Winding down
Normally I write these posts on a Friday evening. Sometimes it’s later than that, but always before Monday so that my editor can give it some attention before I publish. On Friday though, I spent…
Just one more thing, an essay on troubleshooting
Over the weekend I watched — for the first time in my life — an episode of the long-running ABC and NBC police show Columbo, starring Peter Falk. I originally knew him from the film…
T-SQL Tuesday Retrospective #012: Why DBA skills are necessary
This is my ongoing series of answering T-SQL Tuesday posts far too late to be of any use. Click here if you want to read previous entries. Paul Randal asked us in November 2010 why…
Professionalism in the age of COVID-19
Some years ago, I wrote about what it means to be “professional” (and that it doesn’t mean having to wear a suit and tie). Recently a conversation broke out on Twitter about what it means…
Speaking at SQL Saturday Oregon
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…
How to read documentation
I was thinking about a comment I made to my intern last week. She has been studiously attending to all the different things I do in my day (what many people consider a well-guarded secret!),…
Gatekeeping and Accessibility
In my final post about gatekeeping in technology, I have to come clean about something. Let’s go through this journey together. [Edit: At the end of August 2020, Grace Anderson — president and co-founder of I…
Gatekeeping and the lack of diversity in the workplace
Recently I have become more vocal on Twitter and on my personal blog about my social activism. For the record, I have been an activist for LGBTQIA+ rights since 2001, so if this comes as…
Gatekeeping and why language matters
This is the second in a series of posts about gatekeeping in Information Technology and other fields. Negative terminology The language we use matters. In the first post I wrote that a number of words…
The importance of backups
I have been selected to present a second session for the PASS Summit in November this year. I wrote a few weeks ago about the Linux Learning Path and being a part of that, so…
All the signs were there, but we didn’t understand them: an essay on gatekeeping in IT
This is the first in a series of posts about gatekeeping in Information Technology and other fields. I am not the first — nor will I be the last — to say that the terminology…
It’s a UNIX system. I know this.
Jurassic Park was a great film. Steven Spielberg brought technology into the film era in a major way with computer generated dinosaurs and some now-classic film lines, many of which came from Jeff “Dreamboat” Goldblum.…
Back to the future
It’s January 2019 as I write this. I realized that I started on my journey with SQL Server in 1998, and I wanted to look at what’s changed through the lens of my career path.…
A look back, and a look forward
Time flies. My father used to wear a t-shirt that claimed, “When you’re over the hill, you pick up speed.” I’m turning 40 in a few days. I still feel like a teenager in many…
SQL Saturday in Calgary!
I am very happy (and terrified) to announce that Calgary will host its very first SQL Saturday, #607, on 29 April 2017. Noel Tan and I are organising it (though Noel is doing all the…