To Which Experts Should You Listen?
Many experts that speak to at events are working for vendors. Steve notes that this might mean they are making sales pitches, not not always.
How to Create a SQL Server Database, Tables, Foreign Keys and Data for an Application
Learn how to create SQL Server database tables, foreign keys, and create data to begin building a database to support application development.
Monitoring: The ROI of Build vs. Buy
There and pros and cons to building a monitoring system versus purchasing one: in other words, the ROI of build vs. buy. In this blog post, Grant Fritchey discusses when you should build, and when you should buy.
How to visualize Python charts in Power BI Part 2
This article continues looking at python code in Power BI to produce charts.
The Challenge of Early Tech Decisions
We often live with our early decisions on technology, which can be a challenge over time.
Things Move Fast
I have several things I’d like to say in the editorial today, but I feel I have to start off with my condolences to the family of Queen Elizabeth II. For that matter, my condolences to the people of Britain. This truly is the end of an era. Things do indeed move fast sometimes. Working […]
Fixing Impostor Syndrome
Lessons on impostor syndrome from a marketer apply to technologists as well.
Understanding the System Function FILEPROPERTY()
Learn how to use the system function, FILEPROPERTY(), to get information about your database in T-SQL.
Data Visualizations for Excel Multi-Chart Sets with SQL Server Data
This article covers how to create multi-chart visualizations in Excel using data from SQL Server.
Rollbacks, Undos and Undonts
Rollback scripts are designed to allow us to recover safely from a failed deployment that leaves the database in an indeterminate state. They must check exactly what needs to be reverted before doing so. If you work with an RDBMS that cannot support transaction DDL rollback they are vital. This article proposes a strategy where you create and test a rollback file, at the same time as the forward migration, and reuse it as a Flyway undo script.
Blogs
Using Prompt AI for a Travel Data Analysis
By Steve Jones
I was looking back at my year and decided to see if SQL Prompt...
FinOps for Kubernetes: Leveraging OpenCost, KubeGreen, and Kubecost for Cost Efficiency
In the era of cloud-native applications, Kubernetes has become the default standard platform for...
2025 Wrapped for Steve
By Steve Jones
I’ve often done some analysis of my year in different ways. Last year I...
Forums
The North Star for the Year
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The North Star for the...
Multiple Escape Characters
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Escape Characters
reaching ftp thru winscp but erroring in ssis ftp task connection
Hi, below i show various results trying to reach our ftp site (a globalscape...
Question of the Day
Multiple Escape Characters
In SQL Server 2025, I run this code (in a database with the appropriate collation):
SELECT UNISTR('%*3041%*308A%*304C%*3068 and good night', '%*') AS 'A Classic';
What is returned? See possible answers