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• 24 Hours of PASS: Whine, Whine, Whine

  - by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)

  24 Hours of Pass (or 24HOP) is a great program offered by PASS to provide free, online training for anyone who wants to learn more about SQL Server.  They routinely have the best SQL Server presenters available for these sessions, and attract hundreds, perhaps even a thousand attendees from around the world.  This is definitely one of the best things they've started doing in the past few years, and every session I've attended has been excellent. So why am I so grumpy about it? I'm not really, pretty much everything here is a minor annoyance that I can deal with.  However since they're so minor they seem to be things that can be easily corrected and would make the process much better. First off, this is my biggest gripe, the registration page: https://www323.livemeeting.com/lrs/8000181573/Registration.aspx?pageName=lj6378f4fhf5hpdm What grinds my gears about this?  I have to scroll alllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the way to bottom to actually register for the sessions.  This wouldn't be so bad except all the details of the session, including the presenter, is in a separate list at the top.  Both lists contain info the other does not, and scrolling between them to determine "Should I make time to listen to this?  Who is speaking at this time anyway?" is really unnecessary. My preference would be to keep the top list and add the checkboxes and schedule info in separate columns.  This is a full-width design, so there's plenty of space for this data, which is pretty small anyway.  The other huge benefit is halving the size of the page, which improves performance and lowers bandwidth usage considerably.  And if you know HTML/ASP.Net, and you view the page source, you can find PLENTY of other things that can be reduced even further.  (not just viewstate) One nice thing that PASS does is send iCal reminders to your email address so you can accept them to your calendar.  Again, they leave off the presenter in the appointment details, while still duplicating the meeting title in the body.  Sometimes I make decisions based on speaker rather than content (Natalie Portman is reading the Yellow Pages??? I'M THERE!) and having the speaker in the iCal is helpful. Next minor annoyances are the necessity for providing a company name, and the survey questions.  I know PASS needs to market themselves effectively, and they need information to do that, and since this is a free event it's really not worth complaining about, but why ask the survey question twice? (once at registration, once again when joining the LiveMeeting)  Same thing for the company name.  All of this should be tied to email address, so that's all I should need to enter when joining the LiveMeeting. The last one is also minor, but it irks me in this day and age of multiple browsers and the decline of Internet Explorer as a dominant platform.  The registration page was originally created in Visual Studio 2003, and has a lot of IE-specific crud representative of the browser situation of 2003. (IE5 references? really? and is the aforementioned viewstate big enough?)  This causes some grief with other browsers like Firefox, Chrome, and sometimes IE8 or 9.  And don't get me started on using the page on a Mac or in Safari. My main point is that PASS is an international organization, welcoming everyone from all levels of SQL Server proficiency, and in that spirit I think it would help to accommodate a wider range of browser software, especially since the registration page is extremely simple.  I recognize that this page is not hosted on the PASS website and may be maintained by some division of Microsoft, but to me that's even worse if MS can't update their own pages.  They've deprecated IE6, so they don't need to maintain support on their own websites anymore. OK, I'll shut up now. #sqlpass #24HOP

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• How to Name Linked Servers

  - by Bill Graziano

  I did another SQL Server migration over the weekend that dealt with linked servers.  I’ve seen all kinds of odd naming schemes and there are a few I like and a few I suggest you avoid. Don’t name your linked server for its IP address.  At some point whatever is on the other end of that IP address will move.  You’ll probably need to point your linked server to a new IP address but not change the name of the linked server.  And then you’ve completely lost any context around this.  Bonus points if a new SQL Server eventually ends up at the old IP address further adding confusion when you’re trying to troubleshoot. Don’t name your linked server based on its instance name.  This one is less obvious.  It sounds nice to have a linked server named [VSRV1\SQLTRAN01].  You know what it is and it’s easy to use.  It’s less nice when you’ve got 200 stored procedures that all reference this linked server but the database they reference has moved to a new instance.  Now when you query this you’re actually querying a different instance. (Please note: I’m not saying it’s a good idea to have 200 stored procedures that all reference a linked server.  I’m just saying it’s not all that uncommon.) Consider naming your linked server something that you can easily search on.  See my note above.  You can also get around this by always enclosing the name in brackets.  That is harder to enforce unless you use some odd characters in it. Consider naming your linked server based on the function.  For example, I’ve had some luck having a linked server named [DW] that points to our data warehouse server.  That server can change names or physically move and all I need to do is update the linked server to point to the new destination.  The descriptive name of the linked server is still accurate.  No code needs to change and people still know what it is just by looking at it. Consider naming your linked server for the database.  I’m still thinking through this one.  It may mean you have multiple linked servers that point to the same instance.  I’ve found that database names rarely change.  It also makes it easier to move individual databases to new servers. Consider pointing your linked servers to DNS entries and not IP addresses.  I’ve done this for reporting databases and had some success.  Especially for read-only snapshots that can get created on the main database or on the mirror.  What issues have you had with linked server names?  What has worked for you?  Where are the holes in my approach?

