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  • Security-related database settings are not restored when a DB is restored

    - by Greg Low
    A question came up today about whether it was a bug that the TRUSTWORTHY database setting isn't restored to its previous value when a database is restored. TRUSTWORTHY is a very powerful setting for a database. By design, it's not restored when a database is. We actually documented this behavior when writing the Upgrade Technical Reference for 2008: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/confirmation.aspx?familyId=66d3e6f5-6902-4fdd-af75-9975aea5bea7&displayLang=en The other settings that are...(read more)

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  • PASS: The Budget Process

    - by Bill Graziano
    Every fiscal year PASS creates a detailed budget.  This helps us set priorities and communicate to our members what we’re going to do in the upcoming year.  You can review the current budget on the PASS Governance page.  That page currently requires you to login but I’m talking with HQ to see if there are any legal issues with opening that up. The Accounting Team The PASS accounting team is two people.  The Executive Vice-President of Finance (“EVP”) and the PASS Accounting Manager.  Sandy Cherry is the accounting manager and works at PASS HQ.  Sandy has been with PASS since we switched management companies in 2007.  Throughout this document when I talk about any actual work related to the budget that’s all Sandy :)  She’s the glue that gets us through this process.  Last year we went through 32 iterations of the budget before the Board approved so it’s a pretty busy time for her us – well, mostly her. Fiscal Year The PASS fiscal year runs from July 1st through June 30th the following year.  Right now we’re in fiscal year 2011.  Our 2010 Summit actually occurred in FY2011.  We switched to this schedule from a calendar year in 2006.  Our goal was to have the Summit occur early in our fiscal year.  That gives us the rest of the year to handle any significant financial impact from the Summit.  If registrations are down we can reduce spending.  If registrations are up we can decide how much to increase our reserves and how much to spend.  Keep in mind that the Summit is budgeted to generate 82% of our revenue this year.  How it performs has a significant impact on our financials.  The other benefit of this fiscal year is that it matches the Microsoft fiscal year.  We sign an annual sponsorship agreement with Microsoft and it’s very helpful that our fiscal years match. This year our budget process will probably start in earnest in March or April.  I’d like to be done in early June so we can publish before July 1st.  I was late publishing it this year and I’m trying not to repeat that. Our Budget Our actual budget is an Excel spreadsheet with 36 sheets.  We remove some of those when we publish it since they include salary information.  The budget is broken up into various portfolios or departments.  We have 20 portfolios.  They include chapters, marketing, virtual chapters, marketing, etc.  Ideally each portfolio is assigned to a Board member.  Each portfolio also typically has a staff person assigned to it.  Portfolios that aren’t assigned to a Board member are monitored by HQ and the ExecVP-Finance (me).  These are typically smaller portfolios such as deferred membership or Summit futures.  (More on those in a later post.)  All portfolios are reviewed by all Board members during the budget approval process, when interim financials are released internally and at year-end. The Process Our first step is to budget revenues.  The Board determines a target attendee number.  We have formulas based on historical performance that convert that to an overall attendee revenue number.  Other revenue projections (such as vendor sponsorships) come from different parts of the organization.  I hope to have another post with more details on how we project revenues. The next step is to budget expenses.  Board members fill out a sample spreadsheet with their budget for the year.  They can add line items and notes describing what the amounts are for.  Each Board portfolio typically has from 10 to 30 line items.  Any new initiatives they want to pursue needs to be budgeted.  The Summit operations budget is managed by HQ.  It includes the cost for food, electrical, internet, etc.  Most of these come from our estimate of attendees and our contract with the convention center.  During this process the Board can ask for more or less to be spent on various line items.  For example, if we weren’t happy with the Internet at the last Summit we can ask them to look into different options and/or increasing the budget.  HQ will also make adjustments to these numbers based on what they see at the events and the feedback we receive on the surveys. After we have all the initial estimates we start reviewing the entire budget.  It is sent out to the Board and we can see what each portfolio requested and what the overall profit and loss number is.  We usually start with too much in expenses and need to cut.  In years past the Board started haggling over these numbers as a group.  This past year they decided I should take a first cut and present them with a reasonable budget and a list of what I changed.  That worked well and I think we’ll continue to do that in the future. We go through a number of iterations on the budget.  If I remember correctly, we went through 32 iterations before we passed the budget.  At each iteration various revenue and expense numbers can change.  Keep in mind that the PASS budget has 200+ line items spread over 20 portfolios.  Many of these depend on other numbers.  For example, if we decide increase the projected attendees that cascades through our budget.  At each iteration we list what changed and the impact.  Ideally these discussions will take place at a face-to-face Board meeting.  Many of them also take place over the phone.  Board members explain any increase they are asking for while performing due diligence on other budget requests.  Eventually a budget emerges and is passed. Publishing After the budget is passed we create a version without the formulas and salaries for posting on the web site.  Sandy also creates some charts to help our members understand the budget.  The EVP writes a nice little letter describing some of the changes from last year’s budget.  You can see my letter and our budget on the PASS Governance page. And then, eight months later, we start all over again.

