T-SQL Tuesday Retrospective #002: A Puzzling Situation
For the second T-SQL Tuesday ever — again, hosted by Adam Machanic — we were asked one of three options, and I elected to go… Read More »T-SQL Tuesday Retrospective #002: A Puzzling Situation
For the second T-SQL Tuesday ever — again, hosted by Adam Machanic — we were asked one of three options, and I elected to go… Read More »T-SQL Tuesday Retrospective #002: A Puzzling Situation
T-SQL Tuesday is a fantastic series of blog posts derived from over 130 topics over the past 11 years, inviting bloggers to share their thoughts… Read More »The T-SQL Tuesday Corollary
This — like last week’s post — is not about SQL Server or Azure SQL Database. In a way, it hearkens back to a post I… Read More »A more considered approach to email signatures
This post is brought to you — indirectly — from a boss I loved working for, on a project which almost killed me, at a… Read More »Read the error message
This post looks at a curious data type that isn’t really a data type. Instead, sql_variant tries to be all things to all people. As… Read More »How SQL Server stores data types: sql_variant
Tencent Security has released a report (written in Chinese) describing a new malware attack by the name of “MrbMiner” on SQL Server instances exposed to the Internet… Read More »A new malware attack on SQL Server
[Content Warning: this post contains references to subjects that may trigger a trauma response. Read with caution.]
This is not a technical post. I was going to write about how SQL Server stores the sql_variant
data type this week, but something more important came up which involves almost 50% of the adult population worldwide, including me1As some of my readers know — especially if you read my article on SQL Server Central at the end of July 2020 — I am nonbinary, and it would be super convenient to hide behind that label when we have to talk about the behaviour of men. But I look like a man, I sound like a man, and I dress like a man. Unless I tell someone otherwise, the general perception is that I’m a man. For all intents and purposes in this discussion I’m including myself, and I’m calling out other men for their behaviour towards women..
It’s hard enough to be a woman online, to exist in the public eye as a woman, to be constantly judged — even rated — according to a manufactured ideal of sex appeal that has no basis in biology or science. Add into that mix a woman who is in a technical field, science, biology, or chemistry, heck, even the arts, and the judgement is increased exponentially. How do I know? Women tell me. Believe women.
This week we’re looking at how the database engine stores the XML data type in SQL Server and Azure SQL Database. If you would like to… Read More »How SQL Server stores data types: XML
Two years ago I wrote a post that got a lot of traction in the comments at the time. Last month there was renewed interest… Read More »The final word on storage for DATETIME2
[Edited on 5 August 2021 with some pseudocode at the end.] This is not a post about SQL Server, but I need to write about… Read More »Using the Xero OAuth 2.0 API from a .NET Core console application
For the longest time PASS was known as the Professional Association for SQL Server, and made all of its money from a single event each year,… Read More »Finally, PASS is a proper association now
When SQL Server 2019 was announced, it brought with it UTF-8 support. Also available in Azure SQL Database, UTF-8 is exciting if you have a… Read More »Fun and profit with UTF-8
Recently I migrated my home lab from a SuperMicro SYS-E300-8D to something a little beefier. There were ten virtual machines on the SuperMicro server, nine… Read More »Managing virtual machine drives on ESXi
After being selected to present my full day pre-conference session at the Summit, I am very pleased to announce that I will also be presenting… Read More »I am speaking at the PASS Virtual Summit 2020
At last week’s presentation to the Edmonton SQL Server user group, I spoke at length about the many extensions that are available for Azure Data… Read More »These are the extensions I have installed on Azure Data Studio