Test Drive
Hiring a new employee can be a hit or miss proposition. We often don't learn much about how someone will work from an interview. Steve Jones talks about an alternative way to hire someone by taking them for a test drive.
DBA: Mentor vs. Protector
To mentor or to protect data, what is the role of the DBA? A guest editorial from Matt Simmons.
Disk Partitiona Alignment Best Practices for SQL Server
Disk partition alignment is a powerful tool for improving SQL Server performance. Configuring optimal disk performance is often viewed as much art as science. A best practice that is essential yet often overlooked is disk partition alignment. Windows Server 2008 attempts to align new partitions out-of-the-box, yet disk partition alignment remains a relevant technology for partitions created on prior versions of Windows.
Evil Code
/*
A couple
of years ago, when I wrote the Simple-Talk Prettifier that is really no more than a stored
procedure...
How to Specify Command Line Parameters for DTEXEC Using Command Files
Everything I've read about the built-in configuration options is that you can retrieve values from a SQL Server table, an XML file, etc. but I really prefer to just use the command line options. I'm currently specifying 10 or more command line options on average. Do you have any ideas on a better way to do this?
TSQL Challenge #12 - Build sequential ranges of dates with propagation to missing values
Take the new challenge from MVP Jacob Sebastian. Deadline is next Monday.
Did Oracle buy MySQL by accident?
The wording of the statement about MySQL that came out from Oracle after the merger was downbeat. The implication was "Oh no! Another Blooming Database to deal with". But surely they don't plan to just let it drift?
Ten steps to migrate databases between servers in a .Net environment
How to move databases from one server to another with limited downtime
Granting limited permissions to create views in another schema in SQL Server - Part 2
In a previous tip, Granting limited permissions to create views in another schema in SQL Server, I showed how to use the CREATE VIEW permission and the ALTER SCHEMA permission to allow users to create new views using the same schema as the tables. However, I have found that the users can alter and drop tables in this schema which is beyond what I want them to do. A DENY CREATE TABLE does not work, so what can I do to prevent them from touching the tables in this way? In this tip I will show you how you can use a DDL trigger to prevent this unneeded access.
How SQL Server recovery models impact your SharePoint ...
SharePoint administrators can minimize data loss by selecting the appropriate SQL Server recovery model. But which model is right for your enterprise?
Blogs
Car Update September 2026
By Steve Jones
Software is hard. While I love our Lucid Gravity, I realize that they are...
Microsoft Tools for Making Data AI-Ready
By James Serra
Making Data AI-Ready, Part 2 (This is the second article in a three-part series...
Local Models Using GPUs with Ollama
By Steve Jones
Can you use your GPUs when running a local model under Ollama? You can,...
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Absolute and Relative References
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Moving Beyond the Reboot: Finding the Culprit Behind Memory Pressure
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