Waddies.com Link Exchange Directory

No websites in this category, yet!

---

Technical Guides Related Articles

SQL Server 2008 is Out! - Microsoft has released SQL Server 2008, all editions! Brian Randell, reporting from TechEd South Africa this week, seems to have been the first to get the word out beyond Microsoft.It's available on MSDN right now. No idea when it will be on the shelves.Don...

Sun Acquires MySQL - Wow. I didn’t see this coming, but Sun Microsystems has acquired MySQL. That blog post pretty much says it, about trying to figure out what this means. I think overall it is a good thing, particularly since the open source version of MySQL is more likely to flourish under Sun than other potential buyers, notably Microsoft. But I wonder what it means for enterprise users? Gut reaction: seems like a good fit. Best of luck to both companies, their employees, and users! Kudos to Patricia Baer for tipping me off before I heard about it from the regular sources!...

Second Chance League Charity eBay Auction - Please pardon this slightly commercial message, but the auction is a benefit for the Second Chance League, a sleddog rescue organization here in Fairbanks, Alaska. (I’m currently president of SCL, but we have a lot of very talented and enthusiastic volunteers who work with dogs.) Midnight Mushing has donated 2 beautiful anoraks to SCL for a fundraiser. The first one is now on eBay to be auctioned off. This anorak is a "2nd" but only because it has a very slight stain (that we could barely make out!!) on the back. Becky of Midnight Mushing apparel is a perfectionist and her clothing is beyond wonderful. This anorak is not only functional but super nice looking. The workmanship is beautiful and these anoraks will last a lif...

SQL Server 2005 September BOL Refresh Available - The September 2007 update for SQL Server 2005’s Books Online (BOL) is finally available for download. The update has been available online since, well, September but this time it took the UE group forever to make the download available. Because of “technical issues,” whatever they might be. Anyway, go grab it*. An updated BOL is one of your more valuable SQL Server resources. * No guarantees the link will work forever, or even for very long. But Google always knows. Update: BOL is now part of Microsof Update! How long has that been? Forever, and I just noticed it? Either way, cool!...

PDC Returns to L.A., October 2008 - Microsoft has just announced that PDC (Professional Developers Conference) will be back 27–30 October 2008 in Los Angeles. That’s good. But it will be interesting to see how they uniquely position PDC versus TechEd*, now that TechEd has been separated into separate developer and IT weeks in Orlando. * Interesting link for TechEd: http://www.microsoft.com/events/teched2007/default.mspx. The link says 2007, but at the moment it it is about TechEd 2008....

Is Vista Not Ready for Laptops? - I attended a lot of sessions at DevTeach in Vancouver last week. It’s one of my favorite conferences because it is relatively small and therefore intimate, yet it attracts some amazing speakers, including some fine speakers from Microsoft. Unlike some conferences, all speakers deliver their sessions from their own laptops instead of from a desktop machine provided by the conference. Not surprisingly, most speakers are running Vista since it is Microsoft’s latest and greatest client OS. But it struck me at how many problems speakers were having with Vista. I’m not sure I attended a single session where some problem didn’t arise (but maybe I’ve blanked the good experiences out of my memory). One speaker couldn’t get the projector to work with Vista without technical help from the A/V support staff, then the magnifier was so small as to be worthless, making it hard to see important stuff. Many mach...

Another Reason to Attend DevTeach - DevTeach is one of the very fun conferences I speak at regularly, based in Canada. It is small, intimate, attracks some great speakers, and has support from Microsoft. There has long been plenty of good reasons to attend, as indicated by its motto, training you just can’t get any other way. But now there is another reason: Beer! I’m blown away, but during the afternoon break they set out beer. And none of the 3% stuff either, this is 5%. So it should be an interesting afternoon of sessions. Thank heavens I did my only session today right after lunch and before the alcohol flowed! Beer and SQL Server encryption just don’t mix. Now, if I only liked beer…. Oh well....

Is SQL Server 2005's Surface Area Configuration Tool Cluster Aware? - At SQL Server Magazine Connections at DevConnections in Las Vegas last week, I had the opportunity to geek out on SQL Server security for a full day at the end of the conference. Attendance was great and I hope that everyone left with a solid foundation of understanding of SQL Server security. One question that came up was about the Surface Area Configuration utility that ships with SQL Server 2005. The question was whether SAC is cluster-aware. At the time I was showing the command-line version of the tool, but it really applies to both that and the GUI tool. Showing my developer bias, I didn’t know the answer but promised that I’d find out. The answer is that yes, it is cluster aware, at least to the extent that you can configure remote computers with it. In the GUI version of the tool, use the Change Computer link on the opening pa...

