Programmer's Edge

SQL Server 2008 Cluster on Windows 2008 R2

During installation of a SQL Server 2008 cluster on Windows 2008 R2, I ran into an installation problem. The process would go through the installation until the very end and then throw an error such as this. > The following error has occurred: There was an error setting private property

Presentations from this Week’s Events!

I have decided to consolidate the presentations from all the events this week in a single post. That way it makes it easier for me and you to get what you need. Thanks to everyone whom attended. Looks like we got great feedback. Sorry to everyone that attended my events

2nd Annual Back to School with Microsoft & Oracle Event

* I am reposting this to let everyone know that they need to sign up now for the 2nd Annual Back to School event that we are holding September 15th,2009 in Indianapolis. Attendance is already above 100 people so book your space now. We have even had people from as

Powershell Tip:Capturing Your Session Output

Continuing on my journey of quick Powershell tip blog posts, another option that you normally want with your script files is an easy way in which to capture your session information so that you can have a log of all of your commands and outputs. Luckily, Powershell makes this fairly

Powershell Tip: Formatting a String with Format

One of the more useful tips that you will use almost everyday within your Powershell development experience will deal with data formatting. Powershell provides you with a Format function that for those of you familiar with data formatting  using String.Format will feel right at home. The syntax is basically

Microsoft TechNet Scripting Center

Here is a great resource for those people looking for tools and hints concerning everything related to scripting. This TechNet site has everything from vbscript to PowerShell along with a wide array of tools and advice to get you through those sticky situations. Microsoft TechNet Script Center [http://technet.microsoft.

Log Parser

A colleague of mine asked me if I had a tool that would easily read in and parse a deadlock log file. The Log Parser utility from Microsoft easily accesses text based data in various formats(e.g. XML,Log Files, and Event Logs). You can download the Log Parser

SQLBits Goes West – Session Submissions

Just this Monday they have opened up the session submissions for the next installment of SQLBits. For those of you you don’t know, SQLBits is the largest SQL Server event that I know of in the UK for several year running now. I believe they are on number 5

Using INFORMATION_SCHEMA to Get Column Information

A commonly asked question that I field is when working with CRM or another 3rd party database what is the most efficient way in order to find out column information on a specific table using only T-SQL. This practice is often important if you are writing your own stored procedures

SSIS: Reading and Writing to Variables in Script Task

A lot of people still consistently ask me about how to read and write to variables in the SSIS script task. In this post I will demonstrate for you the two ways in which you can go about this, one from native SSIS functionality and the other from code. In

More SQL Injection Attacks

There is another wave of  SQL Injection attacks underway by an older botnet, Asprox. In the link below Trend Labs outlines the history of this piece of code http://blog.trendmicro.com/yamsia-yet-another-massive-sql-injection-attack/ Further, SSWUG.org [http://www.sswug.org/editorials/default.aspx?id=1716] is giving some tips on

SQL Server 2008 Maintenance Plan Errors When Changing Server Name

I recently ran into a bug issue here recently when I had to update a server name on a database box running SQL Server 2008. I updated the server name and then set SQL Server to run under the new name as well and restarted the system. The strange thing

Dynamics CRM 4.0: Email Router Timeout Errors when using Exchange 2007

During a recent Exchange server move I ran into some issues with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Email Router throwing up errors #26090 – An error occurred while opening mailbox crmadminuser@mydomain.com. System.Net.WebException: The operation has timed out at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetRequestStream() at Microsoft.Crm.Tools.Email.Providers.

Error Message from CLR assembly on SQL Server 2005 Restored Database

Okay,  you may run into the situation where you restore a database from Server A onto Server B and the database contains CLR assemblies. When you try to execute a given CLR assembly it blows an error similar to the one below. Msg 10314, Level 16, State 11, Line 2

Restoring Databases for Database Mirroring

In a follow-up to my previous post about using the system tables to find out information about your backups we look at how to script out restores of a large number of databases for database mirroring on a SQL Server 2008 instance. Actually, this could be used in a lot

Getting Backup File Information on SQL Server 2005/SQL Server 2008

In a lot of instances, you may be doing something like database mirroring or a migration job that involves a lot of databases and possibly a lot of backup files, especially transaction log backups. It’s a real pain if you have to restore these files by hand. It would

SQL Server 2008 Setting Up Database Mirroring with T-SQL

Database mirroring is normally one of those subjects that everyone thinks is a really cool idea but think that it is a complicated process to implement without the usage of SSMS wizards. Who can blame you, database mirroring is the low cost,readily available high availability solution. How can a

Auto_Update_Statistics

It’s not very often that I feel that Microsoft needs to be beat about the head and shoulders a little about something, but there needs to be a warning label that pops up when going through the properties screen for your databases for the Auto_Update_Statistics option….maybe

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Developer Toolkit

I have recently had the opportunity of flexing my Dynamics CRM development muscles a little more in the office here. I have been working with Microsoft Dynamics’s various ‘flavors’ since about 2004 and have watched the product line evolve into a first-class product. So I am constantly looking for

Using Windows Live Writer

I have decided to change up a little bit and begin giving Windows Live Writer a try for a while instead of BlogJet. BlogJet was running fine but it seems like Live Writer has really caught on and has quite a bit add-ons that are being developed. It seems fairly

Things You Know Now

I had been tagged a while ago by a John Magnabosco here [http://www.simple-talk.com/community/blogs/johnm/archive/2009/02/18/72064.aspx] and Jimmy May here [http://blogs.msdn.com/jimmymay/archive/2009/03/13/things-you-know-now.aspx]to present some bits of wisdom to the n00bs entering

Handy Tool for BIDS

Here is a handy tool that has been around for a little while that I am still surprised that more people don’t know about. It BIDS Helper and is available on Codeplex. It has a wide array of handy dandy add-ins that make things a whole lot easier to

Ft.Wayne PASS Presentation: SSIS

Better late than never. Here are the slides for the Ft. Wayne PASS group presentation on Building ETL Processes with SQL Server Integration Services(SSIS). It is definitely a hot topic of interest in a lot of the SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 presentations that I give as

Pensacola SQL Saturday

Had a great time over the weekend presenting at the Pensacola SQL Saturday event. Thanks need to be extended to Karla Kay for helping to put together an awesome event. I am already planning on coming down for next year! For those that did and did not attend my sessions.

Cuil is Pretty Cool

Well, I have got to admit that I have neglected looking into other search engines for some time. You would think with my background in neural networks and such that I would naturally be a nut about search engines. Sorry, my time is tight enough with all of my consulting