General

Today, we were having trouble saving a PowerPoint slide deck as a set of PNG files.

The error message said:

Sorry we couldn’t find slide1.PNG. Is it possible that it was moved, renamed, or deleted?

After trying to copy the slides into another deck to replace the original deck, the same problem existed. Saving in PPTX format was fine. Curiously, saving individual slides was also fine.

I found a few blog posts online that said it might be to do with an embedded period in the filename. That wasn’t the case but it gave me the clue that I needed.

2018-04-16

One of the changes that has happened with Windows in recent years is the concept of forced updates. Basically, you’re going to get updates from now on, like it or not. Generally that’s a good thing. You can delay them for a little while but not for that long. In the Advanced options update Updates, you can see this:

So you aren’t going to delay them for that long.

2018-03-20

I was interested to see our old buddy Pinal Dave recently post a link to one of another old buddy Brent Ozar’s posts from 2015:

What’s the difference between a contractor, and consultant, and FTE?

Brent defined consultants as giving advice on what the client should do; whereas contractors turn up and do what they’re told. This distinction is pretty clear and I agree with him.

I always thought that was a great post but I also always thought it misses one additional category: mentor.

2018-03-06

There is an old saying about not reinventing the wheel yet this is something that I see happening at client sites every day. I see two main reasons why this happens:

Discoverability

[caption id=“attachment_2809” align=“alignnone” width=“339”] Image by Nathan Dumlao[/caption]

There are so many tools and frameworks in this industry, that you can’t be expected to know them all. I remember when I worked a lot with the .NET framework. I’d go into client sites and see them designing and building classes that were already in the framework. Worse, the framework classes were usually very well designed and tested.

2018-03-06

Many of my customers are software houses (ISVs). In almost all of them, I hear people complaining that they can’t find enough good staff. I think they are trying to tackle the wrong problem.

Most of the staff members they are trying to find are developers, and there are so many great developers out there, but you have to accept that they might not be in the location that you hope they’re in.

2018-02-27

A current trend that I can’t say that I love is constant churn within software applications. I have no interest to go back to the days where we got a new version of SQL Server or Power BI, etc. every few years.

It’s also not a case of who moved my cheese?

In fact, I thrive on change. However, I’ve now become really concerned about how anyone:

• Learns to use a complex application
• Remembers how to use a complex application when they don’t use it daily

I first really struck this issue with Azure. If I was teaching a class that used Azure, I could check every single lab on Sunday night, then Monday morning, the students would find it had all changed. That’s OK for an experienced person, but not OK for a learner.

2018-02-20

I’ve concluded that many software vendors (particularly large ones) don’t understand how much support users of their software provide to each other, and how critical that support is.

The SQL and data communities are a good example of this. When someone has a problem and are wondering how to solve it, they don’t call Microsoft or Google or Oracle (or whichever vendor) first. If they’re lucky, they ask a colleague for help. But most will simply make a Google search (or yes a Bing search) to try to find an answer.

2018-02-13

Digital Transformation and Cloud Transformation are phrases that I hear bandied around at nearly every large organization that I currently doing consulting work for.

Yet, in so many cases, I can’t see the organization achieving the changes required. This is for two core reasons:

• The first is that the culture within the organizations is a major hurdle. There just isn’t enough flexibility to think outside the box about alternative ways to work.
• Worse (and probably more concerning), I see these companies taking advice on how to make these transformations from companies who don’t themselves “get it”.

An organization that is cloud-antagonistic internally, and stuck in an endless IT management quagmire, isn’t likely to make a good cloud transformation, and they’re certainly not going to be a successful partner to be able to help you to make a successful cloud migration or to implement a cloud transformation within your company.

2018-02-06

When many SQL Server customers are asked why they haven’t kept up to date with either SQL Server versions, or more importantly, patches to SQL Server, the answers usually boil down to two reasons:

• They are just slack
• Their vendors won’t support the later version or patch level

Many SQL Server application vendors don’t keep up to date with testing of their applications on released versions or patches for SQL Server.

2018-01-30

Case sensitivity in comparisons is an aspect of computing that I’m surprised is still so widespread. I can’t say it more clearly than this:

It’s a pox on computing and needs to be eradicated.

I’ve recently been working at a site where a new case-sensitive SQL Server system is being implemented. I cannot begin to describe what a poor idea I think this is.

In the end, all that a case sensitive system allows you to do is:

2018-01-23