2010 February | SQLRockstar

How To Get a Job as a DBA

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ February 28, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

With my upcoming book due to be released this month, I have been getting more and more emails sent my way regarding a common question “how do I get a job as a DBA?” I started to build a new blog post and I was surprised to find that I have already written quite a [...]

MacGyver Moments

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ February 25, 2010 ⋅ 6 comments

Aaron Bertrand and Denny Cherry double-teamed me in another round of Web 2.0 Chainposting, and you know I never dare break the chain. I spent a few days thinking about what MacGyver moments I have had that I could share. And to be honest, very few came to mind. Apparently I am not very imaginative, [...]

Book Review: The Tipping Point

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ February 25, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

At least one of the readers to my blog (either Mom or Dad) should recall how I previously did a review of the book Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. At some point it was suggested to me that I should read The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, [...]

Patching SQL Azure

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ February 24, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

When the Cloud breaks, who fixes it? Why, the people who are responsible for maintaining it, right? And that person would not be you, so why do you care? And how do you patch a cloud, anyway? What do you do when the silver lining rips apart? Oh, nevermind.
So then, when does it get patched? [...]

UserVoice

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ February 23, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

One of the many wonderful things that came out of the MVP Summit for me last week was UserVoice. Both readers of my blog may have noticed the red ‘Feedback’ tab on the left hand side of the page. This tab will lead you to a forum that I have configured with UserVoice.
Last week we [...]

Good Way To Start Your Day

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ February 23, 2010 ⋅ 2 comments

I have a lot of things to read on a daily basis. Some of them are recreational, but most of them are aligned with my technical interests. It is rare for me to have the time to sit down and read one book from cover to cover. So I have started reading a handful of [...]

MVP Summit Recap

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ February 22, 2010 ⋅ 4 comments

The 2010 MVP Summit took place last week on the Microsoft campus in Redmond. I arrived on Tuesday, barely making it out ahead of a snowstorm. I missed out on some sessions on Monday and Tuesday, having made my plans before any extra sessions were announced. When I got into town I couldn’t find any [...]

Thirty Years Ago Today…

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ February 22, 2010 ⋅ One comment

This afternoon marks the 30th anniversary of the “Miracle on Ice” hockey game between Team USA and the USSR. I have blogged about the event previously, reflecting upon some recent trips I have made to Lake Placid, NY.
Last night I witnessed an incredible game as well. No, it was not even close to the drama [...]

Transparent Data Encryption Considerations

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ February 16, 2010 ⋅ 4 comments

I was spending some time recently looking over Transparent Data Encryption (TDE). TDE is a fairly straightforward concept: the data on disk is encrypted (data files, log files, backup files), but to the end user no special decryption method is necessary to query the data. If you have permissions to read the data (say, as [...]

Voting Poll Is Open

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ February 15, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

The voting poll is officially open for the DBA Survivor “Name That Caption Contest“. Head over to http://dbasurvivor.com and pick up to three of the five captions. The top three captions will go into the final round, which consists of me choosing the one I like best.
Thanks to everyone that submitted entries. These five were [...]