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• How to read values from RESX file in ASP.NET using ResXResourceReader

  Here is the method which returns the value for a particular key in a given resource file. Below method assumes resourceFileName is the resource filename and key is the string for which the value has to be retrieved. public static string ReadValueFromResourceFile(String resourceFileName, String key)    {        String _value = String.Empty;        ResXResourceReader _resxReader = new ResXResourceReader(            String.Format("{0}{1}\\{2}",System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory.ToString(), StringConstants.ResourceFolderName , resourceFileName));        foreach (DictionaryEntry _item in _resxReader)        {            if (_item.Key.Equals(key))            {                _value = _item.Value.ToString();                break;            }        }        return _value;    } span.fullpost {display:none;}

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• What is the kd tree intersection logic?

  - by bobobobo

  I'm trying to figure out how to implement a KD tree. On page 322 of "Real time collision detection" by Ericson The text section is included below in case Google book preview doesn't let you see it the time you click the link text section Relevant section: The basic idea behind intersecting a ray or directed line segment with a k-d tree is straightforward. The line is intersected against the node's splitting plane, and the t value of intersection is computed. If t is within the interval of the line, 0 <= t <= tmax, the line straddles the plane and both children of the tree are recursively descended. If not, only the side containing the segment origin is recursively visited. So here's what I have: (open image in new tab if you can't see the lettering) The logical tree Here the orange ray is going thru the 3d scene. The x's represent intersection with a plane. From the LEFT, the ray hits: The front face of the scene's enclosing cube, The (1) splitting plane The (2.2) splitting plane The right side of the scene's enclosing cube But here's what would happen, naively following Ericson's basic description above: Test against splitting plane (1). Ray hits splitting plane (1), so left and right children of splitting plane (1) are included in next test. Test against splitting plane (2.1). Ray actually hits that plane, (way off to the right) so both children are included in next level of tests. (This is counter-intuitive - shouldn't only the bottom node be included in subsequent tests) Can some one describe what happens when the orange ray goes through the scene correctly?

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• How to detect hard disk failure?

  - by Devator

  So, one of my servers has a hard disk failure. It's running software RAID, the system locked up and according to /proc/mdstat (and /var/log/messages), it's really down: Personalities : [raid1] md2 : active raid1 sdb2[1] 104320 blocks [2/1] [_U] md5 : active raid1 sdb5[1] 2104448 blocks [2/1] [_U] md6 : active raid1 sdb6[1] 830134656 blocks [2/1] [_U] md1 : active raid1 sdb1[1] 143363968 blocks [2/1] [_U] and Nov 5 22:04:37 m38501 smartd[4467]: Device: /dev/sda, not capable of SMART self-check However when I do smartctl -H /dev/sda, it passes the test. It also passes the test with smartctl --test=short /dev/sda. So, is smartctl a broken testing tool, or am I doing something completely off?

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• PASS Summit 2011 &ndash; Part IV

  - by Tara Kizer

  This is the final blog for my PASS Summit 2011 series.  Well okay, a mini-series, I guess. On the last day of the conference, I attended Keith Elmore’ and Boris Baryshnikov’s (both from Microsoft) “Introducing the Microsoft SQL Server Code Named “Denali” Performance Dashboard Reports, Jeremiah Peschka’s (blog|twitter) “Rewrite your T-SQL for Great Good!”, and Kimberly Tripp’s (blog|twitter) “Isolated Disasters in VLDBs”. Keith and Boris talked about the lifecycle of a session, figuring out the running time and the waiting time.  They pointed out the transient nature of the reports.  You could be drilling into it to uncover a problem, but the session may have ended by the time you’ve drilled all of the way down.  Also, the reports are for troubleshooting live problems and not historical ones.  You can use Management Data Warehouse for historical troubleshooting.  The reports provide similar benefits to the Activity Monitor, however Activity Monitor doesn’t provide context sensitive drill through. One thing I learned in Keith’s and Boris’ session was that the buffer cache hit ratio should really never be below 87% due to the read-ahead mechanism in SQL Server.  When a page is read, it will read the entire extent.  So for every page read, you get 7 more read.  If you need any of those 7 extra pages, well they are already in cache.  I had a lot of fun in Jeremiah’s session about refactoring code plus I learned a lot.  His slides were visually presented in a fun way, which just made for a more upbeat presentation.  Jeremiah says that before you start refactoring, you should look at your system.  Investigate missing or too many indexes, out-of-date statistics, and other areas that could be leading to your code running slow.  He talked about code standards.  He suggested using common abbreviations for aliases instead of one-letter aliases.  I’m a big offender of one-letter aliases, but he makes a good point.  He said that join order does not matter to the optimizer, but it does matter to those who have to read your code.  Now let’s get into refactoring! Eliminate useless things – useless/unneeded joins and columns.  If you don’t need it, get rid of it! Instead of using DISTINCT/JOIN, replace with EXISTS Simplify your conditions; use UNION or better yet UNION ALL instead of OR to avoid a scan and use indexes for each union query Branching logic – instead of IF this, IF that, and on and on…use dynamic SQL (sp_executesql, please!) or use a parameterized query in the application Correlated subqueries – YUCK! Replace with a join Eliminate repeated patterns Last, but certainly not least, was Kimberly’s session.  Kimberly is my favorite speaker.  I attended her two-day pre-conference seminar at PASS Summit 2005 as well as a SQL Immersion Event last December.  Did I mention she’s my favorite speaker?  Okay, enough of that. Kimberly’s session was packed with demos.  I had seen some of it in the SQL Immersion Event, but it was very nice to get a refresher on these, especially since I’ve got a VLDB with some growing pains.  One key takeaway from her session is the idea to use a log shipping solution with a load delay, such as 6, 8, or 24 hours behind the primary.  In the case of say an accidentally dropped table in a VLDB, we could retrieve it from the secondary database rather than waiting an eternity for a restore to complete.  Kimberly let us know that in SQL Server 2012 (it finally has a name!), online rebuilds are supported even if there are LOB columns in your table.  This will simplify custom code that intelligently figures out if an online rebuild is possible. There was actually one last time slot for sessions that day, but I had an airplane to catch and my kids to see!

