Voice of the DBA

Tag: syndicated

Daily Coping 25 May 2020

I’ve 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.

Today’s tip is to share photos of 2 things you find meaningful or memorable.

I’ve got lots of photos, but I’ll share two work related ones.

Before SQL Saturday Albuquerque, a few of us drove to Taos to ski for a day on Friday. We did this twice over the years, and it was an incredible memorable time with friends from Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and more.

The other photo that I think about a lot as a memory of work is this one. I had a lot of fun putting this together with people from Redgate, it makes me smile every time I see it.

What photos are memorable for you?

May 25, 2020
A Byte of Redgate–Bonus Queso Recipe
As part of the Community Circle effort at Redgate, we’ve released a cookbook: A Byte of Redgate. You can read about the story in this blog, and it was a fun project. Andy Warren had the idea and I suggested it for us since Redgate has a baking club, a cake club, a cooking club, and probably more. We even have a real cookbook author, Dave Rook.

You can download the free book (pdf/epub), and it includes a guacamole recipe from me. However, I had a bonus recipe that I sometimes make with the guac. I don’t do this too often, as it’s not the healthiest dish, but my family loves when I do.

If you want to enjoy a Mexican-American themed Memorial Day, you might enjoy this with the guac, some chips, and a refreshing drink. That might be all you need for dinner today.

Ranch Queso

The ingredients needed are these
- 12oz sharp cheddar
- 4 oz cream cheese, softened (room-ish temperature)
- 1 Tbsp cornstarch
- 1 Tbsp butter
- 1-2 jalapenos, diced
- 2-3 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, chopped
- ½ small yellow onion, finely diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 ½ cups half and half. I often use half milk and half whipping cream
- optional – chorizo
Instructions are fairly quick, but require you to pay attention for a few minutes.
1. Optional – cook the chorizo and set aside
2. Grate the cheddar cheese first, set aside. I usually hand grate from a block, but you can use shredded is you wish.
3. Chop up the onion and jalapenos
4. Open the chipotle peppers and have ready.
5. Set aside a tablespoon of corn starch
6. Heat a medium sized saucepan over medium heat
7. Add the butter, as this starts to melt, drop in the onion, jalapenos, and garlic, stirring for 3-4 minutes
8. While this heats, I usually chop the chipotle peppers
9. Once the vegetables are softened, but not browned, add the half and half and chipotle peppers
10. Stir to combine everything. As this gets heated, add the cornstarch and mix in thoroughly.
11. Lower the temperature to low. For my gas stove, not quite the lowest setting, but pretty close
12. Next add the cream cheese in small chunks and stir to combine.
13. Once this is combined, start to add the cheddar, stirring to combine. The mixture should then thicken.
14. Pour into a bowl and serve. Optional, drop a spoonful or two of chorizo on top
This usually makes about twice when my family of five will eat with chips before dinner, so I drop rest in plastic and reheat a day or two later.
May 25, 2020
A New Windows Terminal

Watching the Build keynotes, I saw that the new Windows Terminal has been released. It looks mildly interesting, as I really like ConEmu, but it’s something that will be on every machine at some point, and I ought to get used to using it. I like that Bash and Azure Cloud Shell are in here, so I decided to try it.

The URL given in the keynote was aka.ms/terminal. This gets you to the Windows Terminal site, with a great animated opening. Give it a moment if you don’t see anything right away.

Installing

The “Get/Install” link you see will want to open the Microsoft Store app on Windows 10. You do need to have version 18362.0 or better. Type “Ver” at a command prompt to get your version.

It installs quickly and you can get moving right away.

When my new Windows Terminal launched, it started with PowerShell, which is likely a good default. Most cmd utilities work, so this makes some sense. I find myself in PoSh quite often when I run ConEmu.

In the title bar are two things. There is a +, which opens a new tab. This is your default tab, which seems to be PoSh. I’m sure you can change this.

The drop down arrow next to this gives you choices. The defaults I see are shown below (PoSh, Ubuntu, cmd.exe, and Azure Cloud Shell). There are shortcuts here you can use.

The settings is interesting. If I click this, I was surprised that this happened:

This is a settings.json file, and you’ll need to know JSON to edit this. You can see my default file below:

There are quite a few things you can change here, and I keep debating about the copyOnSelect option, which might be useful, but it might also be something I’m not expected.

One thing I was interested in is changing the colors a bit. There’s a bit description of colors on their site, and I added a property to me default section. I’m not digging into profiles now, but I do want the colors to change. Let’s try one of the built in styles.

I tab back and I see the change immediately.

I’ll play with the schemes and see how I like them. For now, the Vintage one looks good.

I need to do more Azure stuff and play with Linux more, so I’m going to give Windows Terminal a chance and see how it works.

If you don’t love the built in cmd.exe, you can give this a try and see what you think. I do like the choice of terminals handy, and I can see myself adding one for Python at some point.

May 22, 2020
Daily Coping 22 May 2020
I’ve 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.

Today’s tip is to reflect on what makes you feel really valued and appreciated.

That’s an interesting thought. This reminds me of the Five Love Languages that help us learn to get along with others. What ways do I feel appreciated and valued?

At work, it’s often through emails or comments people make to me. I’ve been lucky that SQLServerCentral grew to be popular, and my writing has entertained and inspired others. They have let me know often over the years, which give me some level of Purpose in life (from Danial Pink’s Drive).

At home, when the family uses something I’ve built, or they find satisfaction in my cooking, I feel that they appreciate my efforts. That hasn’t always been the case, especially with the busy lives of my family, but they have certainly expressed enjoyment and appreciation of some of the things I’ve made. A few popular items lately:
May 22, 2020