10Feb 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Silly SQL Server 2008 Management Studio Trick

SQL Server
This one is pretty minor and came up in the forums at SQL Server Central. You may have noticed that the Registered Servers window is tabbed with the Object Explorer window. In SQL Server 2005, they were in the same window, stacked on top of each other. To get back to the "good old days" configuration, you can right click on the Registered Servers tab and select Floating. This will cause the window to detach and appear somewhere on your screen. Right click on it again and select Dockable. Now drag it on to the Object Explorer window and it should settle in on top. Ta da, back with the old GUI.
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10Feb 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Things you know now 2

Misc
I can't believe I forgot this: Test, Test, Test And when you're done testing, test some more. You can't assume that you know how something works. You need to know how it works. Test it. Verify your database design by testing. Check your queries by testing them. Be sure the new index works by testing it. Test the new deployment process before you announce it to the development (way before). When you get done with all this testing... Start testing again.
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10Feb 2009 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

Things you know now…

Misc
Brent Ozar has passed on another doozie. His list is pretty good. Since I'm much more a tactical guy than a big picture strategic guy, my advice to me in the past is going to be more tactical in nature. Learn the Rules of Normalization Yeah, eventually I picked up  on them, but not before I built about six or seven systems I would be profoundly embarassed to show anyone today. I realize that pointing at the fundamentals is just shy of a non-answer to the question, but the fact of the matter is, I was a bit of a cowboy. Still am. The beauty, and curse, of being a cowboy is, you tend to bypass things. Sometimes, you're riding by trouble you just don't need. Other times, you're hell bent for…
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