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  • Dynamic Ranking with Excel and PowerPivot

    - by AlbertoFerrari
    Ranking is useful and, in our book , I and Marco provide a lot of information about how to perform ranking with PowerPivot. Nevertheless, there is an interesting scenario where ranking can be performed without complex DAX formulas, but with just some creative Excel usage. I would like to describe it here. Let us start with some words about the scenario: we want to rank products based on sales in a year (e.g. 2002) and see how the top 10 of these products performed in the following or preceding years....(read more)

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  • Extracting GPS Data from JPG files

    - by Peter W. DeBetta
    I have been very remiss in posting lately. Unfortunately, much of what I do now involves client work that I cannot post. Fortunately, someone asked me how he could get a formatted list (e.g. tab-delimited) of files with GPS data from those files. He also added the constraint that this could not be a new piece of software (company security) and had to be scriptable. I did some searching around, and found some techniques for extracting GPS data, but was unable to find a complete solution. So, I did...(read more)

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  • Distinct Count of Customers in a SCD Type 2 in #DAX

    - by Marco Russo (SQLBI)
    If you have a Slowly Changing Dimension (SCD) Type 2 for your customer and you want to calculate the number of distinct customers that bought a product, you cannot use the simple formula: Customers := DISTINCTCOUNT( FactTable[Customer Id] ) ) because it would return the number of distinct versions of customers. What you really want to do is to calculate the number of distinct application keys of the customers, that could be a lower number than the number you’ve got with the previous formula. Assuming that a Customer Code column in the Customers dimension contains the application key, you should use the following DAX formula: Customers := COUNTROWS( SUMMARIZE( FactTable, Customers[Customer Code] ) ) Be careful: only the version above is really fast, because it is solved by xVelocity (formerly known as VertiPaq) engine. Other formulas involving nested calculations might be more complex and move computation to the formula engine, resulting in slower query. This is absolutely an interesting pattern and I have to say it’s a killer feature. Try to do the same in Multidimensional…

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  • ORDER BY 1,2,3

    - by Tomaz.tsql
    Only for lazy people -> how to order our output by defining numbers instead of column names: select * from ( select 1 as id, 'test' as text_name, 32 as seq union all select 3 as id, 'best' as text_name, 61 as seq union all select 4 as id, 'best' as text_name, 12 as seq union all select 4 as id, 'best' as text_name, 6 as seq union all select 2 as id, 'hest' as text_name, 21 as seq ) as x order by 2,3 --order by 1,2,3 you can specify the select list or you...(read more)

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  • Redirecting to a dynamic page

