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25 August 2011
An annoying problem with Nulls
I just lost half an hour of my life which I'll never get back on this. Don't make the same mistake. I extracted some customer details for a mailing (it's OK, they ticked the box that they want to hear about our special offers) but Marketing complained that some of the address data contained... Read More...
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08 December 2010
I love it when a plan comes together
I'm currently working on an application so that our Marketing department can produce most of their own mailing lists without my having to get involved. It was all going well until I got stuck on the bit where the actual SQL query is generated but a rummage in Books Online revealed a very clean solution... Read More...
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09 September 2010
How to re-order report parameters
I added a parameter to a report today, which put it the end of the list the user fills in before running the report. I wanted to move it higher up the list but they are presented in a tree structure. You can edit each parameter but there's no sign of dialogue that lists them (where you might be able... Read More...
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18 May 2010
Unused Indexes Gotcha
I'm currently looking into dropping unused indexes to reduce unnecessary overhead and I came across a very good point in the excellent SQL Server MVP Deep Dives book that I haven't seen highlighted anywhere else. I was thinking it was simply a case of dropping indexes that didn't show as... Read More...
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09 April 2010
Copying logins to another server
I'm busy setting up a new server to replace our main live server and part of that is to get the logins copied over. The database users will come over when I restore the databases but I wanted to get the logins they relate to, with the same SIDs, passwords and other properties as they have on the... Read More...
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18 March 2010
Have you really fixed that problem?
The day before yesterday I saw our main live server's CPU go up to constantly 100% with just the occasional short drop to a lower level. The exact opposite of what you'd want to see. We're log shipping every 15 minutes and part of that involves calling WinRAR to compress the log backups before... Read More...
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09 March 2010
Finding rows that intersect with a date period
This one is mainly a personal reminder but I hope it helps somebody else too. Let's say you have a table that covers something like currency exchange rates with columns for the start and end dates of the period each rate was applicable. Now you need to list the rates that applied during the year... Read More...
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11 December 2009
Does this folder exist?
Today I tripped over a problem that was new to me. I wanted to find out, in SQL, whether a folder existed in the file system. I knew about using xp_fileexist to check for existence of a file but what about a folder? Well, it doesn't work on a folder name and there's no sign of xp_folderexist... Read More...
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28 November 2009
A better way to arrange your query windows
The developers of Management Studio and, before that, Query Analyzer have made a bit of a habit of building killer features and then hiding them in the small print of Books Online. Now you may already know that SQL 2000 introduced a new way to arrange your query and result windows, but I only just found... Read More...
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02 November 2009
Report Manager folder & file security
Just found the answer to something that has been irritating me slightly for ages: how to give a user access to a report without giving them access to all the other reports in the folder. We have folders that are based on the roles people perform in the company. We granted the appropriate domain groups... Read More...
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