Grant Fritchey

11Jan 2010 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Horror… sort of

Misc

You must read this post from Tim Ford to understand why I might do this on my technical blog. But Tim's a friend and the chance to branch out, at least a little, could not be avoided. I hope I don't lose too many of my eight readers from this.... The sign read "Live Nude Cats," so of course, I had to go and take a look. It wasn't the best part of town and I certainly didn't have any reason to be there, but the sign read "Live Nude Cats." How could I resist? How could anyone? I parked and locked the car, scanning the parking lot. Not good. There must be 50 different ways a person could get jumped in here, and did I mention this part of…

11Jan 2010 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

New England Data Camp v2/SQL Saturdy #34 Update

Misc

The second annual New England Data Camp is shaping up to one excellent event. We've put together a great set of sponsors. Thanks to them we're providing much better food than last year and the chance at a bit of swag, again, better than last year. But, most importantly, we have an excellent selection of speakers. The schedule has been posted so you can go and check it out and start laying out which ones you can hit. Some of the people speaking are known internationally (Adam Machanic, Aaron Bertrand), some are local luminaries, some are up and coming, and several are probably on the fast track to being MVP's. In other words, this is the place to go to learn something about SQL Server in New England. It's not…

06Jan 2010 by Grant Fritchey 6 Comments

PASS Summit Evaluations

PASS

The big day has arrived and all the speakers are poring over their PASS Summit 2009 evaluations, me included. These things are always a mixed bag. On the one hand you get nice positive reinforcement. On the other, you wonder how you may have fallen short to not get even higher marks. I'd say I take them as guides and move on, but I don't. I really sweat them and worry about lower marks and ways I could improve... makes me a bit crazy. Be that as it may, here are the evals from my two sessions. Best Practices for Working With Execution Plans (AD-419-S), 59 evaluations Usefulness of Session Poor:0 Average:2 Good:19 Excellent:38 Speaker's Presentation Skills Poor:0 Average:2 Good:18 Excellent:39 Speakers's Knowledge Poor:0 Average:1 Good:12 Excellent:45 Accuracy of Session…

04Jan 2010 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

SQL Server Standard Article Abstracts

Misc

I'd really like to publish your article in SQL Server Standard. All I need from you is an abstract, a description of what the article will be. I've posted this before, but I've never provided examples. So, to get people started, here are a few examples of articles that have been accepted and will be published (shortly I hope). Here's a great example from Andy Leonard. It includes a great amount of detail, more than I need to make my decision, but with this much detail, the decision is much easier because I know exactly what this article is likely to look like: Â Â I'm interested in writing an article on SSISÂ for SQL Server Standard. I'd like to cover ways packages can exchange information at run-time. There are a couple…

01Jan 2010 by Grant Fritchey 9 Comments

Plagiarism

Misc

UPDATE: Lulu has removed, not just my stolen material, but all offending material. That means some of the links in this post will no longer work. Back to the post... And really bad plagiarism at that. I received an email from someone suggesting I check out a book on Lulu.com, that it might be a copy of my book. Sure enough, this other guy, William Miller, had posted my book, with the original cover (that had my name on it) and the original description on his own "author" page. He also offered a decent little discount on the price. Nice guy.Â I tried to get an image of his copy of my book, but I can't find anything on any of the internet archives, which is just as well. His work…

30Dec 2009 by Grant Fritchey 1 Comment

Practice Your Restores

SQL Server

Steven Jones posted an excellent editorial today all about how your backups are only good if you know that you can restore from them. He couldn't be more correct. I posted the following thoughts in the comments, but I know not everyone reads the comments in articles & editorials. Although, if it's a good article, you should read the comments, especially on SQL Server Central. Frequently the discussion about the article can be as enlightening as the article itself. But I digress. Steve's point, pretty clearly stated but I'll repeat it, backups don't matter, restores do. I'm going to pile on to this point just a bit, because it can't be emphasized enough.Â Nothing is more important than verifying backups, except, verifying that you know how to run a restore. You're…

29Dec 2009 by Grant Fritchey 6 Comments

The Other Server

SQL Server, T-SQL

I had a fun support call I need to share. A developer called up to tell me that a particular dev instance was offline. He informed me that the server SQL08\DEV01 (the names have been changed to protect the innocent) server was completely inaccessible. I knew that multiple development teams would shortly be calling and that I'd better get on this issue most riki-tik. I quickly typed the connection string into Management Studio and watched in confusion as the server instance popped up on my screen. It was fine. I did a number of checks, looking for active connections, recent connections, errors in the log, indications of a recent reboot... Nothing. I called the developer back and told him that the server was fine. He called me again in two…

23Dec 2009 by Grant Fritchey 1 Comment

A Lack of Excitement

PASS, PowerShell, SQL Server, T-SQL, Tools

I usually use all the problems, crashes, and issues that I run into at work as grist for my mill, aka, material to blog about. But lately, we haven't been crashing & burning much <knock wood, turn three times, throw salt over my left shoulder, spit>. But it was suggested that may be I should mention why that is. The fact of the matter is that I've been spending a lot more time working on methods for monitoring our systems so that we avoid more of the stupid stuff, full disks, failed backups, long running agent jobs, etc.. I've blogged before about our use of Microsoft's Operations Manager for monitoring our servers and how we've built custom rules and monitors to keep an eye on things. I've also mentioned how…

22Dec 2009 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

Apology

Misc

I've been somewhat light in my blogging of late. Unfortunately, I just haven't hit any interesting or difficult problems lately that were worth sharing. I'll try to break one of our production systems in an interesting way very soon so that I've got something to write about, even if it's how to look for a new job.

15Dec 2009 by Grant Fritchey 17 Comments

What is Your Greatest Weakness

Misc

I was tagged earlier this week by Tim Ford to comment on my biggest weakness. I wish I could say that it's the color yellow (stupidest weakness, ever), or kryptonite. I don't have to wear ruby-quartz glasses everywhere (and good thing too). Certainly getting tied up by a man isn'tÂ my weakness (eeewww). And while I do agree that with great power comes great responsibility, I don't feel responsible for everything. I'm not suffering from a terminal heart condition (or shards of metal in my blood stream). So, I've avoided all the obvious (or silly) weaknesses. No, unfortunately, my weaknesses, and they are myriad, varied, and far too numerous, are pretty much of the straight human variety, despite my rather obviously being a mutant. Trying to pick one that stands out,…