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• Scheduling Jobs in SQL Server Express - Part 2

  In my previous article Scheduling Jobs in SQL Server Express we saw how to make simple job scheduling in SQL Server 2005 Express work. We limited the scheduling to one time or daily repeats. Sometimes this isn't enough. In this article we'll take a look at how to make a scheduling solution based on Service Broker worthy of the SQL Server Agent itself.

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• Friendly URLs: is there a max length for search engines?

  - by Olivier Pons

  People from stackoverflow have been working closely with google team to help them make the panda algorithm more efficient, so I guess they've learned a lot from the google team. Thus they may have done very clever friendly URLs to maximize the page rank. I've seen from time to time very long URLs (can't find where) in stackoverflow, but after a certain "amount" of character there were only numbers, kind of "ok passed this length, SEOs will ignore this so let's put only numbers". I've done a huge work on my framework to make very friendly URLs, and my website can come up with URLs like: http://www.mysite.fr/recherche/region/provence-alpes-cote-d-azur/departement/bouches-du-rhone/categorie-de-metiers/paramedical/ It's very long and I'm wondering if the previous URL won't be mixed with, say, this one: http://www.mysite.fr/recherche/region/provence-alpes-cote-d-azur/departement/bouches-du-rhone/categorie-de-metiers/art/

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• 2010 FIFA World Cup Silverlight Smooth Streaming Player with Live Messenger

  - by FernandoCortes

  Finally after weeks of hard work the World Cup Silverlight player is ready to watch the spanish team in action. This Silverlight Player use Smooth Streaming technology, enables adaptive streaming of media to Silverlight and other clients over HTTP. Smooth Streaming provides a high-quality viewing experience that scales massively on content distribution networks, making true HD 1080p media experiences a reality. The player integrate leading social networks such as Microsoft Live Messenger, Twitter and Facebook to chat in a public chat and with your Windows Live Messenger contacts list completely private. All supported on Microsoft Azure in one of the biggest deployments in this platform (350 instances). We integrate Windows Live Messenger with Siverlight using the javascript messenger library, version 3.5. Check out this video, in spanish, where Antón and me explain how to integrate Silverlight and Live Messenger: http://www.channels.com/episodes/show/8900143/-Codecamp-es-2009-Messenger-Cortes-Molleda   Player Uri http://mundial2010.telecinco.es/ (Spanish Television)   Developer & Design Team Antón Molleda (Developer) Luis Guerrero (Developer) Raúl Varela (Designer) Ricardo Acosta (Designer) Fernando Cortés Hierro (myself)

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• How to Create a Realistic Timeline for your Projects

  - by Aditi

  Developing a Realistic project time line is a biggest and most challenging task of any team. We here at JustSkins, have learned over time that developing and adhering to a timeline isn’t easy but is not impossible. Keeping in consideration from any technical glitches to a human resource issue, unexpected complications can come up at any time during the entire project life cycle, How ever there are many things you can do in order to save the project from going off-track there. A specific timeline is very important statistic for time management planning and keeping your client informed of the progress. Have a rigid time tracking assures the client, that you are committed to achieving specific project milestones in time. The more you work on varied IT projects, the more you know about the aspects of project and you get to better develop future estimates and timelines. Make a Structure When estimating the time required to accomplish each task, consider which all team members will be involved, also assign the amount of time each individual must put in to the project. Define Scope & dependability and set deadlines for accomplishing them. Sometimes Working in Phases or modules help in doing more in lesser time. One must use a Project management tool in order to systematize the collaboration between the team members. Realistic Goal Setting One approach is to keep a bandwidth of few days to deal with delay, errors & incorrect coding issues you are likely to have in the course. It is very realistic to keep delivery date to client different then internal delivery timeline. If your resource is having hard time finishing this task in the time specified, keep some room to give him a day or two extra to accomplish his task. This does not upset client delivery and is the safe way of doing projects. Keep and Insightful Approach Identify potential problems before they delay your project. To be a great IT manager you have to be honest & diplomatic at the same time, it is essential for you to give earlier notice of potential delays or scope changes to your clients. In situation where delay is inevitable you should be in a position to provide immediate, on-demand status progress reports. Learning from past experiences if very important one must keep a track of actual time spent on all aspects of the projects, this will help you create better future estimates and timelines.

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• SSMS Tools Pack 1.8 is out!

  - by Mladen Prajdic

  This is a release that fixes all known major bugs and most of the minor ones. The main feature list hasn’t changed. The only addition is the ability to export and import only SQL snippets. Before you could only export/import all settings which included the snippets. You can download the new version here. Enjoy it!

