SQL Tact

PASS Virtual Summit 2020: I'm (Virtually) Presenting

• by Will Assaf

• SQL Tact

I'll be presenting at 7AM Central Time in the first timeslot of the main three-day PASS Virtual Summit 2020 conference. It's long been a goal of mine to present...

2020-11-04

6 reads

Protect your SQL Server from Ransomware: Backup Your Service Master Key and More

• by Will Assaf

• SQL Tact

Not many disaster recovery or SQL migration/upgrade scenarios require the SQL Server instance service master key to be restored. 
Some do.
Recently, by far the most frequent and common disaster recovery...

2020-11-09 (first published: 2020-11-03)

622 reads

SQLSaturday #1000! Join Oregon Virtually this Saturday

• by Will Assaf

• SQL Tact

Honored to be a part of not just SQLSaturday #1000, but the long proud history of the free community series of SQLSaturdays celebrating their 1000th+ event. (I spoke at...

2020-10-19

13 reads

Spoooky SQL at the Baton Rouge SQL/.NET Campfire Stories!

• by Will Assaf

• SQL Tact

Enjoyed the heck out of tonight's October special edition of the virtual Baton Rouge .NET and SQL User Groups meeting, where we had a lot of active chat, three...

2020-10-15

11 reads

Join SQLSat Memphis Virtually This Saturday

• by Will Assaf

• SQL Tact

Looking forward to presenting at SQLSaturday Memphis virtually this weekend!
Both my wife and I are on the schedule for Saturday, and the organizers chose interesting nontechnical topics for both...

2020-09-29

3 reads

Confounding Variables from Historical Bias

• by Will Assaf

• SQL Tact

Note: co-authored with Christine Assaf, originally published in the now-defunct PASS Blog.
Historical data analysis that is naïve to past discrimination is doomed to parrot bias. How do we combat bias in our...

2020-09-23

Prepping the local SSD D: in an Azure VM for SQL Server TempDB

• by Will Assaf

• SQL Tact

One of the few good, safe uses for the local SSD D: volume of an Azure VM is for SQL Server TempDB data and log files. There's a gotcha....

2020-09-21 (first published: 2020-09-14)

443 reads

All-Day at Virtual Houston Tech Fest 2020

• by Will Assaf

• SQL Tact

It's a full day at Houston Tech Fest 2020 for us. Speaking at Houston TechFest is an decade-long annual tradition interrupted only by a hurricane and one year where I...

2020-09-12

18 reads

New Microsoft Azure Certifications presentation at BRSSUG

• by Will Assaf

• SQL Tact

Hi internet! 
Thanks to the surprising number of you who joined our first ever virtual meeting of the Baton Rouge .NET and SQL Server User Groups tonight!
I presented on the...

2020-09-09

6 reads

Measure Ethical Data Analysis by Outcomes, Not Intent

• by Will Assaf

• SQL Tact

Note: co-authored with Christine Assaf, originally published in the now-defunct PASS Blog.
In January 2020, Robert Williams was arrested on his front lawn in a suburb of Detroit, Mich., after police...

2020-08-26