2008 November | SQLRockstar

Operations Manager Authoring

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ November 28, 2008 ⋅ 3 comments

I got excited the other day. Very excited. “Big Idea” excited. That’s right, I had a Big Idea, and in that moment of Kramer-esque Zen I could clearly see what I was destined to build with Operations Manager. Alas, in order to build it, I would need to make customizations that I was not sure [...]

How Does This Happen?

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ November 26, 2008 ⋅ 4 comments

Opened up SQL 2008 Management Studio. Double-click on a job, up pops the Job Properties screen. So far, so good. Go to the step properties, up pops another window, all still good. Next, hit CRTL-A and get beeped. WTF? I have to right-click in order to do a select all? No keyboard shortcut? I see [...]

More Twitter Love

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ November 26, 2008 ⋅ One comment

So, I happened to see a tweet today that Joe Webb was about to present for the Charlotte SQL User group. The talk was schedule to start in ten minutes and although I was already doing three things I figured I could add in a fourth and listen to Joe talk. I dropped a quick email [...]

PASS High

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ November 25, 2008 ⋅ 2 comments

I have officially recognized the fact that I am on my PASS high. It always happens after the conference and lasts for a few weeks at the very least. One time it lasted three months before burning off.
What is a PASS high? Quite simply, it is the extra energy you have to help in all [...]

Join the Battle!

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ November 25, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

Found this nugget from Grant Fritchey, who linked out to an article on Simple-Talk by Tony Davis. Join us as we fight in the Battle Against Lawless Database Design (BALD-D or baldy).
Not a day goes by where I do not stumble across some element of a database that makes me slap my hand to my head, [...]

Database Dump Monitoring

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ November 25, 2008 ⋅ One comment

About a month ago I came across a wonderful idea. I thought about how I could use Operations Manager to monitor my databases to ensure they have had a backup done within a predefined amount of time. I know lots of DBAs out there that have similar checks in place, most of which involve reports [...]

Communication Breakdown

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ November 23, 2008 ⋅ 5 comments

We have all heard that it is important to communicate effectively, right? So how is it possible that, knowing the importance of good communication, we can still allow for poor communication to happen from time to time? You would think that we would double, or triple check everything that we read or hear, and choose [...]

PASS 2008

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ November 22, 2008 ⋅ One comment

In past years I have typically done a daily update from the PASS conference, highlighting the sessions attended, things learned, etc. This is my fifth straight PASS conference, and the more times I attend, the different it gets. As such, this time around there was little to no time available for blogging. My days were [...]

PASS, Tweets, and MST3k

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ November 21, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

During the PASS keynote on Thursday something amazing happened. Just when I thought I already knew everything about Twitter, I was shown yet another facet of how it can operate. This year at PASS there were official live bloggers and I happened to know a few of them. I also happen to know they like [...]

Election Update

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ November 20, 2008 ⋅ 7 comments

It’s over. I lost…again. This time by twenty votes. So, vote wise I got worse, but I supposedly had a higher percentage of the vote this time around. I am heading towards a “Susan Lucci” designation with regards to PASS board membership.
Anyway, I thought I should let y’all know as soon as I knew.
I want [...]