    - by binarydev
    I have a page displaying blog posts (latest_posts.php) and another page that display single blog posts (blog.php) . I intend to link the image title in latest_posts.php so that it redirects to blog.php where it would display the particular post that was clicked. latest_posts.php: <!-- Header --> <h2 class="underline"> <span>What&#039;s new</span> <span></span> </h2> <!-- /Header --> <!-- Posts list --> <ul class="post-list post-list-1"> <?php /* Fetches Date/Time, Post Content and title */ include 'dbconnect.php'; $sql = "SELECT * FROM wp_posts"; $res = mysql_query($sql); while ( $row = mysql_fetch_array($res) ) { ?> <!-- Post #1 --> <li class="clear-fix"> <!-- Date --> <div class="post-list-date"> <div class="post-date-box"> <?php //Timestamp broken down to show accordingly $timestamp = $row['post_date']; $datetime = new DateTime($timestamp); $date = $datetime->format("d"); $month = $datetime->format("M"); ?> <h3> <?php echo $date; ?> </h3> <span> <?php echo $month; ?> </span> </div> </div> <!-- /Date --> <!-- Image + comments count --> <div class="post-list-image"> <!-- Image --> <div class="image image-overlay-url image-fancybox-url"> <a href="post.php" class="preloader-image"> <?php echo '<img src="', $row['image'], '" alt="' , $row['post_title'] , '\'s Blog Image" />'; ?> </a> </div> <!-- /Image --> </div> <!-- /Image + comments count --> <!-- Content --> <div class="post-list-content"> <div> <!-- Header --> <h4> <a href="post.php? . $row['ID'] . "> <?php echo $row['post_title']; ?> </a> </h4> <!-- /Header --> <!-- Excerpt --> <p> <?php echo $row ['post_content']; }?> </p> <!-- /Excerpt --> </div> </div> <!-- /Content --> </li> <!-- /Post #1 --> </ul> <!-- /Posts list --> <a href="blog.php" class="button-browse">Browse All Posts</a> </div> <?php require_once('include/twitter_user_timeline.php'); ?> blog.php: <?php require_once('include/header.php'); ?> <body class="blog"> <?php require_once('include/navigation_bar_blog.php'); ?> <div class="blog"> <div class="main"> <!-- Header --> <h2 class="underline"> <span>What&#039;s new</span> <span></span> </h2> <!-- /Header --> <!-- Layout 66x33 --> <div class="layout-p-66x33 clear-fix"> <!-- Left column --> <!-- <div class="column-left"> --> <!-- Posts list --> <ul class="post-list post-list-2"> <?php /* Fetches Date/Time, Post Content and title with Pagination */ include 'dbconnect.php'; //sets to default page if(empty($_GET['pn'])){ $page=1; } else { $page = $_GET['pn']; } // Index of the page $index = ($page-1)*3; $sql = "SELECT * FROM `wp_posts` ORDER BY `post_date` DESC LIMIT " . $index . " ,3"; $res = mysql_query($sql); //Loops through the values while ( $row = mysql_fetch_array($res) ) { ?> <!-- Post #1 --> <li class="clear-fix"> <!-- Date --> <div class="post-list-date"> <div class="post-date-box"> <?php //Timestamp broken down to show accordingly $timestamp = $row['post_date']; $datetime = new DateTime($timestamp); $date = $datetime->format("d"); $month = $datetime->format("M"); ?> <h3> <?php echo $date; ?> </h3> <span> <?php echo $month; ?> </span> </div> </div> <!-- /Date --> <!-- Image + comments count --> <div class="post-list-image"> <!-- Image --> <div class="image image-overlay-url image-fancybox-url"> <a href="post.php" class="preloader-image"> <?php echo '<img src="', $row['image'], '" alt="' , $row['post_title'] , '\'s Blog Image" />'; ?> </a> </div> <!-- /Image --> </div> <!-- /Image + comments count --> <!-- Content --> <div class="post-list-content"> <div> <?php $id = $_GET['ID']; $post = lookup_post_somehow($id); if($post) { // render post } else { echo 'blog post not found..'; } ?> <!-- Header --> <h4> <a href="post.php"> <?php echo $row['post_title']; ?> </a> </h4> <!-- /Header --> <!-- Excerpt --> <p> <?php echo $row ['post_content']; ?> </p> <!-- /Excerpt --> </div> </div> <!-- /Content --> </li> <!-- /Post #1 --> <?php } // close while loop ?> </ul> <!-- /Posts list --> <div><!-- Pagination --> <ul class="blog-pagination clear-fix"> <?php //Count the number of rows $numberofrows = mysql_query("SELECT COUNT(ID) FROM `wp_posts`"); //Do ciel() to round the result according to number of posts $postsperpage = 4; $numOfPages = ceil($numberofrows / $postsperpage); for($i=1; $i < $numOfPages; $i++) { //echos links for each page $paginationDisplay = '<li><a href="blog.php?pn=' . $i . '">' . $i . '</a></li>'; echo $paginationDisplay; } ?> <!-- <li><a href="#" class="selected">1</a></li> <li><a href="#">2</a></li> <li><a href="#">3</a></li> <li><a href="#">4</a></li> --> </ul> </div><!-- /Pagination --> <!-- /div> --> <!-- Left column --> </div> <!-- /Layout 66x33 --> </div> </div> <?php require_once('include/twitter_user_timeline.php'); ?> <?php require_once('include/footer_blog.php'); ?> How do I render?