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• Can unit tests verify software requirements?

  - by Peter Smith

  I have often heard unit tests help programmers build confidence in their software. But is it enough for verifying that software requirements are met? I am losing confidence that software is working just because the unit tests pass. We have experienced some failures in production deployment due to an untested\unverified execution path. These failures are sometimes quite large, impact business operations and often requires an immediate fix. The failure is very rarely traced back to a failing unit test. We have large unit test bodies that have reasonable line coverage but almost all of these focus on individual classes and not on their interactions. Manual testing seems to be ineffective because the software being worked on is typically large with many execution paths and many integration points with other software. It is very painful to manually test all of the functionality and it never seems to flush out all the bugs. Are we doing unit testing wrong when it seems we still are failing to verify the software correctly before deployment? Or do most shops have another layer of automated testing in addition to unit tests?

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• SQL Server 2008 Compression

  - by Peter Larsson

  Hi! Today I am going to talk about compression in SQL Server 2008. The data warehouse I currently design and develop holds historical data back to 1973. The data warehouse will have an other blog post laster due to it's complexity. However, the server has 60GB of memory (of which 48 is dedicated to SQL Server service), so all data didn't fit in memory and the SAN is not the fastest one around. So I decided to give compression a go, since we use Enterprise Edition anyway. This is the code I use to compress all tables with PAGE compression. DECLARE @SQL VARCHAR(MAX)   DECLARE curTables CURSOR FOR             SELECT 'ALTER TABLE ' + QUOTENAME(OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(object_id))                     + '.' + QUOTENAME(OBJECT_NAME(object_id))                     + ' REBUILD PARTITION = ALL WITH (DATA_COMPRESSION = PAGE)'             FROM    sys.tables   OPEN    curTables   FETCH   NEXT FROM    curTables INTO    @SQL   WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0     BEGIN         IF @SQL IS NOT NULL             RAISERROR(@SQL, 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT           FETCH   NEXT         FROM    curTables         INTO    @SQL     END   CLOSE       curTables DEALLOCATE  curTables Copy and paste the result to a new code window and execute the statements. One thing I noticed when doing this, is that the database grows with the same size as the table. If the database cannot grow this size, the operation fails. For me, I first ended up with orphaned connection. Not good. And this is the code I use to create the index compression statements DECLARE @SQL VARCHAR(MAX)   DECLARE curIndexes CURSOR FOR             SELECT      'ALTER INDEX ' + QUOTENAME(name)                         + ' ON '                         + QUOTENAME(OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(object_id))                         + '.'                         + QUOTENAME(OBJECT_NAME(object_id))                         + ' REBUILD PARTITION = ALL WITH (FILLFACTOR = 100, DATA_COMPRESSION = PAGE)'             FROM        sys.indexes             WHERE       OBJECTPROPERTY(object_id, 'IsMSShipped') = 0                         AND OBJECTPROPERTY(object_id, 'IsTable') = 1             ORDER BY    CASE type_desc                             WHEN 'CLUSTERED' THEN 1                             ELSE 2                         END   OPEN    curIndexes   FETCH   NEXT FROM    curIndexes INTO    @SQL   WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0     BEGIN         IF @SQL IS NOT NULL             RAISERROR(@SQL, 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT           FETCH   NEXT         FROM    curIndexes         INTO    @SQL     END   CLOSE       curIndexes DEALLOCATE  curIndexes When this was done, I noticed that the 90GB database now only was 17GB. And most important, complete database now could reside in memory! After this I took care of the administrative tasks, backups. Here I copied the code from Management Studio because I didn't want to give too much time for this. The code looks like (notice the compression option). BACKUP DATABASE [Yoda] TO              DISK = N'D:\Fileshare\Backup\Yoda.bak' WITH            NOFORMAT,                 INIT,                 NAME = N'Yoda - Full Database Backup',                 SKIP,                 NOREWIND,                 NOUNLOAD,                 COMPRESSION,                 STATS = 10,                 CHECKSUM GO   DECLARE @BackupSetID INT   SELECT  @BackupSetID = Position FROM    msdb..backupset WHERE   database_name = N'Yoda'         AND backup_set_id =(SELECT MAX(backup_set_id) FROM msdb..backupset WHERE database_name = N'Yoda')   IF @BackupSetID IS NULL     RAISERROR(N'Verify failed. Backup information for database ''Yoda'' not found.', 16, 1)   RESTORE VERIFYONLY FROM    DISK = N'D:\Fileshare\Backup\Yoda.bak' WITH    FILE = @BackupSetID,         NOUNLOAD,         NOREWIND GO After running the backup, the file size was even more reduced due to the zip-like compression algorithm used in SQL Server 2008. The file size? Only 9 GB. //Peso

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• Converting to and from local and world 3D coordinate spaces?

