Search results matching tag 'blogging'

Bootstrapping SQL Server bloggers and blog readers with Twitter!

jamiet — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 23:20:00 GMT

On 17th December 2009 Aaron Nelson (you may know him as @sqlvariant) had a great idea – he invented the #SQLHelp hashtag; with a little kickstart from Brent Ozar the idea grew and #SQLHelp became a successful QnA channel in the SQL Server community and is today going from strength to strength.

I’m a great advocate of SQLHelp and not just because it builds bridges between those needing help with the people that are able to provide that help. It is also a great exemplar of the power of Twitter and, more specifically, the power of coalescing open data around a shared interest. As I thought more about this I figured there must be a way that the SQL Server community could further leverage what I think is a nascent opportunity around hashtags and as my mind wandered I thought about Steve Gillmor’s post from 5th May 2009 Rest in Peace, RSS in which he opined that RSS (the syndication technology that bootstrapped the blogging craze in the first decade of this century) should be replaced by Twitter feeds. Here’s a choice quote:

It’s time to get completely off RSS and switch to Twitter. RSS just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Steve isn’t averse to putting the cat among the pigeons with his blog posts and in this case I think he has a salient point. Whilst RSS isn’t a consumer technology (i.e. none of my none-techie friends have a clue what it is), Twitter most definitely is. One downside of RSS (in my opinion) is that most blog authors simply publish their outpourings then hope that it gets some Google juice and catches people’s attention. On the other hand, there are still a lot of people that use RSS readers and those people have a problem too – where do they find good bloggers and good blog material?

So, consider this:

Lots of people are blogging great stuff but don’t have a way of telling people about it
Lots of people want to learn from great bloggers but might not know where to go and find that material

Is there an opportunity to use Twitter to build bridges between bloggers and blog readers in a similar manner to how #SQLHelp has done between questioners and answerers? I think there is and that’s when I hit upon an idea – perhaps we as a community could (as https://ifttt.com/ expertly put it) put the internet to work for us.

Here is my suggestion. If you as a blog author tweet a link to a newly published SQL Server related blog post and use the hashtags

#sqlserver

#blogged

and also a hashtag to indicate the language then that tweet (and the all important link) will be available at https://twitter.com/search?q=sqlserver%20blogged. One can then use Twitter’s ability to make search results available as an RSS feed and subscribe to that RSS feed in one’s RSS reader of choice.

Is that a good idea? I think it is, but then again its my idea so I would, wouldn’t I? I hope a few people out there will get on board with this initiative (perhaps even blog and tweet about it) and hopefully if it can became a fraction as successful as SQLHelp.

Call to action for bloggers

If you as a blogger want to get involved with this initiative then its really very simple. Tweet a link to your SQL Server related blog posts along with a title and the following three hashtags

#sqlserver
#blogged
ISO 639-1 code indicating the language that the blog post is written in

*ISO 639-1 is a standard for 2-digit language codes. You can view the complete list on the International Standards Organisations (ISOs) website at http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/English_list.php although here are a few to get you on your way:

en – English

de – German

fr – French

es – SPanish

zh – Chinese

I would also encourage you to use other hashtags to more specifically define the subject matter as this might make for some interesting analysis later.

As an example, here is a tweet that I just tweeted for my blog post Obtaining rowcounts when using Composable DML [T-SQL]

https://twitter.com/jamiet/status/308351607924486144

Also, please blog about this yourselves (at the very least that gives you an opportunity to add your first tweet to the SQL Server twitter RSS stream).

Call to action for blog readers

If you are someone who enjoys reading SQL Server related blog posts wants to get involved in this initiative simply subscribe to the appropriate RSS feed in your RSS reader of choice and watch as (hopefully) great content flows into your RSS reader without you having to lift a finger. Here are a few such URLs:

http://search.twitter.com/search.rss?q=%23sqlserver%20%23blogged%20%23en%20-rt (SQL Server blog posts published in English)
http://search.twitter.com/search.rss?q=%23sqlserver%20%23blogged%20%23de%20-rt (SQL Server blog posts published in German)
http://search.twitter.com/search.rss?q=%23sqlserver%20%23blogged%20%23fr%20-rt (SQL Server blog posts published in French)
http://search.twitter.com/search.rss?q=%23sqlserver%20%23blogged%20%23es%20-rt (SQL Server blog posts published in Spanish)
http://search.twitter.com/search.rss?q=%23sqlserver%20%23blogged%20%23zh%20-rt (SQL Server blog posts published in Chinese)

Thanks to Dan English for pointing out in the comments that the search URL can be amended to remove retweets.

