Category: Uncategorized

I note these for Database Weekly, but I haven’t blogged about them. A mistake on my part.

The December patches from Microsoft have come out. You can see the overview here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms09-dec.mspx They are Windows and Office related this month, no SQL Server ones, which is good. However there are some rated critical. While I wouldn’t install them today, I’d start testing and pay attention to the bulletins, especially if there is a chance for an issue with your systems.

We’ve had the ASK SQLServerCentral site up for a couple months now and while I see traffic continuing over there, it seems that most of our questions and answers are still taking place on the traditional forums. That’s good since I prefer our forums, though I do try to get over to ASK at least a couple times a day and actually ask or answer a question.
It’s slightly messed up my goals for the year since I had made it a goal to post 400 times a month in our forums, however when the ASK site came up, the new format changed the way that I worked with users. In our traditional forums, often an answer requires a discussion, we might ask for more information, we might need to clarify or respond to the posters understanding of our answer, or something else. That means that a traditional “discussion” of an issue typically winds up with 2-3 posts from an person answering going back and forth with the poster.
In the ASK site, we are supposed to edit the question, and if we need more information, post a comment, which isn’t necessarily a part of the question or answer. So that as I try to answer something, I don’t really get a post.
The other thing that I often do in traditional forums when I’m trying to help a user gain confidence, I’ll second an answer given by someone else. I know when two people give me the same answer, or one seconds another’s answer. I have confidence in it. On the ASK site I can vote up an answer, but I can’t add my personal recommendation.
Maybe that doesn’t matter, but it certainly has messed up my goals. After the Thanksgiving break and time spent on the ASK site, I came back last week to just over 200 posts in the last 30 days. I’ve been working to get that back to 300, but it’s been hard, especially as many posts I’ve examined have had good answers on them already.
I’m not sure how I’ll look at this moving forward for next year, but it’s about time to re-examine my goals and start to create some for next year.

According to this C|Net report, New York state wants someone to build wind farms in the great lakes and purchase all the power if they’re built. That’s nice to hear, but it’s not a great PR move after their attempt to build them off Long Island generated so much controversy. I’d like to see more Wind Farms in New York as well, especially since they have lots of sailing water on the East side of the state.

I did find it interested that wind farms offshore cost about double as onshore ones. That shouldn’t be surprising with all the below water anchoring needed, but it is for me. I somehow was thinking they’d be comparable since you have to anchor both to handle stresses.

The payback might be better since water has more wind across it, the temperature changes more rapidly and so more power can be generated. Of course maintenance might be higher, not just with the windmill, but also with the cabling that crosses the water. Salt water is incredibly corrosive, so that can be an issue.

I haven’t had to write a Question of the Day in a few months now and I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand it’s a nice break to not have to come up with things to ask. On the other hand I have to check and edit questions submitted by other people. And that can sometimes be more work than just writing my own.

Coming up with a good question can be tough. We had one recently on datetime values and time zones that sparked quite a debate.

That one alone I think shows that the way one person views a question isn’t the way others do. I try to view them objectively, and simply, not reading too far into them, but that’s not how everyone does it. It can be tricky trying to phrase things to guide people to an answer without just giving them the answer. I think we do a pretty good job overall, but I know we miss a few.

Even if you can properly phrase something, or some up with a good question, it can be hard to build an explanation of why things work. I have submissions that show just a URL, sometimes just repeat the answer, or even say “I don’t know why this works”. Those are tough because sometimes I don’t know either! I hate rejecting things, and try to send them back to the author with a note that asks for some details, but sometimes I have to just let them go.

I got 14 submitted for November, which was a short month with the various conferences and holidays. I’m still working my way through them since it can take me 30 minutes to review one, check code, get a reference, reformat, etc. A bit of a time sink, especially when I can probably knock one out in 15 minutes if I’m doing a batch. I tend to pick a topic, say log shipping, and then write 8 or 10 questions on that subject, scheduling them out over 3-4 months. That way we don’t get too many on one topic in a short period of time.

I like getting the submissions, but the variety of quality and topics makes it a time sink. I tend to put these off sometimes for a week, especially now that I have questions scheduled out through Feb 2 as of today. So if I haven’t reviewed your question, have some patience.

A few notes on submitting a question:

• Don’t get too cute, keep your code and the question simple.
• Specify the version if you use something that might be version specific
• Get a reference, preferably from Books Online, that explains and documents what happened. If you don’t know, post a note in a forum and see if someone can help you understand why things happen.
• Use BOL online, not the ms-help:// local reference.
• If you want people to choose more than one answer, say that.
• Use a spell/grammar checker.