  - by James Bedford

  Hey guys, I've been following a guide I found here (http://knol.google.com/k/matrices-for-3d-applications-view-transformation) on constructing a matrix that will allow me to 3D coordinates to an object's local coordinate space, and back again. I've tried to implement these two matrices using my object's look, side, up and location vectors and it seems to be working for the first three coordinates. I'm a little confused as to what I should expect for the w coordinate. Here are couple of examples from the print outs I've made of the matricies that are constructed. I'm passing a test vector of [9, 8, 14, 1] each time to see if I can convert both ways: Basic example: localize matrix: Matrix: 0.000000 -0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 5.237297 -45.530716 11.021271 1.000000 globalize matrix: Matrix: 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 -0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 -11.021271 -45.530716 -5.237297 1.000000 test: Vector4f(9.000000, 8.000000, 14.000000, 1.000000) localTest: Vector4f(14.000000, 8.000000, 9.000000, -161.812256) worldTest: Vector4f(9.000000, 8.000000, 14.000000, -727.491455) More complicated example: localize matrix: Matrix: 0.052504 -0.000689 -0.998258 0.000000 0.052431 0.998260 0.002068 0.000000 0.997241 -0.052486 0.052486 0.000000 58.806095 2.979346 -39.396252 1.000000 globalize matrix: Matrix: 0.052504 0.052431 0.997241 0.000000 -0.000689 0.998260 -0.052486 0.000000 -0.998258 0.002068 0.052486 0.000000 -42.413120 5.975957 -56.419727 1.000000 test: Vector4f(9.000000, 8.000000, 14.000000, 1.000000) localTest: Vector4f(-13.508600, 8.486917, 9.290090, 2.542114) worldTest: Vector4f(9.000190, 7.993863, 13.990230, 102.057129) As you can see in the more complicated example, the coordinates after converting both ways loose some precision, but this isn't a problem. I'm just wondering how I should deal with the last (w) coordinate? Should I just set it to 1 after performing the matrix multiplication, or does it look like I've done something wrong? Thanks in advance for your help!

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• Does TDD really work for complex projects?

  - by Amir Rezaei

  I’m asking this question regarding problems I have experienced during TDD projects. I have noticed the following challenges when creating unit tests. Generating and maintaining mock data It’s hard and unrealistic to maintain large mock data. It’s is even harder when database structure undergoes changes. Testing GUI Even with MVVM and ability to test GUI, it takes a lot of code to reproduce the GUI scenario. Testing the business I have experience that TDD works well if you limit it to simple business logic. However complex business logic is hard to test since the number of combinations of tests (test space) is very large. Contradiction in requirements In reality it’s hard to capture all requirements under analysis and design. Many times one note requirements lead to contradiction because the project is complex. The contradiction is found late under implementation phase. TDD requires that requirements are 100% correct. In such cases one could expect that conflicting requirements would be captured during creating of tests. But the problem is that this isn’t the case in complex scenarios. I have read this question: Why does TDD work? Does TDD really work for complex enterprise projects, or is it practically limit to project type?

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• Interviews: Going Beyond the Technical Quiz

  - by Tony Davis

  All developers will be familiar with the basic format of a technical interview. After a bout of CV-trawling to gauge basic experience, strengths and weaknesses, the interview turns technical. The whiteboard takes center stage and the challenge is set to design a function or query, or solve what on the face of it might seem a disarmingly simple programming puzzle. Most developers will have experienced those few panic-stricken moments, when one’s mind goes as blank as the whiteboard, before un-popping the marker pen, and hopefully one’s mental functions, to work through the problem. It is a way to probe the candidate’s knowledge of basic programming structures and techniques and to challenge their critical thinking. However, these challenges or puzzles, often devised by some of the smartest brains in the development team, have a tendency to become unnecessarily ‘tricksy’. They often seem somewhat academic in nature. While the candidate straight out of IT school might breeze through the construction of a Markov chain, a candidate with bags of practical experience but less in the way of formal training could become nonplussed. Also, a whiteboard and a marker pen make up only a very small part of the toolkit that a programmer will use in everyday work. I remember vividly my first job interview, for a position as technical editor. It went well, but after the usual CV grilling and technical questions, I was only halfway there. Later, they sat me alongside a team of editors, in front of a computer loaded with MS Word and copy of SQL Server Query Analyzer, and my task was to edit a real chapter for a real SQL Server book that they planned to publish, including validating and testing all the code. It was a tough challenge but I came away with a sound knowledge of the sort of work I’d do, and its context. It makes perfect sense, yet my impression is that many organizations don’t do this. Indeed, it is only relatively recently that Red Gate started to move over to this model for developer interviews. Now, instead of, or perhaps in addition to, the whiteboard challenges, the candidate can expect to sit with their prospective team, in front of Visual Studio, loaded with all the useful tools in the developer’s kit (ReSharper and so on) and asked to, for example, analyze and improve a real piece of software. The same principles should apply when interviewing for a database positon. In addition to the usual questions challenging the candidate’s knowledge of such things as b-trees, object permissions, database recovery models, and so on, sit the candidate down with the other database developers or DBAs. Arm them with a copy of Management Studio, and a few other tools, then challenge them to discover the flaws in a stored procedure, and improve its performance. Or present them with a corrupt database and ask them to get the database back online, and discover the cause of the corruption.

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• Advanced SQL Server 2008 Extended Events with Examples

  In the previous article we learned about SQL Server 2008 Extended Events terminology, components and took a look at a simple example. In this article we'll take a deeper look with some more complex examples.

