I started this blog about four years ago. But in the last couple of years, the activity in this blog has slowed down. Now it has become inactive. I am quitting this blog.

No, I’m not quitting blogging altogether. This is something I love to do. I felt I needed to start anew.

I am on a new journey towards a goal. I am in pursuit of something I really love.

I want to start a new brand – my own brand. That is why I built a new blog.

I am looking forward to learning and sharing about SQL Server and data in general in the new blog. The blog bears my name; so it  reflects my goals, aspirations, and struggles as a person, professional, and data worker.

I want to become a better data professional. The blog chronicles that journey.

Please check out my first post: “I am looking for change“

It is seldom for small blogs (such as mine) to have a guest post coming from a high profile and well-established writer and author, such as Erik Calonius. Erik is a former writer and editor for Wall Street Journal and writer for Fortune.

The post is about a habit that contributes to the success of Richard Branson, Founder & Chairman of the Virgin Group of Companies.

Maybe you, too, can benefit from this habit.

I want to share this post with you for 2 reasons:

1. This is a habit being practiced by Richard Branson for many years. According to him this is what made him successful.

2. This is a simple habit you can incorporate in your system, regardless of the job description you have. This is a good habit to cultivate.

Read the post here: http://www.productivitybits.com/how-richard-branson-lives-life-by-making-lists

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was viewed about 57,000 times in 2010. If it were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 7 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 25 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 214 posts. There were 23 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 1mb. That’s about 2 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was February 17th with 329 views. The most popular post that day was Find Active Sessions in Oracle Database.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were stackoverflow.com, google.co.in, linkedin.com, google.com, and en.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for ssrs tutorial, oracle active sessions, isolation levels in sql server 2005, tsql cursor, and sql server 2008 triggers.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Find Active Sessions in Oracle Database June 2008
5 comments

How To: SQL Server Trigger 101 June 2008
3 comments

How To: Set Your Oracle 10g Database to ARCHIVELOG Mode August 2008
2 comments

How To: Report Authoring in SSRS 2005 – Part IV (Adding Parameters) May 2009
6 comments

Isolation Levels and Locks in SQL Server 2005 May 2008
1 comment

If you think that SQL Server Connectivity components need to improve, you wouldn’t want to pass up this opportunity to participate in a survey that will have a great impact on the decision of the SQL Server RDBMS Group at Microsoft.

The purpose of these surveys, according to the SQL Server Team Blog, is to “provide the SQL Server Team with an ability to validate some of the requests they have got from developers, users and partners as well as ideas that they have gathered internally as a part of their development process.”

The survey will be available until November 2, 2010 @ 5PM PST. If you’re interested in taking the survey, you can access it here:

http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22BAW29Z8P2

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2) is now available for download. These packages may be used to upgrade any edition of SQL Server 2008. We remain committed to providing our customers with essential changes via Service packs. Service Pack 2 contains updates for SQL Server Utility, Data-Tier Application (DAC), as well as integration capability for Microsoft Reporting Services with the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Technologies. Service Pack 2 introduces support for a maximum of 15,000 partitions in a database, and includes SQL Server 2008 SP1 Cumulative Update 1 to 8.  While keeping product changes contained, we have made significant investments to ease deployment and management of Service Packs. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 is not a prerequisite for installing SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 2.

Release Notes: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/microsoft-sql-server-2008-sp2-release-notes.aspx

Download Page Here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=8fbfc1de-d25e-4790-88b5-7dda1f1d4e17&displaylang=en

As a side note, if you are still on SQL Server 2005 SP2, Service Pack Support for SQL Server 2005 SP2 has ended as of January 12, 2010. More info here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlreleaseservices/archive/2009/10/08/end-of-service-pack-support-for-sql-server-2005-sp2-and-sql-server-2008-rtm.aspx

What would you normally do if you can no longer manage your own tasks? You would defer doing some of them or just totally “say no to them”. Or you would delegate them.

Read my Tips For Effective Delegation and share your insights and experience about delegating your tasks as SQL Server DBA or Developer.

Thanks.

Almost a year ago I decided to take my first ever Microsoft Certification Exam. I did struggle on the study process because I have to juggle between tasks and responsibilities. Time management has always been an issue when it comes to any self-paced training initiative. I purchased videos and books and subscribed to dozens of blogs for my training needs. I have setup my software and hardware at work and home to have the right feel of what I expected to come out in the exam.

SQL Server Study Group Meetups Everywhere!

Working on a self-paced training is fun but not really enjoyable. Although you can find gazillions of resources on the interwebs, lack of human interactions while doing the training is sometimes frustrating. Twitter has been a good ally on that regards. My online tribe is always there whenever I need a shoulder to cry on (ok, not really).