That’s all there is to it. Fingers crossed that this initiative catches on because there is a fantastic knowledge sharing opportunity here – let’s put the internet to work for us to make it happen.

I have one more thing to say, a line that I stole from my ex-colleague Howard van Rooijen, one which I am a great believer in and which I believe is very pertinent here:

Work smarter, not harder.

@Jamiet

New Developments at SQLServerPedia.com

KKline — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 17:07:00 GMT

What's Going on at SQLServerPedia.com?

Since the news broke that I was leaving Quest, I've gotten a lot of questions about the future of SQLServerPedia.com (SSP). For those of you who don't know, SSP is a very popular community wiki and blog aggregator with nearly one hundred bloggers actively syndicating their content on the site. Quest actively supports SSP as a non-commercial community entity and I was its former editor-in-chief. The good news is that SSP is not going anywhere. If you write for a blog that appears on SSP, don't change a thing. (Ok, change one thing. Start adding more content to the wiki!)

Maybe I Should Syndicate at SQLServerPedia.com?

If you're actively blogging but not currently syndicating your content there, do so! Details for syndicating on SSP are located here. A few reminders and changes worth noting from what is written on the syndication page:

Under section 1.4, 'What if You Don't Have a Blog Yet?', the team is no longer able to help you with setting up, editing, and fact checking blog posts.
Related to the item above, we vastly prefer to syndicate blogs demonstrating at least six months of active posting. Many bloggers start with good intentions and then fade away. Usually, if you've done it for six months, you're in it for the long haul. Although exceptions are made occasionally, your certain to be accepted as a syndicate with six months of posts.
No posting about commercial products (or even free products offered by commercial entities). That rule also applies to Quest people. Just keepin' it real, folks!
Limit the topics to those that are of interest to SQL Server people. The topics can be about non-SQL Server things, such as other related technologies, leadership, productivity, personal development, and so forth. But it should be at least relevant and interesting to SQL Server people.

Aside from that, what are you waiting for?!? Don't you want thousands more reads on your blog per week without adding inappropriate references to Justin Bieber (blog | twitter), American Idol (blog | twitter), and teen-pop sensation One Direction (blog | twitter)? (You saw what I just did there, didn't you?)

One Tiny Achievement

One thing I'm proud of while I was editor-in-chief at SSP was to evangelize the citation syntax that now seems to be standard practice in the blogging world of "Blogger Name (blog_link | twitter_link)." I wrote about this blog citation syntax first in March of 2010. I'm proud of that. I also introduced badges for site contributors, like the one below.

Aside from those things, I don't think I really moved the needle much because, honestly, I already had too much other work on my plate.

And the New SQLServerPedia.com Editor-in-Chief IS... [drumroll]

... my friend and former colleague, Richard Douglas. Richard Douglas is a SQL Server consultant for Quest Software in the UK covering the gamut of SQL Server products in both a pre- and post-sales capacity. Richard is often performs on-site server health checks to ensure systems are running optimally and to provide feedback on problem areas of database performance. Prior to working for Quest, Richard was working as a DBA in women's clothing. Hmmm, let me clarify. No ... he was not working IN women's clothing. He wore regular men's clothing. The company he worked for was in the womens' clothing business. Whew! That's better. In fact, here's a picture to prove that he, at least occasionally, wears men's clothing:

Richard is active in the UK SQL Server community having been a volunteer at SQLBits. He now runs a PASS chapter and is on the organizing committee for SQLRelay, a series of events around the UK which drew hundreds of attendees this year, he holds several certifications in SQL Server 2008.

Richard's online presence includes: email Richard.Douglas@Quest.com, blog http://SQL.RichardDouglas.co.uk, twitter http://twitter.com/SQLRich, and LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardpdouglas. Please take a moment to say hi!