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• Designing javascript chart library

  - by coolscitist

  I started coding a chart library on top of d3js: My chart library. I read Javascript API reusability and Towards reusable charts. However, I am NOT really following the suggestions because I am not really convinced about them. This is how my library can be used to create a bubble chart: var chart = new XYBubbleChart(); chart.data = [{"xValue":200,"yValue":300},{"xValue":400,"yValue":200},{"xValue":100,"yValue":310}]; //set data chart.dataKey.x = "xValue"; chart.dataKey.y = "yValue"; chart.elementId = "#chart"; chart.createChart(); Here are my questions: It does not use chaining. Is it a big issue? Every property and function is exposed publicly. (Example: width, height are exposed in Chart.js). OOP is all about abstraction and hiding, but I don't really see the point right now. I think exposing everything gives flexibility to change property and functionality inside subclasses and objects without writing a lot of code. What could be pitfalls of such exposure? I have implemented functions like: zooming, "showing info boxes when data point is clicked" as "abilities". (example: XYZoomingAbility.js). Basically, such "abilities" accept "chart" object, play around with public variables of "chart" to add functionality. What this allows me to do is to add an ability by writing: activateZoomAbility(chartObject); My goal is to separate "visualization" from "interactivity". I want "interactivity" like: zooming to be plugged into the chart rather than built inside the chart. Like, I don't want my bubble chart to know anything about "zooming". However, I do want zoomable bubble chart. What is the best way to do this? How to test and what to test? I have written mixed tests: jasmine and actual html files so that I can test manually on browser.

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• In the Groove: PASS Board Year 1, Q3

  - by Denise McInerney

  It's nine months into my first year on the PASS Board and I feel like I've found my rhythm. I've accomplished one of the goals I set out for the year and have made progress on others. Here's a recap of the last few months. Anti-Harassment Policy & Process Completed In April I began work on a Code of Conduct for the PASS Summit. The Board had several good discussions and various PASS members provided feedback. You can read more about that in this blog post. Since the document was focused on issues of harassment we renamed it the "Anti-Harassment Policy " and it was approved by the Board in August. The next step was to refine the guideliness and process for enforcement of the AHP. A subcommittee worked on this and presented an update to the Board at the September meeting. You can read more about that in this post, and you can find the process document here. Global Growth Expanding PASS' reach and making the organization relevant to SQL Server communities around the world has been a focus of the Board's work in 2012. We took the Global Growth initiative out to the community for feedback, and everyone on the Board participated, via Twitter chats, Town Hall meetings, feedback forums and in-person discussions. This community participation helped shape and refine our plans. Implementing the vision for Global Growth goes across all portfolios. The Virtual Chapters are well-positioned to help the organization move forward in this area. One outcome of the Global Growth discussions with the community is the expansion of two of the VCs from country-specific to language-specific. Thanks to the leadership in Brazil & Mexico for taking the lead here. I look forward to continued success for the Portuguese- and Spanish-language Virtual Chapters. Together with the Global Chinese VC PASS is off to a good start in making the VC's truly global. Virtual Chapters The VCs continue to grow and expand. Volunteers recently rebooted the Azure and Virutalization VCs, and a new  Education VC will be launching soon. Every week VCs offer excellent free training on a variety of topics. It's the dedication of the VC leaders and volunteers that make all this possible and I thank them for it. Board meeting The Board had an in-person meeting in September in San Diego, CA.. As usual we covered a number of topics including governance changes to support Global Growth, the upcoming Summit, 2013 events and the (then) upcoming PASS election. Next Up Much of the last couple of months has been focused on preparing for the PASS Summit in Seattle Nov. 6-9. I'll be there all week;  feel free to stop me if you have a question or concern, or just to introduce yourself.  Here are some of the places you can find me: VC Leaders Meeting Tuesday 8:00 am the VC leaders will have a meeting. We'll review some of the year's highlights and talk about plans for the next year Welcome Reception The VCs will be at the Welcome Reception in the new VC Lounge. Come by, learn more about what the VCs have to offer and meet others who share your interests. Exceptional DBA Awards Party I'm looking forward to seeing PASS Women in Tech VC leader Meredith Ryan receive her award at this event sponsored by Red Gate Session Presentation I will be presenting a spotlight session entitled "Stop Bad Data in Its OLTP Tracks" on Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. Exhibitor Reception This reception Wednesday evening in the Expo Hall is a great opportunity to learn more about tools and solutions that can help you in your job. Women in Tech Luncheon This year marks the 10th WIT Luncheon at PASS. I'm honored to be on the panel with Stefanie Higgins, Kevin Kline, Kendra Little and Jen Stirrup. This event is on Thursday at 11:30. Community Appreciation Party Thursday evening don't miss this event thanking all of you for everthing you do for PASS and the community. This year we will be at the Experience Music Project and it promises to be a fun party. Board Q & A Friday  9:45-11:15  am the members of the Board will be available to answer your questions. If you have a question for us, or want to hear what other members are thinking about, come by room 401 Friday morning.

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• Automated deployment/installation of development tools

  - by thegreendroid

  My team is looking to automate installation/deployment of all of our development tools. The main driver for this is to ensure that everyone in the team has a consistent development environment setup and to also allow a new recruit to get up and running easily. By development environment I mean tools like SCM, toolchains, IDEs etc. and by consistent I mean everyone using the same version of compiler to build code (this is very important!). Here are a few of our requirements – Allow unattended (silent) install of our entire dev setup by running a single script Ability to deploy selective updates (new versions) for specific tools Ability to report which tools are installed and their specific version numbers Must work on Windows (Linux would be a bonus) Must be easy to maintain What are some of the tools that you've used to automate such a task?

