A neat new administration and configuration management tool for the SQL Server set. I especially like the Run Book features, because Run Books are the way us “oldtimers” like to run our IT infrastructure. My pal, Buck Woody, also likes Run Books (and really big explosions by the guys on MythBusters, but that’s another discussion). Find all the details about the new tool, created by Bill Wunder, here.
"Richard, wasn't that an awesome interview?!?" "Carl, I could've danced, er, talked all night!"
In addition, I’m honored and amazed that the team at RunAsRadio invited me to participate in interview #143. These are the same guys who also put together one of the best and longest running IT podcasting shows – .NETRocks. Unlike a lot of interviews, it seems like we had too little time to cover all the topics. I’d love to hear your feedback!
If you’re like me, you’ve used Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V more than a time or two, but you’ve always felt a little dirty afterwards. Yeah, you can use the command-line COPY or XCOPY utilities. But they’re decidedly 20th Century, much like some of the laundry still loitering under my office couch.
So I spent a little time over the holidays cleaning up my file system by scripting a backup routine using the very cool and very free ROBOCOPY utility. Now, I’ve got a regularly scheduled job that, after the first run which captured all my files, only backs up new or changed files (and directories) while keeping all of their NTFS attributes. Boo-Yah!
Read all about it on my Tool Time Blog at SQLMag. I’ll also show you how to use some other free and powerful alternatives in future entries.
Before I jump onto the Goals and Themeword meme started by my buddy, Thomas LaRock (blog | twitter), I decided I’d spend a few minutes looking back on both the year 2009. (From a personal standpoint, the 00’s were my most difficult decade yet. Major problems of every stripe beset me on all sides and with alarming frequency throughout the decade. I was all “Good Riddance” and “Don’t let the door hit y’ass on the way out, 2009!” as the ball dropped in Times Square.)
Rather than spend a lot of time cooking up my own top 10 lists, I reckoned (that’s Southern for “thought”, btw) I’d recap a few others top X lists that are in the ballpark of my own personal opinion. I couldn’t resist putting together my own list at the end, which I’d love to hear your thoughts on. In addition, I want to hear about your Top 10 (or 5 or 3) for 2009!
Their Lists
Time Magazine’s list of Top 10 of Everything 2009 was a pretty good recap for the year on big ol’ cultural touch points like movies and music. I found at least one thing to agree with in each of their pop culture lists: movies – The Hurt Locker – check; TV shows – my personal favorite for its brilliant cohesive multiyear storyline and excellent character studies, Lost – check; album – I and Love and You by the Avett Brothers – check; books (sigh – if only I had more time) included the wonderful The Age of Wonders by Richard Holmes.
Lifehacker’s Top 5 Hive Topics of 2009 is a very interesting list covering lots of topics and pointing out a lot of interesting tools that I hadn’t encountered before. My personal favorite among them was the Top 5 Alternative File Copiers, since the Windows Explorer copy feature reminds me of hungrily awaiting my food in the microwave and just as the counter gets to the T-10 countdown, it goes back up to 30, then down to 8, then back up to 42, then down to 14.
I’m not sure if they meant to be funny but Digg’s Top 10 Most Popular Stories of 2009 is hilarious, much in the same way that Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) and I were when we put on an unintentionally hilarious performance at the PASS 2009 Summit Quiz bowl. Go ahead – ask Colin Stasiuk (blog | twitter) what he thought of our performance…
Impressed by Our Quiz Bowl Performance?
Speaking of unintentionally funny, have you seen Yahoo’s Top 10 Searches of 2009? Evidently, the median Internet user (at least from their metrics) is hormone-laden, teenage redneck with a thing for fast cars (Nascar), Hollywood hotties (Megan Fox), and an unassailable but secret love for Mormon-influenced Vampires (Twilight).
My List
I usually try to blog at least once per week and, when I can, even more. I still have this deep down urge to post lots of small blog posts of just a couple paragraphs. But for some reason, I always seem to come out with these big ol’ epistles. Despite my verbosity, y’all still read what I write and for that I’m very thankful. Over the last year, these were my top ten blog posts according to your interest:
Looking for Good DMV Database Admin Queries, where you can find just about every good DMV query ever written except those other really good ones that are posted here in the comments.