Enjoy,

-Kevin

-Follow me on Twitter!

On Starting a Technical Blog…

andyleonard — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 13:30:00 GMT

Introduction

My friend and brother K. Brian Kelley (Blog | @kbriankelley | SQLPeople) recently wrote a meta-blog (blog about blogging) post entitled Don’t Wait to Start Blogging. Just before that, I received an email response to an earlier post (I Am Here To Help™) requesting advice on how to get started blogging. I directed the person asking me for advice to Brent Ozar’s (Blog | @BrentO | SQLPeople) awesome series called Blog Better Week.

Getting Started

Starting anything is hard. Steven Pressfield tackles this fact head-on in The War of Art and Do the Work; two excellent books on creating, in my opinion. When communicating with folks interested in starting a technical blog, I’ve noticed a pattern; a theme:

“I don’t have anything to say.”
“All the cool stuff has been covered.”

Bah! No, no, no!

While the objections may be technically accurate, there’s a lot more to consider:

You have a unique way of expressing the technical details.
You are writing after other people who have blogged before you.
More is better.

Allow Me to Elaborate:

You have a unique way of expressing technical details…

Geeks often suffer from terminal humility. We believe what we know must be easy to learn because, well, we know it. We think the stuff others know and that we want to learn must be hard because we don’t know it. Not all geeks suffer from terminal humility (I wish many that don’t, would…).

How long did it take you to learn the last thing you learned? Did you find a blog post, forum post, article, or book that was exactly what you needed? I bet the answer is “No, Andy. I had to dig around and I found part of the answer here and another part of it there.” That. is. a. clue! Put everything you found in one location – blog about it! Don’t present the ideas as all original because they’re not. You found the information in several locations. Link to them! Always attribute the work of others and never plagiarize.

Do I have to write this? Yes, yes I do: Plagiarism is copying work from somewhere else and representing it as your own. If you find yourself beginning an explanation of how someone’s work got on your blog with the word “But” – that’s also a clue. Don’t rip people off. Never. Ever. Got it? Good. Let’s continue…

Expand on the ideas you found. Some of what you read may not have worked for you. I may be simply incorrect or it may be outdated. This brings me to the next point:

You are writing after other people who have blogged before you…

Why is this important? Because technology changes daily! Odds are the posts and articles that helped you were written months ago. There’s been a new release, Community Technology Preview (CTP), service release, or patch since that time. You have the latest and greatest information available – right there in your head with you. Why not share that?

More is better…

When you did that search for information about your issue and found the answer scattered across 2-17 sites, that search took you five minutes or less, right? Wrong! It took hours. The more information out there, the easier it is to find it! Get your post out there so it can help someone struggling with the same issue.

Conclusion

Brian and Brent offer fantastic advice about blogging. Jump in, the water’s fine.

:{>

A Simple Request

andyleonard — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:00:00 GMT

I would like for this “Read Article” link at the SSWUG.org website to take readers interested in my writing to my writing and not to a screen to sign up for a service.

This isn’t the first time I’ve asked about this – I’ve requested my work not be linked on this website in the past. I believe publishing my work without my permission is not right. I believe a link directing an unsuspecting user to a sign-up screen with the intent of collecting money from them for access to my freely-available writing is not right. I do not accept any argument that my assigning $0 USD for access to my writing constitutes a transfer of copyright, nor does it imply anyone is able to charge others for providing a link to content owned by me, even if I choose to make the content I own available for free. And if it did, shouldn’t I at least be asked first?

This is my work. I choose to not charge for access to it. I do not want others to charge for access to this portion of my work.

Is this asking too much?

:{\

Greatest Hits : A reflection on my 2010 blog posts

AaronBertrand — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 20:30:00 GMT

Okay, I'm following the lead of Joe Webb (blog | twitter), who recently posted "My Most Popular Posts From 2010." I think it can be a very useful exercise to go back and look at what blog posts were popular and, arguably more importantly, which posts were most thought-provoking and generated the most dialog (whether it is praise, heckling, or a mixture). I think you can a learn a lot about your blogging habits and perhaps where to focus energy in the future/ You can also be quite surprised at which posts go viral and which don't ... for example, I thought my Denali topics and posts from my "Bad Habits to Kick" series would have dominated the top 10 in both counts, but that was not the case. I'm going to list the top 10 in each category here, but in chronological order rather than proper rank. I think it is more interesting to see that - aside from a quiet summer - the top posts were distributed well throughout the year as opposed to being centered around a particular month - though, to Joe's point, neither list has a post from December, even though that month represented 18 of my 116 blog posts from last year (15.5%). Those that are in both lists are denoted with an asterisk (*) - less correlation here than I thought, also.