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  • Conducting Effective Web Meetings

    - by BuckWoody
    There are several forms of corporate communication. From immediate, rich communications like phones and IM messaging to historical transactions like e-mail, there are a lot of ways to get information to one or more people. From time to time, it's even useful to have a meeting. (This is where a witty picture of a guy sleeping in a meeting goes. I won't bother actually putting one here; you're already envisioning it in your mind) Most meetings are pointless, and a complete waste of time. This is the fault, completely and solely, of the organizer. It's because he or she hasn't thought things through enough to think about alternate forms of information passing. Here's the criteria for a good meeting - whether in-person or over the web: 100% of the content of a meeting should require the participation of 100% of the attendees for 100% of the time It doesn't get any simpler than that. If it doesn't meet that criteria, then don't invite that person to that meeting. If you're just conveying information and no one has the need for immediate interaction with that information (like telling you something that modifies the message), then send an e-mail. If you're a manager, and you need to get status from lots of people, pick up the phone.If you need a quick answer, use IM. I once had a high-level manager that called frequent meetings. His real need was status updates on various processes, so 50 of us would sit in a room while he asked each one of us questions. He believed this larger meeting helped us "cross pollinate ideas". In fact, it was a complete waste of time for most everyone, except in the one or two moments that they interacted with him. So I wrote some code for a Palm Pilot (which was a kind of SmartPhone but with no phone and no real graphics, but this was in the days when we had just discovered fire and the wheel, although the order of those things is still in debate) that took an average of the salaries of the people in the room (I guessed at it) and ran a timer which multiplied the number of people against the salaries. I left that running in plain sight for him, and when he asked about it, I explained how much the meetings were really costing the company. We had far fewer meetings after. Meetings are now web-enabled. I believe that's largely a good thing, since it saves on travel time and allows more people to participate, but I think the rule above still holds. And in fact, there are some other rules that you should follow to have a great meeting - and fewer of them. Be Clear About the Goal This is important in any meeting, but all of us have probably gotten an invite with a web link and an ambiguous title. Then you get to the meeting, and it's a 500-level deep-dive on something everyone expects you to know. This is unfair to the "expert" and to the participants. I always tell people that invite me to a meeting that I will be as detailed as I can - but the more detail they can tell me about the questions, the more detailed I can be in my responses. Granted, there are times when you don't know what you don't know, but the more you can say about the topic the better. There's another point here - and it's that you should have a clearly defined "win" for the meeting. When the meeting is over, and everyone goes back to work, what were you expecting them to do with the information? Have that clearly defined in your head, and in the meeting invite. Understand the Technology There are several web-meeting clients out there. I use them all, since I meet with clients all over the world. They all work differently - so I take a few moments and read up on the different clients and find out how I can use the tools properly. I do this with the technology I use for everything else, and it's important to understand it if the meeting is to be a success. If you're running the meeting, know the tools. I don't care if you like the tools or not, learn them anyway. Don't waste everyone else's time just because you're too bitter/snarky/lazy to spend a few minutes reading. Check your phone or mic. Check your video size. Install (and learn to use)  ZoomIT (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897434.aspx). Format your slides or screen or output correctly. Learn to use the voting features of the meeting software, and especially it's whiteboard features. Figure out how multiple monitors work. Try a quick meeting with someone to test all this. Do this *before* you invite lots of other people to your meeting.   Use a WebCam I'm not a pretty man. I have a face fit for radio. But after attending a meeting with clients where one Microsoft person used a webcam and another did not, I'm convinced that people pay more attention when a face is involved. There are tons of studies around this, or you can take my word for it, but toss a shirt on over those pajamas and turn the webcam on. Set Up Early Whether you're attending or leading the meeting, don't wait to sign on to the meeting at the time when it starts. I can almost plan that a 10:00 meeting will actually start at 10:10 because the participants/leader is just now installing the web client for the meeting at 10:00. Sign on early, go on mute, and then wait for everyone to arrive. Mute When Not Talking No one wants to hear your screaming offspring / yappy dog / other cubicle conversations / car wind noise (are you driving in a desert storm or something?) while the person leading the meeting is trying to talk. I use the Lync software from Microsoft for my meetings, and I mute everyone by default, and then tell them to un-mute to talk to the group. Share Collateral If you have a PowerPoint deck, mail it out in case you have a tech failure. If you have a document, share it as an attachment to the meeting. Don't make people ask you for the information - that's why you're there to begin with. Even better, send it out early. "But", you say, "then no one will come to the meeting if they have the deck first!" Uhm, then don't have a meeting. Send out the deck and a quick e-mail and let everyone get on with their productive day. Set Actions At the Meeting A meeting should have some sort of outcome (see point one). That means there are actions to take, a follow up, or some deliverable. Otherwise, it's an e-mail. At the meeting, decide who will do what, when things are needed, and so on. And avoid, if at all possible, setting up another meeting, unless absolutely necessary. So there you have it. Whether it's on-premises or on the web, meetings are a necessary evil, and should be treated that way. Like politicians, you should have as few of them as are necessary to keep the roads paved and public libraries open.

