The life of an application config from the registry to SQLite to SQL CE to XML

A new beta of ShutOff 2000 v3.0.0 is now available. The product is fast approaching code completion. The Visual Basic 6 edition of the application has always used the Windows Registry to store its settings. However, Microsoft’s best practice for the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 platform does not allow for this, soContinue reading The life of an application config from the registry to SQLite to SQL CE to XML

On the importance of good backups

I’ve been vocal for some years about the importance of backups, and I have zero sympathy for anyone who does not have good backups*. This comes with (very) painful experience: a few years ago, during the migration of data from several drives to my new computer at the time, I lost the drive everything wasContinue reading On the importance of good backups

Bug in git svn clone, failing at r1000

There’s an interesting bug I ran across tonight while converting a large SVN repository (containing over 4100 revisions and 52 400 objects) to Git, using git svn clone. The clone failed at r1000 and left me with an incomplete repository. I did some searching and came across several articles on StackOverflow. The one that isContinue reading Bug in git svn clone, failing at r1000

Adventures in @BlobEater, sp_WhoIsActive and DBCC CHECKDB

The latest version of sp_WhoIsActive (and apparently last for SQL Server 2005/2008, according to Adam Machanic), was released a week ago. Yesterday, out of curiosity piqued by my recent three-week SQLskills training, I decided to run sp_WhoIsActive while doing a DBCC CHECKDB on a moderately large database (mainly because it takes longer, so it’s easierContinue reading Adventures in @BlobEater, sp_WhoIsActive and DBCC CHECKDB

Remove duplicate indexes in SQL Server 2000

With permission from Kimberly Tripp, the creator of the fantastic duplicate index finder for SQL Server 2005 and 2008, I have ported this duplicate index finder to SQL Server 2000. I am fortunate in many respects, in that SQL Server 2000 does not support included columns, nor disabled indexes, so the scripts themselves were straightforward.Continue reading Remove duplicate indexes in SQL Server 2000