Most Unique Views

01-05 : My experiences upgrading 2005 => 2008

02-04 : When bad error messages happen to good people

02-08 : Bad Habits to Kick : putting an IDENTITY column on every table *

03-10 : The ethics of aggregating other peoples' content *

03-15 : Yes, you can benefit from both data and backup compression

05-18 : New cumulative updates for SQL Server 2008 SP1 & R2!

09-29 : This time it's for real - SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 2 is available!

10-21 : A first glimpse of SQL Sentry's Plan Explorer

10-26 : Useful, free resources for SQL Server *

11-23 : SQL Server v.Next (Denali) : The New SSMS *

Most Comments

01-04 : Quick poll : what is your favorite Management Studio tip or trick?

02-01 : Your laptop may be ready for SSDs, but are your SQL Servers?

02-08 : Bad Habits to Kick : putting an IDENTITY column on every table *

02-16 : Bad Habits to Kick : inconsistent table aliasing

03-10 : The ethics of aggregating other peoples' content *

07-07 : Splitting a list of integers : another roundup

08-22 : What's in a Name?

10-18 : Moving on up... but not to the East Side

10-26 : Useful, free resources for SQL Server *

11-23 : SQL Server v.Next (Denali) : The New SSMS *

This exercise was likely a lot more useful for me than for you, but I hope it was interesting to at least one of you.

Blogging tips for SQL Server professionals

jamiet — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 16:50:00 GMT

For some time now I have been intending to put some material together relating my blogging experiences since I began blogging in 2004 and that led to me submitting a session for SQLBits recently where I intended to do just that. That didn’t get enough votes to allow me to present however so instead I resolved to write a blog post about it and Simon Sabin’s recent post Blogging – how do you do it? has prompted me to get around to completing it. So, here I present a compendium of tips that I’ve picked up from authoring a fair few blog posts over the past 6 years.

Feedburner

Feedburner.com is a service that can consume your blog’s default RSS feed and provide another, replacement, feed that has exactly the same content. You can then supply that replacement feed on your blog site for other people to consume in their RSS readers. Why would you want to do this? Well, two reasons actually:

It makes your blog portable. If you ever want to move your blog to a different URL you don’t have to tell your subscribers to move to a different feed. The feedburner feed is a pointer to your blog content rather than being a copy of it.
Feedburner will collect stats telling you how many people are subscribed to your feed, which RSS readers they use, stuff like that. Here’s a sample screenshot for http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/:

It also tells you what your most viewed posts are:

Web stats like these are notoriously inaccurate but then again the method of measurement here is not important, what IS important is that it gives you a trustworthy ranking of your blog posts and (in my opinion) knowing which are your most popular posts is more important than knowing exactly how many views each post has had.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of what Feedburner provides and I recommend every new blogger to try it!

Monitor subscribers using Google Reader

If for some reason Feedburner is not to your taste or (more likely) you already have an established RSS feed that you do not want to change then Google provide another way in which you can monitor your readership in the shape of their online RSS reader, Google Reader. It provides, for every RSS feed, a collection of stats including the number of Google Reader users that have subscribed to that RSS feed.

This is really valuable information and in fact I have been recording this statistic for mine and a number of other blogs for a few years now and as such I can produce the following chart that indicates how readership is trending for those blogs over time:

[Good news for my fellow SQLBlog bloggers.]