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  • Disruption

    - by andyleonard
    Introduction This post is the thirty-first part of a ramble-rant about the software business. The current posts in this series are: Goodwill, Negative and Positive Visions, Quests, Missions Right, Wrong, and Style Follow Me Balance, Part 1 Balance, Part 2 Definition of a Great Team The 15-Minute Meeting Metaproblems: Drama The Right Question Software is Organic, Part 1 Metaproblem: Terror I Don't Work On My Car A Turning Point Human Doings Everything Changes Getting It Right The First Time One-Time...(read more)

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  • Creating a Corporate Data Hub

    - by BuckWoody
    The Windows Azure Marketplace has a rich assortment of data and software offerings for you to use – a type of Software as a Service (SaaS) for IT workers, not necessarily for end-users. Among those offerings is the “Data Hub” – a  codename for a project that ironically actually does what the codename says. In many of our organizations, we have multiple data quality issues. Finding data is one problem, but finding it just once is often a bigger problem. Lots of departments and even individuals have stored the same data more than once, and in some cases, made changes to one of the copies. It’s difficult to know which location or version of the data is authoritative. Then there’s the problem of accessing the data. It’s fairly straightforward to publish a database, share or other location internally to store the data. But then you have to figure out who owns it, how it is controlled, and pass out the various connection strings to those who want to use it. And then you need to figure out how to let folks access the internal data externally – bringing up all kinds of security issues. Finally, in many cases our user community wants us to combine data from the internally sources with external data, bringing up the security, strings, and exploration features up all over again. Enter the Data Hub. This is an online offering, where you assign an administrator and data stewards. You import the data into the service, and it’s available to you - and only you and your organization if you wish. The basic steps for this service are to set up the portal for your company, assign administrators and permissions, and then you assign data areas and import data into them. From there you make them discoverable, and then you have multiple options that you or your users can access that data. You’re then able, if you wish, to combine that data with other data in one location. So how does all that work? What about security? Is it really that easy? And can you really move the data definition off to the Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) that know the particular data stack better than the IT team does? Well, nothing good is easy – but using the Data Hub is actually pretty simple. I’ll give you a link in a moment where you can sign up and try this yourself. Once you sign up, you assign an administrator. From there you’ll create data areas, and then use a simple interface to bring the data in. All of this is done in a portal interface – nothing to install, configure, update or manage. After the data is entered in, and you’ve assigned meta-data to describe it, your users have multiple options to access it. They can simply use the portal – which actually has powerful visualizations you can use on any platform, even mobile phones or tablets.     Your users can also hit the data with Excel – which gives them ultimate flexibility for display, all while using an authoritative, single reference for the data. Since the service is online, they can do this wherever they are – given the proper authentication and permissions. You can also hit the service with simple API calls, like this one from C#: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh921924  You can make HTTP calls instead of code, and the data can even be exposed as an OData Feed. As you can see, there are a lot of options. You can check out the offering here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlazurelabs/labs/data-hub.aspx and you can read the documentation here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh921938

