2025-04-30
123 reads
Interviews
Crazy Interviews
Today Steve has a few thoughts about some of the nightmare interview processes tech workers are going through.
2024-05-13
250 reads
2024-03-04
243 reads
An Interview with Allen Kinsel, PASS Board Candidate
Allen Kinsel is running for the board of directors of PASS. He took a little time to answer some questions from Steve Jones
2013-09-27
444 reads
Don Syme: Geek of the Week
It came as a surprise to many of us when Microsoft pulled from it's hat a rabbit in the form of an exciting, radical, language that offers an effective alternative to the Object-oriented orthodoxy. The creative force behind this language, F#, turns out to be a brilliant Cambridge-based Australian called Don Syme, already well known for his work on generics in .NET. F# has taken the specialised power of ML and OCaml and developed a versatile general-purpose .NET language. We sent Richard Morris across the road to investigate.
2010-02-05
2,621 reads
Interview with the Scary DBA - Grant Fritchey
or our first feature on working DBAs and their lives, we selected Grant Fritchey, the self-styled Scary DBA, who has been so successful in the past year with his books and presentations. How does he manage to pack so much into his life? We sent Richard Morris to find out.
2009-11-20
3,936 reads
Interview with the Scary DBA – Grant Fritchey
With Halloween so near, we thought it would be a good time to find out more about the so-called Scary DBA, Grant Fritchey, who's been working in IT for 20 years now. He writes for SQL Server Central, Simple-Talk and SQL Server Standard, and was awarded MVP status earlier this year. We sent Richard Morris to meet him.
2009-11-19
576 reads
Richard Stallman: Geek of the Week
Many famous geeks work away at their programs without considering the wider implications of what they, and others, are doing. Richard Stallman isn't like that. Richard (rms) is one of the great brains behind Linux distros, as he wrote the GNU compilers and GNU debugger. He is driven by strong opinions about the nature of free software, and the restrictive nature of software copyright. We sent our intrepid reporter, Richard Morris, to find out if Richard Stallman really required journalists to read parts of the GNU philosophy before an interview, for "efficiency's sake".
2009-08-07
2,874 reads
Get into the Top Ten Percent
When you start applying for jobs, and face competition from other candidates, who do you think gets the interview? Is it the middle 50%? The bottom 20%? I bet you're thinking the top 5-10 candidates are granted interviews, which in today's world...
2009-07-24
2,332 reads
An Interview with Brad McGehee - Part 2
Continuing the interview with Brad McGehee, Robert Pearl asks about the new features in 2008 and his books.
2009-04-10
1,391 reads
Blogs
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...
Advice I Like: Ranch Rules
By Steve Jones
Leave a gate behind you the way you first found it. – from Excellent...
Fix Slow, Bloated MSDB: Purge Old History And Add Missing Indexes
By SQLPals
Fix Slow, Bloated MSDB: Purge Old History And Add Missing Indexes ...
Forums
25 Years of SQL Server Central
Comments posted to this topic are about the item 25 Years of SQL Server...
The Decoded Value
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Decoded Value
Deploying SQL Server Developer Edition in Kubernetes: A Cost-Effective Alternative to RDS
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Deploying SQL Server Developer Edition...
Question of the Day
The Decoded Value
In SQL Server 2025, what is returned from this code:
DECLARE @message VARCHAR(50) = 'Hello SQL Server 2025!'; DECLARE @encoded VARCHAR(MAX); SET @encoded = BASE64_ENCODE(CAST(@message AS VARBINARY(1000))); SELECT BASE64_DECODE(@encoded)See possible answers