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• SQL Server Transaction Marks: Restoring multiple databases to a common relative point

  - by Mladen Prajdic

  We’re all familiar with the ability to restore a database to point in time using the RESTORE WITH STOPAT statement. But what if we have multiple databases that are accessed from one application or are modifying each other? And over multiple instances? And all databases have different workloads? And we want to restore all of the databases to some known common relative point? The catch here is that this common relative point isn’t the same point in time for all databases. This common relative point in time might be now in DB1, now-1 hour in DB2 and yesterday in DB3. And we don’t know the exact times. Let me introduce you to Transaction Marks. When we run a marked transaction using the WITH MARK option a flag is set in the transaction log and a row is added to msdb..logmarkhistory table. When restoring a transaction log backup we can restore to either before or after that marked transaction. The best thing is that we don’t even need to have one database modifying another database. All we have to do is use a marked transaction with the same name in different database. Let’s see how this works with an example. The code comments say what’s going on. USE master GOCREATE DATABASE TestTxMark1GOUSE TestTxMark1GOCREATE TABLE TestTable1( ID INT, VALUE UNIQUEIDENTIFIER) -- insert some data into the table so we can have a starting pointINSERT INTO TestTable1SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY number) AS RN, NULLFROM master..spt_valuesORDER BY RNSELECT *FROM TestTable1GO-- TAKE A FULL BACKUP of the databseBACKUP DATABASE TestTxMark1 TO DISK = 'c:\TestTxMark1.bak'GO USE master GOCREATE DATABASE TestTxMark2GOUSE TestTxMark2GOCREATE TABLE TestTable2( ID INT, VALUE UNIQUEIDENTIFIER)-- insert some data into the table so we can have a starting pointINSERT INTO TestTable2SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY number) AS RN, NEWID()FROM master..spt_valuesORDER BY RNSELECT *FROM TestTable2GO-- TAKE A FULL BACKUP of our databseBACKUP DATABASE TestTxMark2 TO DISK = 'c:\TestTxMark2.bak'GO -- start a marked transaction that modifies both databasesBEGIN TRAN TxDb WITH MARK -- update values from NULL to random value UPDATE TestTable1 SET VALUE = NEWID(); -- update first 100 values from random value -- to NULL in different DB UPDATE TestTxMark2.dbo.TestTable2 SET VALUE = NULL WHERE ID <= 100;COMMITGO     -- some time goes by here -- with various database activity... -- We see two entries for marks in each database. -- This is just informational and has no bearing on the restore itself.SELECT * FROM msdb..logmarkhistory USE masterGO-- create a log backup to restore to mark pointBACKUP LOG TestTxMark1 TO DISK = 'c:\TestTxMark1.trn'GO-- drop the database so we can restore it backDROP DATABASE TestTxMark1GO USE masterGO-- create a log backup to restore to mark pointBACKUP LOG TestTxMark2 TO DISK = 'c:\TestTxMark2.trn'GO-- drop the database so we can restore it backDROP DATABASE TestTxMark2GO -- RESTORE THE DATABASE BACK BEFORE OUR TRANSACTION-- restore the full backup RESTORE DATABASE TestTxMark1 FROM DISK = 'c:\TestTxMark1.bak' WITH NORECOVERY;-- restore the log backup to the transaction markRESTORE LOG TestTxMark1 FROM DISK = 'c:\TestTxMark1.trn' WITH RECOVERY, -- recover to state before the transaction STOPBEFOREMARK = 'TxDb'; -- recover to state after the transaction -- STOPATMARK = 'TxDb';GO -- RESTORE THE DATABASE BACK BEFORE OUR TRANSACTION-- restore the full backup RESTORE DATABASE TestTxMark2 FROM DISK = 'c:\TestTxMark2.bak' WITH NORECOVERY;-- restore the log backup to the transaction markRESTORE LOG TestTxMark2 FROM DISK = 'c:\TestTxMark2.trn' WITH RECOVERY, -- recover to state before the transaction STOPBEFOREMARK = 'TxDb'; -- recover to state after the transaction -- STOPATMARK = 'TxDb';GO USE TestTxMark1-- we restored to time before the transaction -- so we have NULL values in our tableSELECT * FROM TestTable1 USE TestTxMark2-- we restored to time before the transaction -- so we DON'T have NULL values in our tableSELECT * FROM TestTable2   Transaction marks can be used like a crude sync mechanism for cross database operations. With them we can mark our databases with a common “restore to” point so we know we have a valid state between all databases to restore to.