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  • The Many-to-Many Revolution 2.0 #ssas #mdx #dax #m2m

    - by Marco Russo (SQLBI)
    In September 2006 I had announced in this blog the release of the first version of The Many-to-Many Revolution, a whitepaper that describes how to leverage the many-to-many dimension relationships feature that had being available since Analysis Services 2005. The paper contains many generic patterns that can be applied in many common data analysis’ scenarios. More than 5 years later and more then 20.000 unique people that downloaded the 1.0 paper, I am proud to announce that we released The Many-to-Many...(read more)

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  • How to generate the right password format for Apache2 authentication in use with DBD and MySQL 5.1?

    - by Walkman
    I want to authenticate users for a folder from a MySQL 5.1 database with AuthType Basic. The passwords are stored in plain text (they are not really passwords, so doesn't matter). The password format for apache however only allows for SHA1, MD5 on Linux systems as described here. How could I generate the right format with an SQL query ? Seems like apache format is a binary format with a lenght of 20, but the mysql SHA1 function return 40 long. My SQL query is something like this: SELECT CONCAT('{SHA}', BASE64_ENCODE(SHA1(access_key))) FROM user_access_keys INNER JOIN users ON user_access_keys.user_id = users.id WHERE name = %s where base64_encode is a stored function (Mysql 5.1 doesn't have TO_BASE64 yet). This query returns a 61 byte BLOB which is not the same format that apache uses. How could I generate the same format ? You can suggest other method for this too. The point is that I want to authenticate users from a MySQL5.1 database using plain text as password.

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  • PowerPivot course: Copenhagen, Dublin and Zurich new dates available for booking

    - by AlbertoFerrari
    Wow, this time I have been able to make an announcement before Marco Russo! The PowerPivot course we are bringing in tour all over Europe has three new dates available for booking: Copenhagen : 21-22, March 2011 at the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel. Dublin : 28-29, March 2011 at the Microsoft Ireland Building 3. Zurich : 4-5, April 2011 at Digicom Academy AG. The registrations are now open on the www.powerpivotworkshop.com web site., where you can find all the relevant information about the course. As...(read more)

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  • Quote of the day – on when NOT to say something

    - by BuckWoody
    I think many of us can say something right at the right time. But there’s a deeper skill: “Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.” - Benjamin Franklin Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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  • SQLPASS DB Design Precon Preview

    - by drsql
    It is just a few months left before SQLPASS and I am pushing to get my precon prepped for you. While it will be the second time I produce this on the year, I listened to the feedback and positive comments I have heard from potential attendees, so I am making a couple of big changes to fit what people really liked. Lots more design time. We will do more designs in some form, as a group, teams, and individually, depending on the room and people in attendance. (Figure on a lot of databases centered...(read more)

