The Bit Bucket

Our buddy Ola Hallengren has released another version of his database maintenance tooling. (Free !) I’ve seen quite a lot of people using Ola’s scripts rather than standard database maintenance plans, and with happy outcomes.

In the new version, he has optimized performance in IndexOptimize for databases with large number of indexes or SQL Servers with large number of databases. Ola said that the time for rebuilding or reorganizing indexes is the same, but the time for investigating indexes has been reduced.

2011-05-20

Skype sent down an auto-update today. Looks like it’s now 5.3.0.111. Regardless, every time I started Skype, it said:

Exception EXMLDocError in module ezPMUtils.dll at 000E8FCA

Reboots, etc. didn’t fix it. What did fix it was moving the file ezPMUtils.dll from the folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Skype\Plugin Manager to the folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Skype\Plugin Manager\MLS. Note that at first I tried copying the file to that folder but that did not fix the issue. Moving the file, however, did “fix” the issue in that the error no longer occurs. But of course, the extras manager also no longer functions. It would be really great to see *something* from the people at Skype about this issue.

2011-05-15

This error that I came across today typifies what I hate about error messages that I see in various programs.

I was trying to change a drive letter in the system management console in Windows Server 2008 R2. I had upgraded my drive to a new drive and when I restarted my Windows Server VHD installation, it had reassigned all my drive letters. So I tried to set the Drive D drive letter to Drive L (back to the same drive letter it used to have). I had previously changed the Drive E to Drive G without an issue. But when I tried to make this change, the error message popped up saying “The parameter is incorrect”.

2011-05-12

A team from our company has been working with the SQL product team members and reviewers to produce a series of enterprise data warehouse guidance documents. They cover the following topics:

Chapter 1 - Overview

Chapter 2 - Data Architecture

Chapter 3 - Integration Architecture

Chapter 4 - Database Administration

Chapter 5 - Performance, Monitoring and Tuning

You’ll find them here: (link no longer valid)

It’s great to see these documents now published. Enjoy!

2011-05-12

Hi Folks,

Hope this helps someone. After upgrading to IE9 and SQL Server 2008 R2 CU7, I found that I couldn’t access Report Manager anymore. I found that even though I was in the BUILTIN\Administrators group, that I had to specifically add myself to the Content Managers role in Reporting Services for the root folder of Report Manager. (I have no idea why as it used to work ok) NOTE: I had to do this with UAC turned off, otherwise, Site Settings, etc. were not visible. Remember to turn UAC back on if you did this temporarily.

2011-04-20

At our company we teach quite a lot of classes and that means we do a lot of printing. So, we decided to move up to a really serious printer. Whenever we go to a high-end print shop, they all use Fuji Xerox Docucenter printers. So we thought we should get one.

These are truly amazing printers/copiers. The print quality is the best available. The print speed is awesome (and just based on your budget). The capabilties are exactly what we need. The printers are renowned for their reliability and the price of the printers reflects their high-end status.

2011-04-05

Hi Folks,

I’ve published another SQL Down Under podcast. This time it’s Mark Tabladillo discussing SQL Server data mining. It’s available now at: https://sqldownunder.com/podcast

Enjoy!

Regards,

Greg

2011-04-05

I had a day of mixed emotions today.

I (and I assume most of the world) have been horrified by a “religious” massacre in Afghanistan. (Link no longer available)

Today, however, I also had the reverse experience and a seriously uplifting one. This afternoon I drove through Marysville. For those that don’t know it, it’s a town that was wiped off the face of the map by bushfires in Victoria a while back. Hundreds of people died. I was roughly in the area and so I made a point of popping into Marysville to see how they were coping. In general, I find that the people in those towns don’t want hand-outs so much as business. So I try to visit them and spend some cash in their shops, etc.

2011-04-03

There was a discussion on our internal mailing list today about how to get a list of reserved words for SQL Server. It strikes me that there should be a system view that returns this. It could also return details of the version of the product where the word was added and an indication of if the use of the word is deprecated.

If you agree, you know the drill. Vote once, vote often :-)

2011-03-25

This one is a bit annoying. When you apply SP1 for Visual Studio 2010 (VS2010), one of the side effects seems to be that you lose Intellisense in SQL Server Management Studio 2008 R2 (SSMS).

If Intellisense matters to you, you might want to wait for a cumulative update to fix it.

Details here: https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/650569/ssms-2008-r2-is-losing-intellisense-after-installing-visual-studio-2010-sp1

SSMS Tips and Tricks Free eBook

Want to become a wizard on using SSMS? My free eBook covers so many tips and tricks, including this one. You’ll find it, and many other free resources from us, here: https://sqldownunder.com/freestuff/

2011-03-23