A very common task for database developers taking reigns of an existing project is to normalize data. I needed a convenient way to split delimited values into a table for transformation purposes. After finding a wonderful algorithm, I decided to enhance it and transform it to a User-Defined Function in the process. Be aware that the function depends on a Tally table to exist – much like you might have with a Calendar table to join against.
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Sep 222008
Aug 262008
Much to my dismay this morning, I had problems opening a VPN connection home: The connection opened, but wouldn’t retrieve an IP address from the DHCP server… okay, not a problem, I can just manually set an IP and be on my merry way. It would have been that easy if the OpenVPN TAP adapter was displayed in the Network Connections Control Panel.
After some digging, it seems the easiest solution, is to remove the virtual adapter, re-configure the .inf file, then re-add the adapter. So let’s get started:
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Here’s a quick little statement you can use to verify the size and growth settings for a SQL Server database. It doesn’t spell everything out for you, but if you’re aware of some common conventions (-1 = unlimited, 0 = no growth), it’s a fast and easy way to verify settings before issuing your ALTER DATABASE command. The filename is commented out by default, but provided just-in-case.
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Sitting on my couch one night, I noticed that the time on my laptop was about 10 minutes slow compared to every other time source in my house (mobile phone, cable box, etc.)… Since I’m running a domain environment, I knew that most of my OS installations would be syncing to the domain controller, so I was a bit baffled by the prospect that things were not syncing. After a quick RDC to my PDC, I noticed that it was the culprit of the slowed time. First, a quick Google on how to synchronize with an external time source. With that figured out, time to pick out a reliable time source. Now let’s run it:
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Ever needed to round an arbitrary DATETIME to some specified increment (i.e. 5, 10 or 15 minutes)? This function can come in handy for such a task.
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