Happy New Year!

A New Year, New Efforts

Happy New Year!

You're going to be seeing a lot of summaries for 2022 and predictions for 2023 around this time of year. I'm not writing one of those. You'll also see people calling for new years resolutions and the like. I'm not going for that either.

Nope, let's keep it simple. It is a new year. There will be new and interesting challenges and opportunities. Lots of people, in lots of places, will be dealing with lots of things, some we know and some we don't. Because of all this, I'm just asking that we renew our efforts at kindness. People may disagree, but we can still be kind. We may say the wrong thing, or say things the wrong way, so kindness is important for us all. Kindness is nothing more than a way to help lubricate the great machine that is social interaction. Like any machine, without some oil in the right places, stuff can go badly wrong. People are the same.

Where you can, when you can, practice a little kindness. I'll do the same. We may find things just a tad easier if we do.

Grant Fritchey

Join the debate, and respond to the editorial on the forums

AI-assisted coding doesn't just help software deve...

Fueled by artificial intelligence, ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is an AI chatbot that uses advanced natural language processing (NLP) to engage in realistic conversations with humans. ChatGPT can generate...

Our most-read articles about AI explored the development of new business tools, robotic learning methods, and use cases.

How to decide if SQL Server needs more RAM or RAM ...

Several days ago, I worked on a service request that our customer got the following error message: The mail could not be sent to the recipients because of the mail...

Today, I worked on a service request that our customer got the following error message using Java code: Exception in thread "main" com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerException: The TCP/IP connection to the host servername.database.windows.net,...

Ever wonder how fast people are adopting new versions of SQL Server, or what’s “normal” out there for SQL Server adoption rates, hardware sizes, or numbers of databases? Let’s...

Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) are two important concepts in disaster recovery planning. Recovery Point Objective (RPO)…… is the maximum amount of data that you...

In SQL Server, log backups are copies of the transaction log that can be used to restore the database to a specific point in time. The transaction log contains...

I’ve been busy defining objects in my Unity Cata...

With SQL Server, you’ll find that, quite often, when dealing with strings, you’re almost stuck using the like operator to check if items are “like” another string. I don’t...

In this article, we look at how to create transactions when using Snowflake along with several commands specific to working with transactions.

Today, I worked on a service request that our customer is looking for all blocking issues that is happening in their database. We have many articles about it Lesson Learned...

Reading Time: 3 minutes In this post I want to cover where you can find Azure Data Factory objects in Synapse Studio. I want to do this post...

IT employment numbers continue to be bullish, although there are fears that more rate hikes would affect future tech hiring.

Employee departures continue to plague the workforce, according to a survey of U.S. hiring managers, but there are steps organizations can take to help retain IT staff.

It’s been almost 6 months since Deborah, Hemantgiri and Michael joined the Azure Data Community Council. According to Michael, the role of the council is as advertised: hands-off with the...

I’m heading back to VS Live in March 2023 for the Las Vegas show. This time it’s at Planet Hollywood, which is a hotel I’ve never visited. I’m excited... The...

I’m doing another webinar on Jan 18, 2023 with the SQL Solutions Group. You can register here and reserve a spot. Scott Klein and I did a webinar last... The...

ITPro Today's most-read articles about compliance ...

As businesses plan for data democratization, it i...

Despite ongoing economic uncertainty, we know that 2023 will require us to do more with the data we have, protect it better, and find new ways to uncover insights...

In this article, we are going to explore core open-source tools that are needed for any company to become data-driven. We’ll cover integration, transformation, orchestration, analytics, and machine learning...

Despite its benefits, shifting left can actually m...

Security Operations (SecOps) refers to a joint eff...

DevOps isn't difficult to implement for small and medium-scale projects, and simple things like managing version control in a code repository can save hours of lost time. Organization who...

In this article, we look at a comparison of how to perform ETL tasks in an Oracle environment using ODI versus a SQL Server environment using SSIS.

RAID 0 and RAID 1 are two of the standard...

The Raspberry Pi Pico is a low cost and fun way to...

TL;DR: My home firewall/router is slow, please hel...

Samples of Loongson's 32-core processors coming in 1H 2023.

The Inland TN436 is a specialized SSD, a retail option produced in the 2230 form factor for devices like the Steam Deck and Surface but workable in many PCs....

If you're installing a new graphics card, you need to remove every trace of the old drivers.

Here we are, at the end of another year, to see what happened in the DAX world. New DAX functions in 2022 Microsoft released eight new DAX functions: NETWORKDAYS:...

This is the second installment in our two-part series on DAX window functions announced in the December 2022 release of Power BI Desktop. I will first answer the questions that I had received from the community about topics covered in the first article, and then go into more technical details about the implementations of these functions to help advanced users understand the performance characteristics of these functions when working with large volumes of data.

ERROR: Raises a user specified error. https://dax.guide/error/

The many-to-many cardinality relationship in DAX is not what a many-to-many relationship is for the rest of the world…

This article will explain the difference between S...

Yesterday, we received a question from our customer that needs to know if it is possible to receive an email or alert about the main database wait stats usage...

+OK

Every year, on the anniversary of the first-ever post on this blog, I write a post reflecting on what has happened to me professionally in the past year or...

2 weeks ago I talked about A No-Code Method to Refresh One Table From a Power BI Dataset in the Service. I recently ran into an error using this method, so I thought it was worth sharing this error, and the solution , with you.

In this article, we look at how to build a box and whisker plot chart using Power BI Desktop with a step-by-step walkthrough.

Reading Time: 4 minutes In this post I want to share some advice if Microsoft certifications are your New Years resolution. Before I go any further I want...

Digital transformation initiatives are challenging...

Learn about exception handling in Python and how t...

The mapBliss package is a R package which I developed which allows for users to make custom souvenir quality maps of their flights, road trips and favorite cities by utilizing the power of the leaflet and other R packages (for a full list, see the Github README here).

Last August, LastPass reported a security breach, ...

This is one way of ensuring that IT keeps up with ...

The unfettered collaboration of the GitHub model c...

2022 was a year of unrest in the cybersecurity world. Here are three major trends that influenced security strategies.

According to the FBI and Internet Crime Complaint Center, 25% of ransomware complaints involve healthcare providers.

An enterprising individual made fake parking tickets with a QR code for easy payment.

Today, I worked on a service request that our cust...

Although API management is primarily the domain of developers, ITOps teams also have an important role to play in managing APIs.

ITPro Today's most-read articles on programming languages in 2022 explored Python's popularity and why COBOL is still in demand, as well as updates on other major languages.

The SQL HAVING clause is used in conjunction with the GROUP BY clause to filter the results of a query based on the group by clause. The HAVING clause...

SQL Server windowing functions are a powerful and versatile set of tools that allow you to perform complex calculations and operations on a set of rows within a query....

This article briefly explains the SQL group by clause, when it should be used, and what we should consider when using it. Side Note: All code examples in this...

On a recent cool, sunny morning, Meg Caley could b...

We got a solar system in 2022 to try and fix some ...

Technical debt is a killer - especially for Southw...

A new model of where and how to work is emerging and it hinges on learning from past mistakes.

Our most-read software development stories cover new tools and strategies to help developers overcome challenges that are leading to burnout and turnover.

Southwest's meltdown is rooted in outdated technology that analysts and its unions have warned about for years. It serves as a warning to organizations that are slow modernize systems.

Our most-read articles about Windows highlight a variety of the operating system’s features and processes.

The storage and backup market underwent changes shaped by security concerns, economic uncertainty, and the broad adoption of containers.