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 … [Read more...]
The Awesomeness of ROBOCOPY Now at SQLMag
Filed Under: SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tool Time Tagged With: SQLMag, Tools, Tools & Scripts
2009: The Year in List Form
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 … [Read more...]
Filed Under: On-Line Resources, Opinion, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Trends Tagged With: Humor, news analysis, Performance, Tools & Scripts, Transact-SQL Programming
Interview Now Appearing on CSTech.com
I was honored to be recently interviewed by the crew at Consortio Services. You can find my portion of this particular webcast at http://www.cstechcast.com/podcasts/cs-techcast/episode99/ beginning at 17:24. In the interview, I discuss a number of thoughts and opinions about the future of cloud computing, where our profession is headed, and more. When I first became aware of the website, they were audio podcasts only. Since then, they’ve changed up their format a bit, and now have a video portion along with the audio. They now included a visual “slide” with your headshot and title (not a … [Read more...]
Filed Under: On-Line Resources, Opinion, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Trends Tagged With: cloud computing, MVP, PowerPivot, Professional Development
Got a slow holiday seaons? Why not spend it learning?
Traditionally, the time between Christmas and New Years is a bit slow. Many people take time off from work and, for those of us still working, it's a good time to catch up on all of those low priority projects that have been on the back burner for the last several months. If you find yourself with a few extra hours, why not engage in some first-hand learning with the new features of SQL Server 2008 R2? Here are two great resources to get you started. First, take a look at betaforsqlserver.com, a partnership between MaximumASP, Dell, PASS, and Microsoft. When you register, you get your … [Read more...]
Filed Under: On-Line Resources, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: PowerPivot, SQL Server 2008 R2, Virtualization
Sequels for SQL: Dec 17, 2009
In the Sequels for SQL series, I point you to sites where you can go beyond the nose-to-the-grindstone resources that we see every day as SQL Server professionals. (My favorite resource for pan-SQL Server pointers is Steve Jone's Database Weekly email newsletter.) These are the story that comes after and outside (the sequels) of our daily working lives (the other SQL). Let's broaden our horizons together. If you hit on an interesting but overlooked topic, I'd like to hear from you. SQL Server: We live it. We love it. When Jimmy May talks, I listen. Not just because he's a personal … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Cool Technologies, Gov2.0, Hardware, On-Line Resources, Opinion, Professional Development, Seven Sequels, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Trends Tagged With: DBA, FutureWatch, Gadgets, Humor, news analysis, Performance, Professional Development, Society, WorldView
Like PowerShell for SQL Server?
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 … [Read more...]
Filed Under: SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tool Time Tagged With: CodePlex, SQLMag, Tools & Scripts
Data Deduplication Technology – New Article on DBTA
I've been seeing more and more questions from customers about data deduplication technologies. I guess that's because I can't open a blog, website, or email related to technology without some vendor or another pushing the wonders of data deduplication. Consequently, I thought I'd take a few minutes to describe what the technology is all about. I'll sum up my thoughts on the the value of deduplication technology by saying "It depends". Read my article entry at Database Trends & Applications magazine here. If someone in your company is pushing you to examine this very expensive … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Hardware, IO, SQLServerPedia Syndication
The Sequels for SQL Server: The Week of November 27, 2009
Just as an FYI, I've added one new slide deck and webcast to http://KevinEKline.com/Slides/, as well as quite a few upcoming user group events where I'm speaking in http://KevinEKline/Upcoming-Events/. I'm starting a new series called Sequels for SQL Server. In this series, I point you to sites where you can go beyond the nose-to-the-grindstone resources that we see every day as SQL Server professionals. These are the story that comes after and outside (the sequels) of our daily working lives (the other SQL). Let's broaden our horizons together. If you hit on an interesting but … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Cool Technologies, On-Line Resources, Opinion, Professional Development, Seven Sequels, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Trends Tagged With: Devices, FutureWatch, Gadgets, Humor, news analysis, Performance, Professional Development, Society, WorldView
Anniversary at Database Trends & Applications Magazine
I was happy to hear that the magazine Database Trends and Applications had recently relaunched their website. While I'd been a columnist there for a quite a while, I'd never been able to easily find my own articles nor check to see if they'd generated any interest. DBTA has changed all of that with their relaunch. I was also surprised, upon closer examination, that I'd been writing there for more than a year. Check to see if any of these articles are of interest to you. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Security as an Afterthought Issue: November 2009 The Big Keep Getting Bigger … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Conferences, Opinion, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Trends Tagged With: DBA, news analysis, SQLPASS
New Goodies from Microsoft – Microsoft Answers and Web Spark
Here are a couple of nifty resources that you should bookmark. Microsoft Answers Join the conversation as a community leader through a new, fast-growing Microsoft site called Microsoft Answers. The site currently focuses on Microsoft’s consumer products starting with Windows Vista. Throughout the fall (actually, starting on September 28th), Microsoft began to add forums for Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows Live Services (in English, with other languages to follow starting back in October). Forums for Office will also be added later, with more consumer products to be added as the Microsoft … [Read more...]
Filed Under: On-Line Resources, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Tools, Web Development
