Background Fellow Microsoft MVP Troy Hunt (blog | Twitter) has been operating the website Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) for a number of years now. For the record, “pwned” is pronounced like “owned” but with a… What is a strong password anyway?
That aging hippie (he likes Apple products and has a goatee) known as Brent Ozar wrote a post recently about his home office studio setup, with a big focus on bragging about his admittedly really… My home office setup
Here’s something that seems to keep coming up, but not frequently enough for me to write a blog post about until now: You should not install SQL Server from a mounted ISO file. Instead, you… Don’t install SQL Server from a mounted ISO
In August last year I posted about a command line parser problem I ran into with AzCopy, which I eventually resolved by writing a batch file and escaping a number of characters in the access… The curious case of the sqlcmd password
This week all I want to say is Happy New Year, and may 2020 be the start of a successful decade for you. Live, love, learn. Remember to take some time off to play. Thank… Looking ahead to 2020
Long time readers will know I’m a big fan of Temporal Tables since their introduction in SQL Server 2016. Thanks to my friend Erik Darling (blog | Twitter), I can share a tip when dealing… Temporal Tables, and how to deal with computed columns
On Twitter recently, I asked: Does anyone I know use the COMPRESS and DECOMPRESS features in T-SQL? To those who replied in the affirmative, I asked: What made you decide on this as opposed to… Compression in SQL Server: COMPRESS and DECOMPRESS
Here’s a list of some technical terms, acronyms, and abbreviations you may have heard, and what they mean. Some of the definitions are taken from Wikipedia. This list is incomplete. It’s also not in alphabetical… A guide to acronyms, abbreviations, and other technical terms
Immutability In many programming languages, strings of text are immutable, meaning they don’t change. When you modify a string, a new string is created in memory by copying the original. The old string stays in… The XML data type is not immutable
TL;DR: No. A customer recently brought up an interesting thesis, that if you edit a table’s values using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) using the edit feature, that the table is dropped and recreated in… Is it true that editing a single row in Management Studio empties and reloads the entire table?
A few days ago on Twitter I wrote: Couldn’t connect to new SQL Server install because I forgot to enable TCP/IP. I’m the lead author for a Microsoft Press book about SQL Server administration. Aside… Installing SQL Server on Windows? Don’t forget these two useful switches
SQL Server 2017 Administration Inside Out was the first technical book I contributed to, and all its authors were very happy with how it turned out. All the content was written from scratch, which made… Did you know we have another SQL Server book coming out?
With the release of SQL Server 2019, I wanted to highlight in a single place some things that I’m excited about. Drawing on sessions I presented this year at SQLBits and SQL Saturday Edmonton respectively,… SQL Server 2019 is here
Behold! There’s a scary monster called skip‑2.0, announced by ESET: This backdoor targets MSSQL Server 11 and 12, allowing the attacker to connect stealthily to any MSSQL account by using a magic password – while… When security and news collide
SQL Saturday Oregon — in the city of Portland — is taking place next weekend on Saturday November 2nd, 2019, and I’ll be presenting a revised edition of my session “Back to the Future with… Speaking at SQL Saturday Oregon