a sales tool, and started...
Don’t Miss Out – SQL Server Query Tuning Fundamentals Starts Next Monday!
Next Monday, February 9, 2026, my one-day live online training SQL Server Query Tuning...
Forums
Why the following cmds in sequence do not work
I need to delete rows from both the temporal main and history tables. The...
When SQL Server Central Went Down
Comments posted to this topic are about the item When SQL Server Central Went...
The String Distance I
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The String Distance I
Question of the Day
The String Distance I
In SQL Server 2025, what is returned by this code:
SELECT EDIT_DISTANCE('tim', 'tom')
Assume preview features are enabled. See possible answers