Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

  • Speaking at SQL Saturday Jacksonville 2022

    SQL Saturday is coming back to Jacksonville this May. I’m excited to go as I’ve like the city, but I’ve never been to this particular SQL Saturday. On May 14, 2022, I’ll be in town for the first live SQL Saturday of 2022.

    I’m delivering a couple sessions on DevOps topics, but there is quite a spread of OLTP and BI topics listed. Some impressive speakers are coming, and I’m looking forward to seeing a few sessions. I’m also looking forward to catching up with John Sterrett and Jay Falck, who I haven’t seen in some time.

    There are some pre-con sessions available for all day training on Friday, May 13. If you are missing the chance to learn in a live environment and not online, check those out.

    You can get more details at: https://sqlsaturday.com/jax and register today.

    Come join us as we get back to in-person events, learn a few things, and network with other data professionals in the north Florida area.

  • Daily Coping 7 Apr 2022

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

    Today’s tip is to discover joy in the simple things in life.

    I work in tech, like many of you that read this. We use various tools to do our jobs, some of which we appreciate and enjoy. Some are innovative, and certainly some of us are blessed with more resources and access to things.

    When I saw this tip, I thought of a few simple things that I enjoy.

    I have a few wireless chargers: one on my desk, one on my nightstand, and one in the Tesla. I think it’s amazing I can drop my phone onto a surface and it charges. That’s one little tech thing that makes me smile on a regular basis.

    My office gets chilly at times. I’m near the garage and dog door, and at times I get a bit of a draft. I can wear more clothes, but I got a chair massager/heater, and I use the heat often on cold days. It reminds me of the seat heaters in the cars, which I also enjoy often.

    The last thing I enjoy regularly is having a wireless mouse. I had to use my kid’s laptop to do something recently and noticed he had a plugged in mouse. I have a wireless one on my desk, and I carry one when I travel. Batteries seem to last for years, and the convenience of moving it around, the smooth optical tracking, and lack of a wire getting in the way bring me joy every day.

    Bonus, I have a custom mouse mat with pictures of my kids. I love that as well.

  • Removing a LocalDB Instance

    Another post for me that is simple and hopefully serves as an example for people trying to get blogging as #SQLNewBloggers.

    This might be obvious and easy, but I spent a couple minutes learning how to remove a LocalDB instance.

    I tried to use remote, but that didn’t work:

    2022-03-03 09_17_39-C__Windows_System32_cmd.exe

    There error reminded me that in my day, most commands use –? or /? to get help. A lot of CLIs these days use –help (two dashes). That doesn’t work here. But /? does.

    2022-03-03 09_18_33-C__Windows_System32_cmd.exe

    This shows me the delete option is the one to use. I tried that, but I needed to stop the instance.

    2022-03-03 09_19_55-C__Windows_System32_cmd.exe

    Running stop and then delete allowed this to succeed.

    2022-03-03 09_20_51-C__Windows_System32_cmd.exe

    SQL New Blogger

    After writing a previous post, which took me 10 minutes or so, I went to clean up my environment. I realized this was easy, but also worth a post about how I learned this.

    Just 5 minutes. You could write posts like this to further your knowledge and help your career.

  • Daily Coping 6 Apr 2022

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

    Today’s tip is to mentally scan your body and notice what it is feeling.

    I’m writing this just under a week in advance, but this is good one for me today.

    We had a hydrant fail in a field. It really just rusted out, but this is a metal tube with a valve at the top of bottom, which self-drains to prevent freezing issues. Here’s an example of what I have.

    What that image doesn’t show is that the frost line for me is about 48”, and in my case, we needed to dig a hole down to about 5 feet (60”) to find the pipe. Actually the plumber offered to dig for US$80/hour and expected this would be about a $1000 hole for him to dig.

    My two sons and I went out and did most of the work. Not enough, as the plumber had 3-4 hours of digging to do still, but we saved likely $700-800 in doing some of the work. Here’s us about halfway into our work. We were deep, but had to widen it quite a bit.

    20220326_145502

    The worse part, for me, was the day after the hydrant was replaced. The hole was unfilled and rain was forecast. I got out there early one morning, listening to a couple MVP Summit sessions on headphones as I tried to fill in the hole before the light rain turned heavy.

    20220329_090010

    It’s the day after. How do I feel?

    Not too bad. My core and lower back are sore and ache-y, but not too painful. My forearms are definitely tired and sore, and typing is a little difficult. My legs are doing pretty well.

    Overall, I feel like I worked hard, but didn’t overdo it. I’m paying for my mostly desk job life turned dirt worker, but I kept within my abilities and am using a little ibuprofen to get through the day.