The EXECUTE permission was denied on the object 'sp_enable_sql_debug', database 'mssqlsystemresource', schema 'sys'. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 229) That's the message I see when I try to debug on any of the servers at my primary client. This is not uncommon to see such restrictions. When the required permissions aren't ...

Either SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) or Visual Studio can be used for database development. I put them side by side into a single composite screen capture where you literally see the gaps between the products. SQL Server 2012 was installed with all features selected and default settings. The only modifications to the SQL Server installation ...

Regular expressions can easily and quickly remove trailing spaces from every line in your query window as well as a few other tasks I’ll explain. To get started, you need to know how to specify the end of a line. There are two ways to specify the end of a line. You can use the “ \n” escape sequence or the end of line metacharacter “$”.  ...

SQL Server 2012 introduces new windowing functions beyond the basic ranking functions of RANK, DENSE_RANK, NTILE, and ROW_NUMBER. The LAG function is particularly useful when comparing data in the current time period to the previous period. Period to period changes in sales, nosocomial infection rates, and manufacturing defects are just some ...

It’s not possible to directly make a shortcut for a modern UI app like you do for a conventional application, but there is a workaround. You can add the shortcut to the desktop, the taskbar, or a custom toolbar menu. After my previous post on adding a toolbar menu for SQL Server, I have additional suggestions on making custom toolbar menus. Skype ...

Windows 8.1 has a very capable modern UI mail program simply called Mail. Installing Outlook 2013 does not fully replace it because one default remains with Mail, the mailto association. To change the association to Outlook, go to Control Panel, select Default Programs, and then select Set your default programs. Figure 1. Default Programs. ...

If you do most of your work with SQL Server, you’re going to be working primarily in the desktop experience. You can easily take the modern UI menu and expose it on the desktop as a series of Windows 7 style cascading menus. Figure 1. Modern UI menu for SQL Server. The first thing you need to know is find out where the SQL Server menu items ...

After installing Windows 8.1, there are several tricks and customizations worth considering if you develop software or want a user experience more like Windows 7. One neat feature is the popup menu shown below that appears after pressing the X key while holding down the Windows key (thank you Matthew Roche for that tip). Figure 1. When in ...

This week’s massive security breach of Target’s database caused me to pay extra attention to my credit card purchases. I found fraudulent charges, but I don’t know if the root cause is the Target breach or something else. If your company accepts credit card payments online, there is a lesson for you in how you should treat your customers. If you ...

Quite by accident, I discovered a really nice free software product from Microsoft called Microsoft Mathematics. You can download the standalone version from here. There is also a Microsoft Mathematics add-in for Microsoft Word and OneNote with the 2010 version found here and the 2013 version found here. Figure 1. Standalone version of ...