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  • Intermittent Copy/Paste Problem in RDP

    - by Tara Kizer
    If you use RDP to remotely connect to your servers, you've probably encountered a clipboard issue where copy/paste stops working.  A quick Google search on the problem indicates you can easily fix the problem by logging out/logging back in or killing/restarting rdpclip.exe on the remote server.  Here's an article which covers this topic. But what do you do when copy/paste is intermittent?  It works one second, stops working for 5-30 seconds, and then on its own starts working again.  This is what’s occurring in our new non-production environment.  The DBA team is setting up 16 new physical servers and 5 new virtual machines.  I haven’t found a server where this ISN’T happening.  This intermittent copy/paste issue is driving me crazy!

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  • Generating Insert Statements

    This article from new author Oleg Netchaev describes the cursor-less script used to generate insert statements. This allows you to efficiently and easily add data generation statements to your project deployments.

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  • Statistical Sampling for Verifying Database Backups

    A DBA's huge workload can start to threaten best practices for data backup and recovery, but ingenuity, and an eye for a good tactic, can usually find a way. For Tom, the revelation about a solution came from eating crabs. Statistical sampling can be brought to bear to minimize the risk of failure of an emergency database restore.

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  • Outlying DBAs

    - by steveh99999
    Read an interesting book recently, ‘Outliers – the story of success’ by Malcolm Gladwell. There’s a good synopsis of the book here on wikipedia. I don’t want to write in detailed review of the book, but it’s well worth a read. There were a couple of sections which I thought were possibly relevant to IT professionals and DBAs in particular. Firstly, ‘the 10,000 hour rule’, in this section Gladwell asserts that to be a real ‘elite performer’ takes 10,000 hours of practice. ‘Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good, it’s the thing you do that makes you good’.  He gives many interesting examples – the Beatles, Bill Gates etc – but I was wondering could this be applied to DBAs ? If it takes 10,000 hours to be a really elite DBA – how long does that really take ? 8 hours a day makes 1250 days. If we assume that most DBAs work around 230 days a year – then it takes around 5 and a half years to become an elite DBA.   But how much time per day does a DBA spend actually doing DBA work ? Certainly it’s my experience that the more experienced I get as a DBA, the less time I seem to spend actually doing DBA work – ie meetings, change-control meetings, project planning, liasing with other teams, appraisals etc.  Is it more accurate to assume that a DBA spends half their time actually doing ‘real’ DBA work – or is that just my bad luck ?   So, in reality, I’d argue it can take at least 5 1/2 and more likely closer to 10 years to become an elite DBA. Why do I keep receiving CVs for senior DBAs with 2-4 years actual DBA experience ? In the second section I found particularly interesting, Gladwell writes about analysis of plane crashes and the importance of in-cockpit communications. He describes a couple of crashes involving Korean Airlines – where co-pilots were often deferrential to pilots, and unwilling to openly criticise their more senior colleagues or point out errors when things were going badly wrong… There’s a better summary of Gladwell’s concepts on mitigation  here – but to apply this to a DBA role… If you are a DBA and you do not agree with  a decision of one of your superiors, then it’s your duty as a DBA to say what you think is wrong, before it’s too late…  Obviously there’s a fine line between constructive criticism and moaning, but a good senior DBA or manager should be able to take well-researched criticism\debate from a more junior DBA.   Is this really possible ?

