Hello GETDATE() My Old Friend...

Andy Levy
So you’ve decided that your new web application needs to record some page load time metrics so you can keep tabs on performance. Terrific! You set up a couple page load/complete functions to write to a logging table when a page request comes in, and then update the record when it finishes loading. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 INSERT INTO PageLogs ( RequestTime ,ResponseTime ,RemoteIP ,UserName ,PageId ,Parameters ,SessionId ) VALUES ( GETDATE() ,NULL ,127.

Getting Over It or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Speaking

Andy Levy
Consider this the outtakes from my previous post about speaking at SQL Saturday. It took a while for me to build up the courage to finally get up in the front of a room at SQL Saturday. As I mentioned in my prior post, I did quite a bit of studying of other peoples’ sessions, read peoples’ studies of other peoples’ sessions (Grant Fritchey’s “Speaker of the Month” series) and talked to a few people at the speakers’ dinner.

I Spoke at SQLSat (and I Liked It)

Andy Levy
That is the first and last Katy Perry reference you will find on this blog or anywhere else in my life. Last weekend I spoke at the 4th edition of my “home” SQL Saturday, SQL Saturday #383. This was the end of a path that started four years ago, and the beginning of an exciting new one. About four years ago, I was introduced to PASS. It didn’t take long for people to start talking to me about public speaking.

Speaking at SQL Saturday Rochester this weekend!

Andy Levy
I’ll be presenting my session Easing into Scripting with Windows PowerShell this Saturday, May 16th at SQL Saturday Rochester. SQL Saturday is a free, all-day event for learning about SQL Server and related technologies, and networking with like-minded professionals in the region. In addition to speaking, I’ll be tweeting out live updates all day long and posting pictures to both Instagram and Twitter. Watch for the hashtag #sqlsatroc (links to searches on both services).

SQL New Blogger Challenge Digest - Week 4

Andy Levy
This week marks the end of Ed Leighton-Dick’s New Blogger Challenge. It’s terrific seeing everyone sticking with the challenge all month and I’m looking forward to catching up with all the posts. Great job, everyone! Keep going! Author Post @MtnDBA [#SQLNewBlogger Week 4 – My 1st SQLSaturday session @Lance_LT [“MongoDB is the WORST!” @ceedubvee A Insider’s View of the Autism Spectrum: Autism and Information Technology: Big Data for Diagnosis @Jorriss A Podcast Is Born @toddkleinhans [A Tale of SQL Server Disk Space Trials and Tribulations @arrowdrive Anders On SQL: First “real” job with SQL.

Are You Backing Everything Up?

Andy Levy
We hear the common refrain among DBAs all the time. Back up your data! Test your restores! If you can’t restore the backup, it’s worthless. And yes, absolutely, you have to back up your databases - your job, and the company, depend upon it. But are you backing everything up? Saturday night was an ordinary night. It was getting late, and I was about to put my computer to sleep so I could do likewise.

SQL New Blogger Digest - Week 3

Andy Levy
Here are the posts collected from week three of the SQL New Blogger Challenge. It’s been compiled the same way previous weeks’ posts were. Everyone’s doing a great job keeping up with the challenge! Author Post @MtnDBA [#SQLNewBlogger Week 3 – PowerShell Aliases @ceedubvee A Insider’s View of the Autism Spectrum: Autism and Information Technology: New Efforts for Kids to Code @arrowdrive Anders On SQL: Stupid Stuff I have done. 2/?

Padding Fields for Fixed-Position Data Formats

Andy Levy
Fixed-position data formats will seemingly be with us forever. Despite the relative ease of parsing CSV (or other delimited formats), or even XML, many data exchanges require a fixed-position input. Characters 1-10 are X, characters 11-15 are Y and if the source data is fewer than 5 characters, we have to left-pad with a filler character, etc. When you’re accustomed to working with data that says what it means and means what it says, having to add “extra fluff” like left-padding your integers with a half-dozen zeroes can be a hassle.

SQL New Blogger Digest - Week 2

Andy Levy
I didn’t intend for last week’s digest to also be my post for week two of the challenge, but life got in the way and I wasn’t able to complete the post that I really wanted in time. So, that post will be written much earlier in week three and completed well ahead of the deadline. Here are the posts collected from week two of the SQL New Blogger Challenge. It’s been compiled the same way last week’s was.