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• Bridging the gap between developers and testers with VS 2010

  - by Etienne Tremblay

  Hey everyone, I know it’s been an eternity since I blogged but I have so much to do that I unfortunately need to prioritize.  Vincent Grondin and I did a 7h presentation on the new developer and tester tools available in the VS 2010 suite.  It was a blast.  We did it in front of an audience (around 120) and it was taped.  We did it as a play and really didn’t look at the crowd at all we were training each other on the technology. It is now available for anyone that would like to watch it at this location: http://www.devteach.com/ALM-TFS2010-Bridgingthegap.aspx What we covered in the full day event was Migration to TFS 2010 (10h00) 1-Migration of VSS to TFS (20 min.) 2-Automating the Build (Something you can't do with VSS) ( 20 Min.) 3-User story (Real application context for this presentation) (20 min.) 10h00 Pause Manuel Tests by Dev ( 11h30) 4-Adding a tester to the team (Into to MTM) (20 min.) 5-Define tests (what is a white bug) (20 min.) 6-Fix the bug and show Intellitrace and Play back the test (20 min.) 12h15 Lunch Manuel testing for maintenance (13h30) 7- Implement new Feature (web service) and Identify bug with MTM and branch for a production fix and also add a new Build script (20 min.) 8- Fix bug in production branch, Playback tests, merge the change in main branch (20 min.) Manuel testing with the lab manager (14h30) 9- Intro to Lab manager and environment (20 min.) 10- Change build script to deploy to lab and test with web service in lab environment. (20 min.) 15h15 Pause Automate UI test with CodeUI (15h30) 11- Reducing the effort of testing the UI (20 min.) 12- Repeating testing to make sure the application is working properly (20 min.) 13- Automate Coded UI with the Lab environment (20 min.) 16h30 Conclusions As you can see lots of stuff!! Enjoy the show and let us know how you like it Cheers, ET Technorati Tags: VS 2010,Testing Tools,ALM,Training

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• SQL Saturday #220 - Atlanta - Pre-Conference Scholarships!

  - by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)

  We Want YOU…To Learn! AtlantaMDF and Idera are teaming up to find a few good people. If you are: A student looking to work in the database or business intelligence fields A database professional who is between jobs or wants a better one A developer looking to step up to something new On a limited budget and can’t afford professional SQL Server training Able to attend training from 9 to 5 on May 17, 2013 AtlantaMDF is presenting 5 Pre-Conference Sessions (pre-cons) for SQL Saturday #220! And thanks to Idera’s sponsorship, we can offer one free ticket to each of these sessions to eligible candidates! That means one scholarship per Pre-Con! One Recipient Each will Attend: Denny Cherry: SQL Server Security http://sqlsecurity.eventbrite.com/ Adam Machanic: Surfing the Multicore Wave: Processors, Parallelism, and Performance http://surfmulticore.eventbrite.com/ Stacia Misner: Languages of BI http://languagesofbi.eventbrite.com/ Bill Pearson: Practical Self-Service BI with PowerPivot for Excel http://selfservicebi.eventbrite.com/ Eddie Wuerch: The DBA Skills Upgrade Toolkit http://dbatoolkit.eventbrite.com/ If you are interested in attending these pre-cons send an email by April 30, 2013 to [email protected] and tell us: Why you are a good candidate to receive this scholarship Which sessions you’d like to attend, and why (list multiple sessions in order of preference) What the session will teach you and how it will help you achieve your goals The emails will be evaluated by the good folks at Midlands PASS in Columbia, SC. The recipients will be notified by email and announcements made on May 6, 2013. GOOD LUCK! P.S. - Don't forget that SQLSaturday #220 offers free* training in addition to the pre-cons! You can find more information about SQL Saturday #220 at http://www.sqlsaturday.com/220/eventhome.aspx. View the scheduled sessions at http://www.sqlsaturday.com/220/schedule.aspx and register for them at http://www.sqlsaturday.com/220/register.aspx. * Registration charges a $10 fee to cover lunch expenses.

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• Testing with Profiler Custom Events and Database Snapshots

  We've all had them. One of those stored procedures that is huge and contains complex business logic which may or may not be executed. These procedures make it an absolute nightmare when it comes to debugging problems because they're so complex and have so many logic offshoots that it's very easy to get lost when you're trying to determine the path that the procedure code took when it ran. Fortunately Profiler lets you define custom events that you can raise in your code and capture in a trace so you get a better window into the sub events occurring in your code. I found it very useful to use custom events and a database snapshot to debug some code recently and we'll explore both in this article. I find raising these events and running Profiler to be very useful for testing my stored procedures on my own as well as when my code is going through official testing and user acceptance. It's a simple approach and a great way to catch any performance problems or logic errors.

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• Webcast - Social BPM: Integrating Enterprise 2.0 with Business Applications

  - by peggy.chen

  In today's fast-paced marketplace, successful companies rely on agile business processes and collaborative work environments to stay ahead of the competition. By making your application-based business processes visible, shareable, and flexible through dynamic, process-aware user interfaces, you can ensure that your team's best ideas are heard-and implemented quickly. Join us for this complimentary live Webcast and learn how Oracle's business process management (BPM) solution with integrated Enterprise 2.0 capabilities will enable your team to: Embed ad hoc collaboration into your structured processes and gain a unified view of enterprise information-across business functions-for effective and efficient decision-making Reach out to an expanded network for expert input in resolving exceptions in business workflows Add social feedback loops to your enterprise applications and continuously improve business processes Join us for this LIVE Webcast tomorrow as we discuss how business process management with integrated Enterprise 2.0 collaboration improves business responsiveness and enhances overall enterprise productivity. Take your business to the next level with a unified solution that fosters process-based collaboration between employees, partners, and customers. Register for the webcast now!

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