Adam Machanic

T-SQL Tuesday #002: The Roundup

Adam Machanic — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:14:00 GMT

According to T-SQL Tuesday rules as ratified by me in the first and second T-SQL Tuesday posts, the T-SQL Tuesday host is supposed to post a roundup within two days of the end of the event. So a reasonable person should expect a roundup to be posted by...(read more)

Paul Randal and Kimberly Tripp - Boston Area - March 29-April 2

Adam Machanic — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:09:00 GMT

If you've been looking for advanced training in the northeast, your wait is over. Paul and Kimberly will be gracing us with one of their famous "SQL Server Immersion" events the week of March 29. This course will cover storage engine internals, indexing...(read more)

T-SQL Tuesday #002: Is it XML, or Not?!?

Adam Machanic — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:19:00 GMT

The query optimizer is a finicky thing , and sometimes it doesn't understand exactly what you're trying to do until you give it a bit more information. The situation I'm going to describe in this post is one such case. By providing the optimizer with...(read more)

New England Data Camp v2.0 (SQL Saturday #34): The Almost-Final Schedule

Adam Machanic — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:25:00 GMT

The January 30 event is now starting to shape up quite nicely! Below you will find the current schedule of sessions for the day. We still have some room, so if you haven't registered already, now is the time to do so. Please make sure to register online...(read more)

Invitation for T-SQL Tuesday #002: A Puzzling Situation

Adam Machanic — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:30:00 GMT

Welcome to the second installment of T-SQL Tuesday, the monthly SQL Server blog party! Last month's kickoff event was a great success , and I'm really excited for this month's theme. I hope that we see even more bloggers, with even more great posts this...(read more)

[OT] Auto-Responders: Making E-Mail Suck, One Reply at a Time

Adam Machanic — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 20:12:00 GMT

Do either of these look familiar: "Suzanne is out of the office and will return December 12." "Hi! I'm on vacation, and may not have access to e-mail. If you need immediate assistance, please contact ..." Or how about this one (seen in December): "I'm...(read more)

Improving Your Public Speaking: "Confessions of a Public Speaker"

Adam Machanic — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 17:43:00 GMT

Speaking is one of those activities where there is always something to tweak or improve. Whether you've just finished your first talk or your thousandth, after you're done I guarantee you'll look back and find at least a couple of things that you'll wish...(read more)

Spam Fighting and Lessons Learned

Adam Machanic — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:01:00 GMT

Here on SQLblog, we take spam seriously. Actually, I should rephrase that: I take spam really, really, really seriously, some other people take spam somewhat seriously, and some don't really seem to care. It all balances out in the end. We've done a pretty...(read more)

T-SQL Tuesday #001 (Date/Time Tricks): The Roundup

Adam Machanic — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:00:00 GMT

Wow! The response to the first T-SQL Tuesday was truly amazing. We ended up with 20 great posts, from all over the world. If you didn’t participate this time, fear not—we’ll be doing this every month from now on so there is plenty of time to jump in....(read more)

T-SQL Tuesday #001: Exploring "Fuzzy" Interval Islands Using SQLCLR

Adam Machanic — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:13:00 GMT

When working with time intervals, we often want to ask a couple of basic questions: Which time periods are not covered by our intervals? These are known as "gaps". What are the time ranges that we are fully covering? These are known as "islands". If you're...(read more)

New England Data Camp v2.0 (SQL Saturday #34) - January 30, Waltham MA - Registration and Call for Speakers Open

Adam Machanic — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:59:00 GMT

Last week I very quietly announced, via Twitter, that we've officially launched the site for New England Data Camp v2.0 , the second go at a full-day event jointly hosted by both the New England SQL Server Users Group and the Southern New England SQL...(read more)

Who is Active? v9.57: Fast, Comprehensive DMV Collection - What's Really Happening on Your Server?

Adam Machanic — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:59:00 GMT

Happy December, SQLblog readers! My gift to you, just in time for the holidays: The newest "official" release of your favorite SQL Server activity monitoring stored procedure . Click here to download Who is Active? v9.57 Since the last release-- v8.82,...(read more)

Invitation to Participate in T-SQL Tuesday #001: Date/Time Tricks

Adam Machanic — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:47:00 GMT

T-SQL Tuesday is the SQL Server blogosphere's first recurring, revolving blog party . The idea is simple: Each month a blog will host the party, and about a week before the second Tuesday of the month a theme will be posted. Any blogger that wishes to...(read more)

Demos: Connections, Fall 2009, Las Vegas

Adam Machanic — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:15:00 GMT

Thanks to everyone who attended my sessions this week at SQL Server Magazine Connections in Las Vegas. Attached to this post you will find the demos for the following sessions: SDV301: Best Practices for Exception Handling and Defensive Programming in...(read more)

PASS Summit 2009: Extended Events Demos

Adam Machanic — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:32:00 GMT

Thanks to everyone who attended my talk on Advanced Extended Events at the PASS Summit this last week in Seattle. I just went to the PASS web site and noticed that they still haven't put the demos up for download. So just in case you're dying to play...(read more)