I think that one way to maximize the learning opportunity in self-paced training is to conduct a study group wherein members are positively reinforcing their knowledge among the group, and thereby benefitting everybody in the process.

Here comes the “SQL Server Study Group Meetups”. Who will start the group – YOU. Where will be the meetup – anywhere your group decides it to be. When can we start – NOW! Now is the best time to do it. Take advantage of the Second Shot At Microsoft Exam which expires on June 30, 2010.

Andrew Karcher ( Blog | Twitter ) said it best:

“We have positively impacted the education, knowledge, capabilities of not only our attendees, but also all of their companies and people they might help as well.  That is just staggering and something to be immensely proud of.”

Event Organizers (Left to Right): Marlon Ribunal, Phil Robinson, Andrew Karcher, Thomas Mueller, Ram Yalamanchili, and Bret Stateham

What Happened In SQL Saturday # 44 – Huntington Beach, CA

Andrew Karcher, MVP – Andrew wrote a cool recap of the event. He is the overall lead of the event. We thank him for the good job he has done. He is an experienced (veteran) event organizer here in SoCal that is why he had the upper hand in the overall logistics of the event.

Carlos Bossy – Carlos is one of the speakers at the event. He hopes “our paths cross again in the very near future”. See you at the next SoCal SQL Saturday, Carlos!

GWC Newsroom – We made it to the Golden West College news. It’s good that they’ve included the list of our sponsors. This is a good bird’s eye view of what the event was all about.

After Event Raffle - Prizes: Books, Gift Certificates, iPod, XBox, and iPad!

SQL Saturday #44 Event Sponsors

The real heroes of the event. The event would have never taken place without their support. Big thanks to the following:

• Platinum Sponsors
  • Quest Software – http://www.quest.com
  • My Space – http://www.myspace.com/
• Gold
  • Strategy Companion – http://www.strategycompanion.com
• Silver
  • Fusion-IO – http://www.fusionio.com
• Bronze
  • WestClinTech – http://westclintech.com
  • Professional Association For SQL Server – http://www.sqlpass.org
  • Attunity – http://www.attunity.com
  • Sharepoint 360 – http://www.sharepoint360.com

What’s holding you back from taking Microsoft Certification exams?

The price of these exams are quite within reason so I am sure this is not the biggest factor in your indecision. Let’s face the fact: it’s not the lack of time to study that’s holding you back from taking the exam. It’s the fear of failing and thereby wasting the money paid to take the exam. Well, FEAR NO MORE!

Free Microsoft Certification Exam Voucher

The danger of procrastination is like a deep-seated illness. It doesn’t show its symptoms until it’s already on serious stage. It is really difficult to “cure” procrastination when procrastinating doesn’t reveal itself as procrastination. This is summed up in this YouTube Video:

The Problem:

Here is the report requirement: to send a daily report via email (attached pdf) on weekdays only. All the data processed over the weekend (Friday, Saturday & Sunday) will be included in the Monday report as in the case of a 24/7 service application. Each report is a projection of the previous day’s processed data. So the Monday report will have the collected data from Friday to Sunday.

The Solution:

First, schedule the report to run on certain days, in this case Monday to Friday. I want to run the report at 5AM, before the bosses come in the morning.

Click to enlarge

The real trick about this solution is to set a default date on design time. In this particular situation the report has at least two date variables to capture the day’s processed data – a StartDate and an EndDate.

Since this is a daily  report that contain’s the previous day’s data, StartDate and EndDate will always be the previous date (“yesterday”). In this context the “whole day” is from 12AM to 11:59PM.

We can accomplish our goal by using date functions that are readily available with the SSRS development environment. Based on the logic of the requirement, we will have expressions like these on our date variables:

Click to enlarge

• StartDate
  

  =IIF(DatePart(DateInterval.Weekday, Today()) = 2, DateAdd(DateInterval.Day, -3, Today()), DateAdd(DateInterval.Day, -1, Today()))

• EndDate
  

  =IIF(DatePart(DateInterval.Weekday, Today()) = 2, DateAdd(DateInterval.Day, -1, Today()), DateAdd(DateInterval.Day, -1, Today()))

Basically, the logic we’re testing in the StartDate variable [ DateInterval.Weekday, Today())= 2] is check whether or not today is Monday. If it is, then let’s go back grab the data from Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (-3).  If it’s not Monday, then let’s get yesterday’s data (-1).  Same logic goes with the EndDate variable, which will always have “yesterday” as its value (that is Today()- 1).