As Stephen Few readily points out, its not the numbers that are important but the trend.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

SEO (or “How do I get my blog to show up in Google”) is a massive area of expertise which I don’t want (and am unable) to cover in much detail here but there are some simple rules of thumb that will help:

Tags – If your blog engine offers the ability to add tags to your blog post, use them. Invariably those tags go into the meta section of the page HTML and search engines lap that stuff up. For example, from my recent post Microsoft publish Visual Studio 2010 Database Project Guidance:

Title – Search engines take notice of web page titles as well so make them specific and descriptive (e.g. “Configuring dtsConfig connection strings”) rather than esoteric and meaningless in a vain attempt to be humorous (e.g. “Last night a DJ saved my ETL batch”)!
Title(2) – Make your title even more search engine friendly by mentioning high level subject areas, not dissimilar to Twitter hashtags. For example, if you look at all of my posts related to SSIS you will notice that nearly all contain the word “SSIS” in the title even if I had to shoehorn it in there by putting it in square brackets or similar. Another tip, if you ARE putting words into your titles in this artificial manner then put them at the end so that they’re not that prominent in search engine results; they’re there for the search engines to consume, not for human beings.
Images – Always add titles and alternate text (ALT attribute) to images in your blog post. If you use Windows 7 or Windows Vista then you can use Live Writer (which Simon recommended) makes this easy for you.
Headings – If you want to highlight section headings use heading tags (e.g. <H1>, <H2>, <H3> etc…) rather than just formatting the text appropriately – again, Live Writer makes this easy. These tags give your blog posts structure that is understood by search engines and RSS readers alike. (I believe it makes them more amenable to CSS as well – though that’s not something I know too much about). If you check the HTML source for the blog post you’re reading right now you’ll be able to scan through and see where I have used heading tags.
Microsoft provide a free tool called the SEO Toolkit that will analyse your blog site (for free) and tell you what things you should change to improve SEO. Go read more and download for free at Search Engine Optimization Toolkit. Did I mention that it was free?

Miscellaneous Tips

If you are including code in your blog post then ensure it is formatted correctly. Use SQL Server Central’s T-SQL prettifier for formatting T-SQL code.
Use images and videos. Personally speaking there’s nothing I like less when reading a blog than paragraph after paragraph of text. Images make your blog more appealing which means people are more likely to read what you have written.
Be original. Don’t plagiarise other people’s content and don’t simply rewrite the contents of Books Online.
Every time you publish a blog post tweet a link to it. Include hashtags in your tweet that are more likely to grab people’s attention.
Use the correct terminology. You are currently reading a blog post that was posted on my blog. There's nothing more annoying to me than someone saying "I've just published a blog". No you haven't, you have just published a blog post - there is a difference.

That’s probably enough for now - I hope this blog post proves useful to someone out there. If you would appreciate a related session at a forthcoming SQLBits conference then please let me know.

UPDATE 2011-01-08: Paul Randal has written an excellent post sharing some more tips for would-be SQL Server bloggers at So you want to blog about SQL Server?.

This will likely be my last blog post for 2010 so I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone that has commented on, linked to or read any of my blog posts in that time. 2011 is shaping up to be a very interesting for SQL Server observers with the impending release of SQL Server code-named Denali and I promise I’ll have lots more content on that as the year progresses. Happy New Year.

@Jamiet

Bloggers Behaving Badly

andyleonard — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 12:00:00 GMT

Introduction

The other morning I awoke and said to myself, "Self, you need a million bucks." After breakfast, I waltzed down to the local bank. I slipped into the vault and managed to grab a million bucks while no one was paying attention. Quietly, I slipped out of the vault and made it home with the money.

My logic?

The money was there for the taking, as evidenced by my ability to go and take it.
I plan to donate some of the money to charity.
Worst-case: If the bank wants the money back, they'll send me an email or call and I will return it.

What?

Your objections could be as follows:

"It wasn't your money."
"Doing good with something you stole doesn't mitigate the crime of stealing."
"You stole from others, returning the money after you're caught doesn't mitigate theft."

You would be correct on all counts.

Analogy Explained

And yet, this is precisely what bloggers who copy content do and how they (apparently) think. They copy the ideas and material of others, using copy and paste or by typing (or in worst cases, scraping), transcribing the ideas and thoughts of others in whole or in part, onto their websites - for which they receive cred (or in worst cases, for which they charge access). It's happened to Brent Ozar (Blog | @BrentO), me, and others.

