When you run a CI/CD pipeline, you often need confidential values like passwords, authentication tokens, service principal secrets etc. when you want to deploy a certain artefact. You don’t want to store those secrets directly in your pipelines as this might pose a considerable security leak. Instead, you either store them as secret variables, or […]
2025-09-02 (first published: 2025-08-04)
1,201 reads
2025-09-02 (first published: 2025-08-04)
546 reads
Now, let's be really clear up front, I don't mean getting a surgically implanted chip in your head, done on your kitchen table. Brain hacks are generally either, forming habits that are good for learning and concentration, changing how you do things to help enhance your brains function, eating differently in support of brain health, […]
2025-08-02
120 reads
Large Language Models (LLMs) like Anthropic’s Cl...
2025-09-02 (first published: 2025-08-01)
1,258 reads
Most DBAs are familiar with full and differential ...
2025-09-02 (first published: 2025-08-01)
911 reads
I grew up in a pretty rural environment, in the southern US, in what's considered the Old West (Jesse James, reportedly, had a hideout a few miles from my current home, the Daltons, Belle Star, I can keep going, all came through this part of Oklahoma). Here, we call our daily tasks, like taking out […]
2025-08-01
103 reads
Summary: SQL Server administrators frequently enco...
2025-07-30
919 reads
2025-07-30
1,794 reads
I'd like to take a moment and simply voice my appreciation for Steve Jones. Steve's still on sabbatical, so I've been doing some of the work, along with my co-worker, Kellyn Gorman (who I also appreciate, very much). I'm sure you've noticed. Oh, not simply that the editorials are different. That's to be expected. Nah, […]
2025-07-30
106 reads
When a SQL Server Express-based factory app started crawling, the culprit wasn’t hardware or network — it was a decades-old WHILE loop migrated from C/C++ to SQL. This real-world story breaks down how procedural habits, memory grants, and lack of window functions nearly derailed a production floor.
2025-07-28
14,393 reads
By Steve Jones
I had an idea for an animated view of a sales tool, and started...
Next Monday, February 9, 2026, my one-day live online training SQL Server Query Tuning...
By Steve Jones
One of the features we advocates have been advocating for is a better way...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Delta Lake: The Definitive Guide:...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Databricks Data Intelligence Platform: Unlocking...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Storytelling with Data: Let's Practice!
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