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…
Careers
Interview Questions for a SQL Server DBA
When I’m interviewing a SQL Server DBA, I have three questions that I always ask. My favourite interview question is this: “What is the difference between a clustered and a non-clustered index?” My second favourite…
Automation is the new Black
I’ve been toying with the idea of automating a set of diagnostic scripts that I run on customer sites, when doing my checkup. It mirrors the automation that a lot of consulting shops do, but…
Career Limiting Moves – Reply All
In a recent episode of a Netflix show called Grace & Frankie, a vitriolic and profanity-ridden email with very damaging statements was accidentally sent to a mailing list. Fortunately for the characters involved, Siri auto-corrected…
Career Limiting Moves – Assigning Blame
I worked for a vendor implementation partner in the early part of my career, and oftentimes that meant having to set up a training lab, from unpacking rented PCs and plugging them in to getting…
Career Limiting Moves – Saying No
IT departments get a lot of flak because members are accused of saying no to what staff think are perfectly reasonable requests. In this second post of my series about career limiting moves, I’m going…
Career Limiting Moves – Dropping a Table
In this new series, I will share some things that took place early in my career that could have resulted in my looking for new workâbut didn’t! This post is also evidence that I haven’t…
Professionalism doesn’t mean a collared shirt and tie
Working from home, consulting with companies all over the world, has changed how I interact with customers. The last time I was physically on site was seven months ago. We deal almost exclusively with each…
Filmmaking as a Metaphor for the DBA
I worked on four films in 2015, three shorts and one feature-length movie, all shot in Calgary where I live. That has resulted in seven IMDb credits for me, someone who earns a living as…
The Intersection of Art and Science
This is the first post in a series of four, where Ed Leighton-Dick, via Brent Ozar, is proposing that we SQL Server folks participate in the #SQLNewBlogger Challenge. I write a fair number of words…
Where Do I Start With A Run Book?
On SuperUser.com, a question came up about how to do a proper Linux backup, including the applications installed, and associated configurations. In light of a previous post I wrote about backups and run books, I…