If you didn't think it up, it's not your content. How hard is that? If you copy, paste, or scrape words written by others, you are stealing.

"No, I'm helping." No, you're stealing. If you truly want to help, stop stealing. It's annoying. I (and others) have to spend time we would otherwise spend blogging - which truly helps others - running down your stolen posts, writing you emails about taking them down, and filing DMCA requests (or, after you've made enough money, filing a class-action copyright-infringement suit).

I recently read a disclaimer on a website that copied material from Brent and others (Brent did a cool series on combating plagarism in November 2010...). The disclaimer, paraphrased, read something like:

If you want me to remove material I copied from your site, notify me and I will take it down immediately.

No. Wrong. If I stole a million bucks from the bank, I committed a crime at that instant. If the police show up, sirens blaring and guns drawn, I no longer have the option of saying "Oopsie, my bad. Here's the money back." Likewise, when you copy my thoughts and paste them onto your website, you have stolen from me. Insisting that I take action in the wake of your crime is offensive.

As a consumer of online information, it's important to distinguish the credibility and capability of the source. If you can't figure out it's wrong to plagarize, what else have you not figured out? I honestly don't need your "help".

Conclusion

Plagarism is wrong. It will come to no good end. Post your own thoughts because:

It's legal;
It's moral;
It's the right thing to do.

Stop stealing my stuff

:{>

Writing a Book, and Moving my Blog

Ben Nevarez — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 07:39:00 GMT

I started blogging about SQL Server here at SQLblog back in July, 2009 and it was a lot of fun, I enjoyed it a lot. Then later, after a series of blog posts about the Query Optimizer, I was invited to write an entire book about that same topic. But after a few months I realized that it was going to be hard to continue both blogging and writing chapters for a book, this in addition to my regular day job, so I decided to stop blogging for a little while.

Now that I have finished the last chapter of the book and I am working on the final chapter reviews, I decided to start blogging again. This time I am moving my blog to

http://www.benjaminnevarez.com

Same as my previous posts I plan to write about my topics of interest, like the relational engine, and basically anything related to SQL Server. Hopefully you find my new blog interesting and useful.

Finally, I would like to thank Adam for allowing me to blog here.

Blogging about what to blog about

AaronBertrand — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:15:00 GMT

When I entered the title of this post, a big yellow exclamation mark (inside a dull gray triangle) appeared above my head: "Warning: potential circular reference!" But I think it's useful once in a while to step back and think about what you typically blog about, and how it can impact the community. Simon Sabin made a brief post today with three very interesting facts that I hadn't really thought about before:

People tend to blog about things that are not only useful to others, but also useful to themselves.

I think this is absolutely true. As an example, I posted a series of articles a few weeks ago about splitting comma-separated lists. Did I do that to share my knowledge, help you solve your own related problems, invoke arguments, and show you how smart I am? Of course. =) But when I think hard about it, there was probably some subconscious effort to document the issues I came across in my own work, so that I would have an easy place to recall them later (and reuse the code). Since my blog is much easier to scan than trying to find a code example deployed on some server and/or in some source control system that I may no longer have access to.
Your most popular blog posts might not be the ones you expect.

This I can see as well. Typically your blog has a steady or very slowly growing audience, but then if you step out of your "comfort zone" and talk about something that might be a little off-topic for you, you can experience a burst of traffic. Kind of like when celebrities appear in the news for doing a good thing when they're usually doing bad things (or vice-versa). This all depends, of course, on how your content is publicized. Just to highlight, here are my 5 most popular blog posts over the past 3 years here at SQLBlog (in terms of overall views). Note that one of them has very little to do with SQL Server at all.
- The XP SP3 / MSXML6 SP2 / SQL Server debacle
  
  There was a very loud outcry earlier this year when people discovered that Windows XP Service Pack 3 changed the way MSXML files are marked by the system, which in turn prevented many SQL Server installations from succeeding. The bulk of the traffic has likely come due to the enormous level of feedback the post has generated: 48 comments as of this writing. In fact the issue is still looming, as Microsoft's SQL Server Support team recently posted some information about the workaround, claiming that if you call them they will tell you how to add code to your setup programs that will enable the SQL Server install to succeed. The automatic fix is simply deleting a registry key, which they have asked me not to disclose. They can't really stop me, but I don't want to make any enemies at CSS. Ho hum.
- SQL Server 2008 System Views poster is now available for download!
  
