When someone asks you what you do for work, how do you answer?
In many ways job titles matter, just not when telling a stranger what you do for work.
Why Volunteering May be a Bad Idea for You
Recently, as I was doing some work for the upcoming PASS Summit, a question popped in my head: “Why am I doing this?” It reminded me of the time when I was young (and idealistic). I went to the leader of a non-profit group asked about making it my permanent vocation. The leader looked at […]
Power BI Introduction: Working with SQL Server data in Power BI Desktop — Part 5
Data for Power BI can come from many sources, but often the data is hosted in SQL Server. In this article, the fifth of the series, Robert Sheldon demonstrates how to work with SQL Server data in Power BI Desktop, including relationships between tables.
Connect to Salesforce Data as a Linked Server
Use the TDS Remoting feature of the ODBC Driver to set up a linked server for Salesforce data.
What's a Toaster?
There are always generic items that we encounter in life, things where it doesn't seem to matter to each of us what brand/price/model we pick. This Friday Steve Jones asks what you might consider to be generic in your job.
Building SQL ConstantCare®: Analyzing Query Plans
Starting to translate sp_BlitzCache into the cloud.
Display Median Values
DO you know how to display median values from a Dataset? In this short article you will use windowing functions to do this
Managerial Moneyball
Steve Jones notes that the Moneyball phenomenon has come to managers and perhaps a little training and data can help find us better managers.
Be Careful with Key Order in SQL Server Missing Index Recommendations
In this tip we look at the missing index recommendations that SQL Server automatically provides and why you should pay close attention to what is recommended and how you actually implement the new index.
Introduction to Azure Cosmos DB Emulator for Creating Applications
Azure Cosmos DB is Microsoft’s NoSQL database platform running in the cloud. In this article, Suhas Pande explains many of the core concepts in Cosmos DB. Additionally, he goes over how to set up a local Cosmos DB emulator to create collections and documents. Using a local emulator is free and allows development with Cosmos DB without being connected to Azure.
Blogs
A New Word: Dolorblindness
By Steve Jones
dolorblindness – n. the frustration that you’ll never be able to understand another person’s...
Claude Code Helps Analyze Test Data Manager Log Files
By Steve Jones
I had a customer ask about analyzing their Test Data Manager (TDM) usage to...
PowerPoint to HTML with Claude AI
By Steve Jones
I had an idea for an animated view of a sales tool, and started...
Forums
Optimism Without Illusion or Why AI Needs Blunt Technologists
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Optimism Without Illusion or Why...
SSIS with VS2022 64/32 issue with Excel files
Hi all, I'm trying to do classic scenario for loading multiple Excel files into...
Case part is sloooooow
Hi So the case statement is slowing this down - but for the life...
Question of the Day
The String Distance I
In SQL Server 2025, what is returned by this code:
SELECT EDIT_DISTANCE('tim', 'tom')
Assume preview features are enabled. See possible answers