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Day of Data Richmond 2026 Roundup
Read more: Day of Data Richmond 2026 RoundupA few weeks ago, I did something insane. I wrote and presented a new presentation at Day of Data Richmond 2026. More on that in a minute. This was my second year in a row in Richmond and this year hit a bit differently, and also exactly the same. Jamie Wick was not completely in…
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FABCON/SQLCON and SQL Saturday Atlanta BI Roundup
Read more: FABCON/SQLCON and SQL Saturday Atlanta BI RoundupI am fine to admit it, this roundup took WAY longer than I had hoped and is almost silly to post at this point. The same can be said for the series of videos I was posting daily on Instagram which took a week after the conference was over to post. There is a good…
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Day of Data Jacksonville 2026 is this weekend
Read more: Day of Data Jacksonville 2026 is this weekendThe week is here, time to head south for the largest free conference I go to each year. SQL Saturday, I mean Day of Data Jacksonville. (It is going to take a while to stop calling it SQL Saturday!) has 12 concurrent tracks, over 5 time slots, some great pre-cons and well, some legendary snacks…
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Taking a short break…
Read more: Taking a short break…I was looking at my screen the other day, and I thought, I need a break. Not a long one, but working a full time job, preparing sessions and traveling to conferences, tech editing a book, and just various life, health, exercise, vacation time challenges just made me say… I need to take a little…
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The second (and most important) software test
Read more: The second (and most important) software testThere is an old computer science adage that the sooner you find a bug, the less impact it has. In this post I want to talk about the first test that every programmer does, and why you need to be as purposeful with this test as possible. No matter who you are, or how well…
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T-SQL Tuesday #197 – An impactful session or two from a conference
Read more: T-SQL Tuesday #197 – An impactful session or two from a conferenceThis month the host is Steve Hughes/Data on Wheels. His topic idea is “to tell us about one or more things you learned at ANY conference you have attended that has impacted you or how you work.” Here is the link: This is a really great invite and it really made be (continue) to ponder…
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SUBSTRING Optional Length In SQL SERVER 2025
Read more: SUBSTRING Optional Length In SQL SERVER 2025Sometimes along comes a feature that seems so obvious, so natural, that you wonder why it took so long for Microsoft to implement it. One of those features in SQL Server 2025 is the optional length parameter in the SUBSTRING function. It has long been one of those questions when you wrote a SUBSTRING expression…
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Day of Data Richmond is THIS WEEK!
Read more: Day of Data Richmond is THIS WEEK!Time is a weird commodity. From one point of view, the supply is inexhaustible. No matter how many minutes I spend here at my iPad writing, there are more minutes in supply. I keep writing and time doesn’t stop at some certain time. But at the same time, I never have enough time despite this…
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Two often forgotten, yet important tracks at a tech conference
Read more: Two often forgotten, yet important tracks at a tech conferenceI recently got back from several conferences DataTune in Nashville, TN; then FABCON/SQLCON and SQL Saturday Atlanta BI in Atlanta, GA. And over these few weeks, I spent time between sessions thinking about how to make the most of my time. At a tech conference, we generally have tracks for what you are learning (Data,…
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Read/Write Ratio in a SQL Server database
Read more: Read/Write Ratio in a SQL Server databaseRepost (with some cleaning up since the book referenced was posted 18 years ago Read/Write Ratio versus Read/Write Ratio?.And I kind of hate that title now that I read it again. When I wrote this post, I had a very strong belief that my OLTP databases are heavy writes and OLAP heavy reads. But in…
Hello,
I’m Louis
I have been at this database thing for a very long time, with no plans to stop.