Things You Know Now, a semi-successful meme I started where I asked participants to tells us about stuff they’d do differently if they knew it way back in the day.
I excluded a few posts that were numerically in the top ten because, well, they’re my blog posts and I didn’t want them in the top ten. So there! But those that I excluded were things like reposting an interview done by another blogger or maybe a product or book that I plugged for some reason or an other.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my blogging and found it valuable. Tomorrow, I’m jumping on the themeword and goals meme. In fact, I’m crashin’ the party because none of my peeps called on me. [pout]
Check out my new Tool Time column in this month’s SQL Server Magazine. It features some great new PowerShell scripts and information from Chad Miller (blog) who I had the pleasure to meet in person back in October of this year while speaking at the SQL Server of central Florida and at SQL Saturday #21.
In addition, I’d like to point out a free utility called PowerGUI. If you’re like me, the last thing you have time for is learning a new code like PowerShell. So I copped out and got the next best alternative to real code, the fancy and pretty drag-n-drop interface of PowerGUI. (Full disclosure: PowerGUI is made by Quest Software, my employer, but by an unrelated business unit.) Notice that the hyperlink is to a .ORG website. That’s because PowerGUI is not only free, it’s also community-supported. There are tons of free scripts for all sorts of Windows-related technologies like Exchange, Active Directory, and of course SQL Server. Give a look and let me know what you think of it.
In previous years, I hardly had time to sit down and catch a breather at a PASS Summit. Between my duties as an officer of PASS, exhibit hall time with Quest Software (my employer), speaking in my own sessions, and meeting with PASS volunteers and community organizers, I was busy from the crack of dawn until midnight all week long.
Fortunately, those grueling marathons are fading into the past. I still have a busy slate ahead of me for next week. But it looks like I’ll even have time to attend some sessions. Yeah! Here’s what I’ve currently got planned:
Monday, Nov 2
Depart for Seattle, 5:10 am. O.M.G. – that means I have to get up before I go to bed.
Book Signing at the Quest Software booth, 6:00 – 8:00 pm, giving away signed copies of Database Benchmarking
Microsoft MVP Insider Event, until 10:00 pm
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Wednesday, Nov 4
Quest Breakfast seminar and live webcast, Simplify Management with DMVs, 7:00 – 8:30 am, along with other SQL Server luminaries BrentO, Buck Woody, Louis Davidson, and Tim Ford.
I’ll also be popping out for meetings with various Microsoft PMs, a dinner with my Quest colleagues, and plenty of time in the exhibit hall at the Quest Software booth.
Chapter Luncheon, 12:00 – 1:00 pm, Expo Hall 4b. Come and join me, especially if you’re anywhere near the local PASS chapter in Music City – Nashville, TN.
Friday, Nov 6
Early departure back to Nashville. In years past, I always had to stay until Saturday morning because of all of the important PASS work going on. The important PASS work still goes on, but it’s in the able hands of a new generation of leaders. As for me, I get to head home to be with my family one day early. Yippee!
I hope to see you there. Don’t forget the really awesome and cool SQL Twitter Bingo, if you’re in to Twitter. The rules are HERE and the bingo cards are HERE.
I just posted a new entry on my SQLMag Tool Time blog that you might enjoy. Thanks to my friend and fellow MVP John Paul Cook for bringing Disk2Vhd to my attention on his blog. The free tool is enables migration of a physical machine (PM) to a virtual machine (VM), while the PM is running. You can download it from Microsoft here. John also has lots of other great information about VM migration here. Note that John’s content relates to Hyper-V. So if you’re looking for VMWare tools, keep looking. Of course, if you find similar free tools for VMWare, let us know by posting here!
Thanks,
-Kev
Twitter @kekline
More content at http://KevinEKline.com/
I just posted a new entry on my SQLMag Tool Time blog that you might like to check out.
I’m a big fan of Bill Graziano’s ClearTrace tool, but perhaps you’ll like the new tool from DBSophic, called TraceAnalyzer, even better? Compare the two and let me know here.
