So, occasionally I get a problem where I need to reboot my workstation. It's infrequent, usually I only have to do it every couple of days, but the system starts to run slower and slower and…well, time to reboot.
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So, Dave and I were having a conversation about clustered indexes over lunch yesterday. Yeah, we're this boring. Anyway, I have an issue at work where I have a table that has a horrible clustered index.
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The company I'm currently working for hosts a web application. The application uses various bits of downloadable componentry to perform fie upload and extremely trivial image manipulation that run on the client side.
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Evaluate and comment on the following general statement:
In a well designed database, the clustered index should never be on the primary key.
The point being that the normal use case isn't "I know the primary key and need to find the rest of the columns", but instead "I know data in 3 columns, show me all the records that match so I can find related data using the PK elsewhere in the database".
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This is something all you IIS admins are going to get a kick out of me not knowing already.
The IIS Admin tool has a nifty-looking feature that lets you back up the configuration of a web site, and a tool that will allow you to load that configuration on another server.
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I need a away to effectively search substrings.
The situation: I have a claim number field (consider it to be a random alphanumeric string). My user base was trained that since the claim number field could take wildcards, it's best to put them both before and after your search term, which effectively prevents any use of SQL Server indexes.
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OK, so finally I'm getting the Configuration Management portion of the responsibilities here, which basically means I'm responsible for doing code/DML deployments from our development environment to our test environment to our production environment.
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I use Firefox as my primary web browser on Windows. I have problems on my work computer (not on my gaming computer, or my server, just my work computer) (yes, I have it installed on all three) with the Copy functionality not working.
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Anyone who has seen me present knows I'm a Mac user. I carry around a Powerbook nearly everywhere I go. I'll spare you the details of how and why I started with my Powerbook.
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A few rants, as you'd probably expect.
I got a new computer yesterday, a nice spiffy Shuttle XPC for an Athlon64. I also acquired Windows XP x64 to try it out.
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Microsoft just released SP1 RC1 (hat tip to SlashDot).
Two points here:
How weird is it to get news about Microsoft products from Slashdot? And to get it there first?
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Had a really nasty problem today:
Attempt to fetch logical page (1:181882) in database 'prodNextGen' belongs to object '893596208', not to object 'AssignmentOwner'.
The only time I'd seen that before was when a server had lost power mid-write.
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OK, would it kill them to put some "test" buttons in the application?
As previously mentioned, it doesn't have a test button to test notification emails. Which means you can't be sure if an email is actually going to go until an error occurs.
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Gah.
I spent all day yesterday trying to get MOM to send email.
I set up test rules to watch my local install of SQL Server, and fired over 50 messages into my event log with RAISERROR (by the way, what's with the parenthesis on that command anyway?
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OK, I have this design problem I've not been able to find a good answer for.
Let's say you're tracking customer pricing for a widget. Now, widget prices are volatile, changing weekly or even daily.
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The New York Times is running an article that got a mention on Slashdot about Dell's entry into the print business. The article, found here pretty much relates everything that I hate about Dell and admire in companies like HP.
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Then the design is broken. KBase article If I have a computed column that doesn't rely on arithmetic, why the hell does arithabort have to be on? Because of stupid design.
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I'm trying to store encrypted credit card data in my database. I need to get some of these notes down just in case.
Some basic concepts: Digest Authentication is a process that takes a body of text and turns it into a number.
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After getting the new cluster up and online, and sticking around a day or two to make sure it was working, I took a week and a half off for the holidays and relaxed, which may tend to explain the even-lighter-than-usual blogging.
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Got a brand new pair of Dell/EMC CX200 disk arrays. A total setup fiasco.
OK, a little background here. How to hook up an HP/Compaq fibre channel disk array: Install the FC cards (called Host Bus Adapters, or HBA's).
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