  I can't explain the traffic to this one. It is just an explanation that the PDF version of the poster is downloadable, and there is a follow-up comment that explains that some company online is selling printed copies. I'd imagine the notices that were posted on the SQLMag, PASS and SQLServerCentral web sites would have generated a lot more traffic than me.
- My stored procedure "best practices" checklist
  
  This one was floated around on Twitter IIRC, and generated a lot of feedback (46 comments so far). This is likely because a lot of my best practices are not necessarily aligned with your best practices. Things like coding conventions and naming standards are a lot like cars or cell phones: everyone has their favorites, and not everyone who likes a Porsche is also going to like a Bentley. As I say often, just pick a standard way to do things within your group/company, and be consistent; your standard doesn't have to match anyone else's except your own.
- More info on SQL Server 2005 SP3 + Cumulative Updates
  
  Back in December, there was some real confusion about whether customers should update their instances to SP2 + CU11, or jump to SP3. The problem was that people who had installed CU10 or CU11 already would *lose* those changes if they installed SP3, since the SP3 branch of code was frozen before CU10 or CU11 came out. After speaking with members of the Service Releases team, I published this post, explaining the differences and what people should do based on the build they were running at the time.
- Using a Mac in a Windows world
  
  This is another one where I can't explain the traffic. It is simply a link to a blog post I made over on my company's web site about the ins and outs of choosing Apple hardware and Mac OS even though my job is completely Windows-centric.
People are afraid to provide redundant content.

Simon also suggests that you shouldn't be afraid to blog about what's in the documentation. I concur wholeheartedly. This is primarily because, quite frankly, people don't read the documentation unless you point them to a specific topic. And even then, they don't "read" in a lot of cases, they merely grab the code sample and move on. When I write about a topic that appears in Books Online, I have the opportunity to provide my own commentary and opinion about the feature or topic, point out missing or incorrect information, and link multiple topics together in a way that might not otherwise be obvious. None of these things could be accomplished when I just say, "Go read topic x in Books Online." Don't get me wrong, Books Online is a fantastic resource, and one that everyone working with SQL Server should be familiar with; for the most part, though, it sticks to the "Just the facts, ma'am" mantra.

Removing pingback, trackback, and comment spam from dasBlog

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 18:50:18 GMT

Ok, I finally got fed up with all of the spam in my historical dasBlog postings. It's really embarrassing to send a link to a a colleague, only to have them snicker at all of the spam comments and trackbacks.

For those of you who don't know what a trackback is, it's basically an acknowledgement that enables authors to keep track of who is linking to, or referring to their articles. When used properly, trackbacks form a communication link between the two blogs, so that new comments on one blog can basically ping the other, allowing readers to easily follow discussions on both. The problem is that spammers have abused this mechanism and bloggers end up with trackbacks and pingbacks to various gambling, herbal medication, and adult sites.

Earlier this year I joined the ranks, and disabled my trackback and pingback services in dasBlog. I then followed Scott Hanselman's advice on using Akismet spam blocking service.

The big effort was then how to cleanup the <Comment> and <Trackback> elements that were spam, so, like others before me, I built a tool to assist with this.

Download ScrubDasBlog.zip or ScrubDasBlogSource.zip to your hard drive
Edit the blacklist.txt to include your own blacklisted URLs *
Backup your existing feedback files: \content\*.dayentry.xml
Run the ScrubDasBlog utility, specifying the path to your \content folder and the path to your blacklist.txt file, for example:

scrubdasblog c:\inetpub\wwwroot\mydasblog\content c:\scrubdasblog\blacklist.txt

* If you have predominately more SPAM comments and trackbacks in your dasBlog history, then you can generate a starter blacklist by going into your \content sub-folder and typing the following:

type *.xml | find "AuthorHomepage" > blacklist.txt

After you generate the blacklist.txt file, you should remove any good sites and remove any duplicates, before running the ScrubDasBlog utility.

I would recommend downloading the Source code version and reading through my code. Please comment on any improvements you might make.