Verbatim from Red Gate’s Flyer:

It is seldom for small blogs (such as mine) to have a guest post coming from a high profile and well-established writer and author, such as Erik Calonius. Erik is a former writer and editor for Wall Street Journal and writer for Fortune.

The post is about a habit that contributes to the success of Richard Branson, Founder & Chairman of the Virgin Group of Companies.

Maybe you, too, can benefit from this habit.

I want to share this post with you for 2 reasons:

1. This is a habit being practiced by Richard Branson for many years. According to him this is what made him successful.

2. This is a simple habit you can incorporate in your system, regardless of the job description you have. This is a good habit to cultivate.

Read the post here: http://www.productivitybits.com/how-richard-branson-lives-life-by-making-lists

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was viewed about 57,000 times in 2010. If it were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 7 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 25 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 214 posts. There were 23 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 1mb. That’s about 2 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was February 17th with 329 views. The most popular post that day was Find Active Sessions in Oracle Database.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were stackoverflow.com, google.co.in, linkedin.com, google.com, and en.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for ssrs tutorial, oracle active sessions, isolation levels in sql server 2005, tsql cursor, and sql server 2008 triggers.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Find Active Sessions in Oracle Database June 2008
5 comments

How To: SQL Server Trigger 101 June 2008
3 comments

How To: Set Your Oracle 10g Database to ARCHIVELOG Mode August 2008
2 comments

How To: Report Authoring in SSRS 2005 – Part IV (Adding Parameters) May 2009
6 comments

Isolation Levels and Locks in SQL Server 2005 May 2008
1 comment

If you think that SQL Server Connectivity components need to improve, you wouldn’t want to pass up this opportunity to participate in a survey that will have a great impact on the decision of the SQL Server RDBMS Group at Microsoft.

The purpose of these surveys, according to the SQL Server Team Blog, is to “provide the SQL Server Team with an ability to validate some of the requests they have got from developers, users and partners as well as ideas that they have gathered internally as a part of their development process.”

The survey will be available until November 2, 2010 @ 5PM PST. If you’re interested in taking the survey, you can access it here:

http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22BAW29Z8P2

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2) is now available for download. These packages may be used to upgrade any edition of SQL Server 2008. We remain committed to providing our customers with essential changes via Service packs. Service Pack 2 contains updates for SQL Server Utility, Data-Tier Application (DAC), as well as integration capability for Microsoft Reporting Services with the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Technologies. Service Pack 2 introduces support for a maximum of 15,000 partitions in a database, and includes SQL Server 2008 SP1 Cumulative Update 1 to 8.  While keeping product changes contained, we have made significant investments to ease deployment and management of Service Packs. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 is not a prerequisite for installing SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 2.

Release Notes: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/microsoft-sql-server-2008-sp2-release-notes.aspx

Download Page Here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=8fbfc1de-d25e-4790-88b5-7dda1f1d4e17&displaylang=en

As a side note, if you are still on SQL Server 2005 SP2, Service Pack Support for SQL Server 2005 SP2 has ended as of January 12, 2010. More info here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlreleaseservices/archive/2009/10/08/end-of-service-pack-support-for-sql-server-2005-sp2-and-sql-server-2008-rtm.aspx

What would you normally do if you can no longer manage your own tasks? You would defer doing some of them or just totally “say no to them”. Or you would delegate them.

Read my Tips For Effective Delegation and share your insights and experience about delegating your tasks as SQL Server DBA or Developer.

Thanks.

“SQL Server DMV Starter Pack” by Glenn Berry, Louis Davidson and Tim Ford to learn all about Dynamic Management Views and how to use them to get in-depth, granular information about the performance of your servers.

Download Link: http://www.red-gate.com/products/SQL_Response/offers/dmv.htm?utm_source=simpletalk&utm_medium=email-main&utm_content=dmv20100712&utm_campaign=sqlresponse

Please bear with me.

Marlon

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Nice shot. So if you exprienced a similar issue, look into your host file first before you look further. That will save you some effort.

Almost a year ago I decided to take my first ever Microsoft Certification Exam. I did struggle on the study process because I have to juggle between tasks and responsibilities. Time management has always been an issue when it comes to any self-paced training initiative. I purchased videos and books and subscribed to dozens of blogs for my training needs. I have setup my software and hardware at work and home to have the right feel of what I expected to come out in the exam.

SQL Server Study Group Meetups Everywhere!

Working on a self-paced training is fun but not really enjoyable. Although you can find gazillions of resources on the interwebs, lack of human interactions while doing the training is sometimes frustrating. Twitter has been a good ally on that regards. My online tribe is always there whenever I need a shoulder to cry on (ok, not really).

I think that one way to maximize the learning opportunity in self-paced training is to conduct a study group wherein members are positively reinforcing their knowledge among the group, and thereby benefitting everybody in the process.

Here comes the “SQL Server Study Group Meetups”. Who will start the group – YOU. Where will be the meetup – anywhere your group decides it to be. When can we start – NOW! Now is the best time to do it. Take advantage of the Second Shot At Microsoft Exam which expires on June 30, 2010.