All PowerShell Versions You probably have heard about shortening long URLs. There are plenty of free services available. Here is a script that turns...
Creating TinyURLs
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database-tools
Mission Impossible? Effective Database Backup Strategies
Mission Impossible? Effective Database Backup Strategies Organizations use multiple strategies when working with backups. An effective restore...
Enterprise Data Confusion – Did We Bring This Onto Ourselves? – authored by David Loshin, Knowledge Integrity, Inc.
This is the first in a series of six posts from David Loshin. Read his next post. A few years back, I had the opportunity to work with...
Finding PowerShell Functions
PowerShell 3.0 and later To quickly scan your PowerShell script repository and find all files that have a given function in them, try this filter:...
SQL Syntax in Rapid SQL by Dan Hotka
Abstract: Guest blog post from Dan Hotka, Oracle ACE Hi! Wouldn’t it be handy to have some Oracle documentation such as SQL syntax right at your...
Dumping Service State Information
All PowerShell Versions If you would like to save the results of a PowerShell command to disk so that you can take it with you to another machine,...
3 Leadership Tips defining Success
Every individual has their own set of leaders they look up to in their daily life. I am sure each and every one reading this blog post has a number...
Comparing Service Configuration
PowerShell 3 and later Provided you have PowerShell remoting up and running on two servers, here is a simple script that illustrates how you can get...
Download PowerShell Language Specification
All PowerShell Versions With PowerShell, it is really easy to download files from the Internet. Here is the code that downloads the PowerShell...
Waiting for a Keystroke
All PowerShell versions, PowerShell Console only To keep the PowerShell console open when a script is done, you may want to add a “Press Any...
Finding Errors in Scripts
All PowerShell Versions It’s never been easier to find scripts with syntax errors in them. Just use this filter: filter Test-SyntaxError {...
Testing Whether Text Contains Upper Case
All PowerShell Versions Use regular expressions to check whether a string contains at least one upper case letter: $text1 = 'this is all...
Getting the Number of Lines in a String
All PowerShell Versions Here is a clever trick how to find out how many lines a string (not a string array!) contains: $text = @' This is some...
SQL diagnostic manager Secrets: When is a report more than a report?
SQL diagnostic manager provides many different views of the data it collects. This lets you explore all available data when diagnosing tricky...
Preparing for Data Centric Interviews by Pinal Dave
These days the fundamentals of taking an interview have not changed much. The more experienced you are, the greater the likelihood of getting into...
Performance Improvements with SQL Server 2014
Whenever there is new model of any vehicle launched in the market, it is expected it should have some enhancements or new features which would make...
Rapid SQL Code Templates by Dan Hotka
This is part of a series of guest posts by Dan Hotka. Hi! This week I want to show how Rapid SQL can improve your coding productivity and technique...
What Are SQL Elements Health Checks?
I have recently received a number of questions regarding Health Checks in SQL Elements, what are they, how often do they run, and what do I do with...
Discarding Results
All PowerShell Versions Since PowerShell returns anything that commands leave behind, it is particularly important in PowerShell scripts to discard...
Optional and Mandatory at the Same Time
All PowerShell Versions Can parameters be optional and mandatory at the same time? They can, based on context. A parameter can be mandatory when...
Server Change Over
I am looking to upgrade my up.time server from a virtual Windows Server 2008 R2 running mysql to a physical Windows Server 2012 R2 running sql...
Important Math Functions
All PowerShell Versions Here are the four most important Math functions needed by administration scripts: [Math]::Floor(4.9) [Math]::Ceiling(3.2)...
Useful Path Manipulation Shortcuts
All PowerShell Versions Here are a bunch of useful (and simple to use) system functions for dealing with file paths:...
Finding Minimum and Maximum Values
All PowerShell Versions To find the smallest and largest item in a range of numbers, use Measure-Object: $list = 1,4,3,1,3,12,990 $result = $list |...