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Please Provide PASS with Feedback on its Speaker's Resource Pages The PASS 2010 Community Summit is getting close to opening its "call for speakers". Before it does, all past and future speakers please provide feedback on the Speaker's Resource web pages. read more... Powershell for Batch Operations I’m right in the middle of moving one of our databases from Oracle to SQL Server (and I just love saying that, over & over). Evidently the most common practice in Oracle is to leave all the tables as heaps. That’s a tad bit problematic approach for SQL Server. read more... Personal "Failure" Is Just a Result I'm reading a book by two teens called Do Hard Things. It's a book which represents a rejection of the low values and expectations the world at large has for teenagers. Their point is that just because you're aged 12-18, the belief you are incapable of taking on difficult challenges is nonsense. See, the idea of the "teenager" is actually a relatively new one, and the result of excesses of the Industrial Revolution. read more... SQLSaturday #44 in Huntington Beach, CA SQLSaturday is a training event for SQL Server professionals and those wanting to learn about SQL Server. This event will be held Apr 24 2010 at Golden West College, 15744 Goldenwest St, Huntington Beach, CA 92647-3197. read more... Randomizing Result Sets with NEWID Obtaining a random selection from SQL Server is easy using the NEWID system function. NEWID generates a globally unique identifier (GUID) that can be used for many purposes. Globally unique means that NEWID's result is virtually guaranteed to be unique across the system (more about this later). read more... SQLSaturday #33 in Charlotte, NC On Saturday March 6, 2010 the SQL Server Community will experience an event like no other in the Southeast region. Renowned speakers from around the world will gather in Charlotte, NC to share their knowledge on Microsoft SQL Server. read more... Mitigating Consulting Risks In my last post on consulting, Isn’t Consulting Risky?, I contended that in many respects, when done with sufficient forethought and planning, consulting may be even less risky than a traditional full-time job. read more... All about “Identity Range Management” Microsoft SQL Server automatically generates sequential numbers for new rows inserted in the table containing the identity column. Identity columns are normally included as part of Primary Keys, therefore the need to avoid duplicates. To use identity columns in a replication topology that has updates at more than one node, each node in the replication topology must use a different range of identity values, so that duplicates do not occur. read more... Enabling Partition Level Locking in SQL Server 2008 In this blog, we will provide additional details on a well-hidden feature in SQL Server 2008 – partition-level locking. read more... Free ebook: Own Your Future: Update Your Skills with Resources and Career Ideas from Microsoft We’re thrilled to offer another free ebook: Own Your Future: Update Your Skills with Resources and Career Ideas from Microsoft, by Katherine Murray. The ebook contains eight chapters and an appendix describing how you can assess and build your technology-based job skills. read more... Performance Tips of Using XML Data in SQL Server XML data type is usually used to store semi-structured data with great flexibility and query capabilities. It’s a good choice for developing platform agnostic applications to separate storage of complex data from processing at application layer, which understands the complex data relationship. To achieve optimal performance of querying XML data in SQL Server, extra steps need to be taken to ensure query access pattern matches how XML data is stored and indexed. read more... Sample Corrupt Databases to Play With I've been asked to provide SQL Server 2008 versions of the two databases which demo system table corruption. Well, that task has finally bubbled to my long-list of blog posts and website updates. read more... Using diskpart and wmic to Check Disk Partition Alignment A while ago I blogged about disk partition alignment, and how the default alignment of 31.5Kb on Windows Server 2003 can lead to enormous I/O performance problems. We've been on-site with clients this week and that topic came up again. I thought it would be useful to do a quick blog post showing how to use the diskpart and wmic tools read more... How Server Virtualization Impacts Storage Organizations are enthusiastically deploying server virtualization because of the immediate benefits it provides. As a result, deployment of server virtualization has never been higher – in spite of the economy. read more... I Don't Bleepin' Believe It From the Backspin "I don't believe it" department comes this week's top story: Insurers may raise your home insurance premiums if you use social networking. read more... The Best Questions to Ask an Interviewer A job interview may be your best chance to highlight why you're a strong candidate for an opening, but the most successful interviews tend to be more like conversations than sales pitches. Hiring managers need to know how you can benefit the company, but they also want firsthand evidence of your communication skills and your genuine interest in the position. read more... Oracle Increases Certification Testing Fees Oracle made significant increases this week in the cost of technical certification exams for Sun and Oracle technologies. read more... Ballmer: We'll Beat Google ... Someday It's not easy being Steve Ballmer. The Microsoft CEO was asked for the umpteenth time Tuesday if his company will ever be number one in search. read more... Tsunami Brought on a Wave of Tweets It was the kind of moment that the Internet, especially Twitter, was made for. An event that would affect millions of people was developing in real time. Only the Internet had the range and scale to carry a collective conversation about it. read more... SSRS and SSAS-Sourced Parameter Dataset Performance Issues Ahhh, Reporting Services and Analysis Services integration – a never ending source of pain and frustration! Although I shouldn’t complain because it’s been quite lucrative for me in terms of consultancy work. read more...