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  • The 2013 PASS Summit - Day 2

    - by AllenMWhite
    Good morning! It's Day 2 of the PASS Summit 2013 and it should be a busy one. Douglas McDowell, EVP Finance of PASS opened up the keynote to welcome people and talked about the financial status of the organization. Last year's Business Analytics Conference left the organization $100,000 ahead, and he went on to show the overall financial health, which is very good at this point. Bill Graziano came out to thank Doug, Rob Farley and Rushabh Mehta for their service on the board, as they step down from...(read more)

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  • The Power of Goals

    - by BuckWoody
    Every year we read blogs, articles, magazines, hear news stories and blurbs on making New Year’s Resolutions. Well, I for one don’t do that. I do something else. Each year, on January 1, my wife, daughter and I get up early - like before 6:00 A.M. - and find a breakfast place that’s open. When I used to live in Safety Harbor, Florida, that was the “Paradise Café”, which has some of the best waffles around…but I digress. We find that restaurant and have a great breakfast while everyone else is recuperating from the night before. And we bring along a worn leather book that we’ve been writing in since my daughter wasn’t even old enough to read. It’s our book of Goals. A resolution, as it is purely defined, is a decision to change, stop or start an action. It has a sense of continuance, and that’s the issue. Some people decide things like “I’m going to lose weight” or “I’m going to spend more time with my family or hobby”. But a goal is different. A goal tends to have a defined start and end point. It’s something that can be measured. So each year on January 1 we sit down with the little leather book and we make a few - and only a few - individual and family goals. Sometimes it’s to exercise three times a week at the gym, sometimes it’s to save a certain percentage of income, and sometimes it’s to give away some of our possessions or to help someone we know in a specific way. Each person is responsible for their own goals - coming up with them, and coming up with a plan to meet them. Then we write it down in the little leather book. But it doesn’t end there. Each month, we grab the little leather book and read out the goals from that year to each person with a question or two: How are you doing on your goal? And what are you doing about reaching it? Can I help? Am I helping? At the end of the year, we put a checkmark by the goals we reached, and an X by the ones we didn’t. There’s no judgment, there’s no statements, each person is just expected to handle the success or failure in their own way. We also have family goals, and those we work on together. This might seem a little “corny” to some people. “I don’t need to write goals down” they say, “I keep track in my head of the things I do all the time. That’s silly.” But let me give you a little challenge: find a book, get with your family, and write down the things you want to do by the next January 1. Each month, look at the book. You can make goals for your career, your education, your spiritual side, your family, whatever. But if you make your goals realistic, think them through, and think about how you will achieve them, you will be surprised by the power of written goals.

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  • The updated Survey pattern for Power Pivot and Tabular #powerpivot #tabular #ssas #dax

    - by Marco Russo (SQLBI)
    One of the first models I created for the many-to-many revolution white paper was the Survey one. At the time, it was in Analysis Services Multidimensional, and then we implemented it in Analysis Services Tabular and in Power Pivot, using the DAX language. I recently reviewed the data model and published it in the Survey article on DAX Patterns site. The Survey pattern is the foundation for others, such as the Basket Analysis, and it is widely used in many different business scenario. I was particularly happy to know it has been using to perform data analysis for cancer research! In this article I did some maintenance on the DAX formulas, checking that the proper error handling is part of the formulas, and highlighting some differences in slicers behavior between Excel 2010 and Excel 2013, which could be particularly important for the Survey scenario. As usual, we provide sample workbooks for both Excel 2010 and Excel 2013, and we use DAX Formatter to make the DAX code easier to read. Any feedback will be appreciated!

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  • Speaking at SQLSaturday #44 in Huntington Beach, CA (Los Angeles Area)

    - by Ben Nevarez
      I'll be presenting a session at SQLSaturday #44 in Huntington Beach, the first SQLSaturday on Southern California. The event takes place on Saturday, April 24 at the Golden West College on 15744 Goldenwest St, Huntington Beach, CA 92647.. For more information visit the following link   http://sqlsaturday.com/44/eventhome.aspx   My session is “How the Query Optimizer Works”. I hope to see you there. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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  • Performance-Based Management Stinks

    - by andyleonard
    Introduction This post is the forty-eighth part of a ramble-rant about the software business. The current posts in this series can be found on the series landing page . This post is about Performance-Based Management (PBM). Almost… In Mere Christianity , C. S. Lewis refutes an argument with the following statement: It has every amiable quality except that of being useful. I feel the same way about PBM. I am a metrics person. I thrive – intellectually, emotionally, and economically – on business intelligence...(read more)

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