Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

  • Daily Coping 24 Dec 2021

    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 help others by giving away something you don’t need.

    The pandemic resulted in a lot of people giving things away. Plenty of charities were overwhelmed. I think that has changed a touch now, and I decided to go through some of the things we have around and drop them off at the local Goodwill office. There are other places that can take things, but I know they sell things cheaply to people in need, and they use the money to help others.

    For me, I took some sports equipment that my kids had lightly used and bundled it up, taking it in. I also had some extra jackets that were barely worn. I’ve got too many, so I took some down for others to use.

    We had a vanity as well that didn’t work for a remodel this year. We tried to sell it, but it didn’t work, so I packed it up and donated it to Habitat for them to sell.

  • Daily Coping 23 Dec 2021

    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 contact someone who may be alone or feeling isolated.

    I’ve done this a few times, but this is another good excuse to do so. I know a couple people that live alone, and I’ve worried about them a bit. I reached out and chatted a bit, just asking how they were and engaging in a bit of a conversation.

    It was good to touch base and I actually reached out to a second friend to check on them.

    It’s easy to forget how different someone else’s live might be and how lonely it can be to not be with others this time of year.

  • Searching dbatools–#SQLNewBlogger

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

    I learned something new about dbatools. That’s using the Find-DbaCommand cmdlet, which is handier than Get-Command. I’ll show you why in this post.

    Searching PowerShell

    You can search for commands with Get-Command. If I search for “key” in the dbatools module, I’d run this:

    Get-Command *key* -Module dbatools

    This returns me a number of items. In fact, it returns 11 items.

    2021-11-20 11_56_58-C__Users_Steve (Admin)

    That’s not bad, and this is how I’ve often been looking for command when I’m coding. This is faster than going to the index page on the site.

    Find-DbaCommand

    I was reading the upcoming dbatools in a Month of Lunches, and saw the Find-DbaCommand listed. If I use this, and include “key”, I get different results.

    2021-11-20 11_59_14-C__Users_Steve (Admin)

    This might be more than I want, but I thought this was a neat addition to the dbatools module to help someone find commands quickly.

    It is definitely easier than going to dbatools.io and trying to search for a command in the command list.

    SQLNewBlogger

    I learned something, and I sketched out how to explain it to someone. I took 5 minutes to knock this post together. You could do the same thing, but expand on a way that you actually use this to find a command.

    Might teach someone how a skill. Might even teach someone that wants to interview you.

  • Planning 2022

    It is already looking like a more normal year for me in 2022. I was just accepted for DataGrillen 2022, which posted the schedule this week. As I added that to my list of events, I noticed that I already have a few things up there:

    • March 2-4 – Visual Studio Live, Las Vegas
    • March 9-12 – SQL Bits, London
    • May 14 – SQL Saturday Jacksonville, Jacksonville, USA
    • May 23-25 – Technorama, Antwerp
    • Jun 2-3 – DataGrillen, Germany somewhere

    I’ve also got trips planned to these places for volleyball as a coach, so it will be a busy H1 for me:

    • Las Vegas
    • Chicago
    • Reno

    I know more things will come, and I’m looking to submit to a few new events. There are also a few people planning SQL Saturdays, so I’m hoping that there will be more live events in 2022.

    I know the world feels shaky, but I’m confident. I get my booster tomorrow, and many people feel as like as I do. The goal of vaccination is to get back to doing the things we love, and I’m looking forward to doing so.