DebuggerTypeProxy Proxy Class is Compiled into Release Build - I recently did a session about debugging ASP.NET applications at the Victoria .NET Developers Association in Victorial, B.C. It was a fun meeting, and as an Alaskan from Fairbanks I always feel a special bond with my Canadian peers down south! I also had the opportunity to meet Ken Cox, who I’ve long known through Visual Studio Magazine but had never met. He and I have written the majority of the First Looks reviews in the magazine for years. I’ve always thought that he got the coolest products to review, and now I know that he has thought the same thing about me! Ken asked an interesting question during the session, one that I had never explored. I was showing the DebuggerTypeProxyAttribute attribute, which lets you substitute an entirely different class for display in Visual Studio 2005’s Locals window (as well...

World's Simplest Recursive CTE? - At SQL PASS this year, I did a session about Common Table Expressions in SQL Server 2005. I had endeavored to come up with an extremely simple recursive CTE, but wasn’t creative enough at the time. But I revisited the problem in preparation for an updated CTE session at DevConnections this week, and came up with this: WITH SimpleCTE(Number) AS(     SELECT 1     UNION ALL     SELECT * FROM SimpleCTE WHERE 0=1...

SQL Injection and Motherhood - Okay, this is just too funny! From XKCD, a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language....

Fall Comes to Fairbanks - Fall hasn’t just come to Fairbanks, Fall is almost over. Tonight we should get the first frost here in the hills outside town. It’s been a wet, rainy day, so the dog yard is pretty muddy. Snow level is supposed to be about 2,000 feet, still well above us. Carol and I spent a lot of time this summer building two free-run pens on either side of our main dog yard. We’re gradually building up the number of dogs in each, with the goal that ultimately everyone will be loose, at least when we’re home. (Since I work at home, it is relatively few hours each week that we’re both gone.) I took the picture above from the newest pen, and the photo looks from it through the dog yard and beyond into the other free-run pen. You can just see Crowe’s head at the bottom, with Irish looking toward me. Misty is the white dog looking from the dog yard, a...

Share with Family and Friends: SecurityCartoon.com - There’s a cool new cartoon series that deals with security for end users, SecurityCartoon.com. It’s sometimes silly, but it gives good explanations of email, phishing, and general malware for non-tenchical people. It comes from Drs. Sukamol Srikwan & Markus Jakobsson of the computer science department of Indiana University. Based on their bios, they have some pretty solid security credentials. Check it out, then share with family and friends!...

HTML 5 Working Group - Wow. I just joined the World Wide Web Consortium’s HTML 5 Working Group as an “Invited Expert.” I had no idea that mere mortals could partake, particularly without being a member of a W3C member organization. Should be interesting, but I have no idea what I’m in for. All I know so far is that all of a sudden far more emails are making their way through my inbox. You can see the current state of the spec here. Definitely a work in progress, one that won’t be finished for a couple of years....

Geeking Out on SQL Server 2005 Security at DevConnections - I just found out that I’ll be doing a full day, post-conference session on SQL Server 2005 security at SQL Server Magazine Connections at DevConnections in Las Vegas this November. I’m excited beyond words! I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, and we’re going to geek out on keeping data safe from villans. Here’s the draft description: There are few corporate assets as valuable in the information age as data. Enterprises spend billions to collect and generate it, slice and dice it in every conceivable way to mine marketplace intelligence from it, and replicate and back it up using elaborate, redundant schemes. Yet it is all too common to slack on security. Sure, SQL Server 2005 is designed to be "secure by default," but once you add databases and start letting users and their applications access the server you have already poked holes in the security. SQL Server comes with ...

Resumes for Techies - Tips, Ticks and Samples - We all need occasional resume tips - it's always handy to keep your resume up to date! One of the most common questions I get from job seekers is - ...

Microsoft Certifications Guide - Microsoft certifications are in demand with employers. Several of the highest paying certifications are Microsoft Certifications, which tells you that its a skill set employers are looking for. Microsoft offers ...

Jerry Yang Stepping Down as Yahoo CEO - Jerry Yang has announced that he will be stepping down from the CEO role at Yahoo! as soon as his replacement is identified. The news of Yang's imminent departure has ...

Resume Objective - Your resume objective is the first thing a decision maker sees on your resume after your contact information. Make sure this first impression is a strong one by customizing your ...

How Do I Write a Resume? - It's one of the most common questions in job searching - how do I write a resume? What do I put on there, and what should I leave off? This ...

Cover Letter Writing - I get a lot of resumes (via email) with no cover letter. The resumes I do get with a nice cover letter allow me to focus in more on how ...

Find a Green Job - As the green tech and clean tech niches continue to grow, many techies are increasingly interested in finding a "green" job. There are some great resources popping up to help ...

Email Etiquette - Once again, it's time for my quarterly reminder about email etiquette. In the absence of face to face or telephone communication, the emails you send form the basis of how ...

Cloud Computing Conference and Expo - Interested in learning more about cloud computing? There are 2 cloud computing conferences that are coming up. One is located in San Jose, CA November 19-21, 2008 and the other ...

The Highest Paying Certifications - If you are wondering which certifications make the most sense to invest your time and energy in, then you must check out the Highest Paying Certifications list. Based on 2007 ...