In the last couple of years I have conducted a lot of interviews for application and database developers for my company, and I can tell you that the little things can mean a lot.
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In my current position as Software Engineering Manager I have been through a lot of ups and downs with staffing, ranging from laying-off everyone who was on my team as we went through the great economic downturn in 2007-2008, to numerous rounds of interviewing and hiring contractors, full-time employees, and converting some contractors to employee status.
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Boy, how time flies! I can hardly believe that the 2011 PASS Summit is just one week away. Maybe it snuck up on me because it’s a few weeks earlier than last year.
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Everything worked fine for the last six years…and then today we hit the tipping point. I lost many hours today due to the misuse of DISTINCT which was the root cause of timeout errors in our web application.
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A lot of job candidates out there are wondering how they can set themselves apart from the crowd and increase the odds of landing the job they want. Well here’s a really easy way…
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Today I had to find a way to regain SysAdmin access to an instance of SQL Server when I technically had no permissions. Here is how I did that.
Every developer on my team is setup to be able to work 100% stand-alone.
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After struggling to defend my SQL Servers from a political attack recently, I realized that I needed better tools to back me up, and SQL Sentry is the leading candidate.
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Seth Godin has some wise words for all bloggers to keep in mind in his recent post When a Stranger Reads Your Blog.
Legacy Comments
Vampal
2010-05-06
re: Godin on First Impressions -_- the butterfly effects
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Note to Self HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Jet\4.0\Engines\Excel: TypeGuessRows = 0 means scan everything.
Note to Others About 10 years ago I stumbled across this bit of information just when I needed it and it saved my project.
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Happy to announce the arrival of Benjamin Micah Caldwell. Mother and baby are both doing well. Big sister thinks he’s just another baby doll for her to play with. Sleep is at a premium, but everyone is adapting well.
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Last night at the Exhibitor Reception at the Summit, Lance Harra said to me, “I thought you gave up on Twitter.” That was in response to seeing my Twitter ID on my name badge.
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This is one of those things that you probably know, but have not run into it lately. That was the case for me recently as I was troubleshooting an issue in someone else's code, and spent several hours on it before stumbling across this cause.
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A few months ago, I announced that I was going to do a test-run with Twitter. So now I thought I'd share a few thoughts. Probably the most telling bit of evidence that shows how my test of Twitter went, is that I haven't posted anything to my Twitter account since December 5th, a whopping 3 weeks after I started, and two and a half months ago.
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Since we're all super-geniuses, I'm sure you don't really need this, but you might "know a guy" who does, and you can pass this along... I stumbled upon some really good, short videos on the Marketplace Whiteboard that explain in layman's terms what the heck has been going on in the U.
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If it's good enough for Joe... I just setup my own Twitter account to give this a test run. Looks like a good option for quick comments from the PASS conference that may later lead to broader blog entries.
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You know... that "handy" keyword that eliminates duplicates from your result set. Yeah, that DISTINCT. I Hate it! My team thought I was crazy (maybe I am, but this is not proof of it).
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Now that I have had the "pleasure" of filtering through numerous resumes looking to hire someone, my thoughts on certifications has evolved a little... Or it's probably more accurate to say that they have been solidified.
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I got this question in email a while ago, and it seems to come up quite a bit, which frankly surprises me. I guess it's because I almost never* write an application where I need to retrieve the 10th (or whatever number) record.
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UPDATE: Removed bad link and added some commentary.
OK, Damian, I get it now. For those of you who weren't in the conversation, Damian (a.k.a. Merkin) was giving me a bad time about being a laggard in regard to Windows Live Writer.
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I know, we're already a few weeks into the new year, but I have been so busy with work and life stuff that I haven't been out here in a while, and it sounded like a good start.
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