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Latest Blog Posts
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693 Views |
No, seriously, this one is about time. I recently had an issue in a work database where a query was giving random results, sometimes the query would return a row and other times it wouldn't. There was quite a bit of work distilling the query down to...
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1383 Views |
"Imagination…One little spark, of inspiration… is at the heart, of all creation."
– From the song "One Little Spark", by the Sherman Brothers
I have a confession to make. Despite my great enthusiasm for databases and programming, it occurs to me that...
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252 Views |
I'm pleased to announce that .NET Demon will be shipping simultaneously with Visual Studio 11, whenever it ends up being released. That means we're going to make sure that a version of .NET Demon is released very near to the Visual Studio 11 final release...
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1319 Views |
Because there is so little information on database continuous integration out in the wild, I've taken it upon myself to aggregate as much as possible and post the links to this blog. Because it's my area of expertise, this will focus on SQL Server and...
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420 Views |
So, one of our profilers has a problem. Red Gate produces two .NET profilers - ANTS Performance Profiler (APP) and ANTS Memory Profiler (AMP). Both products help .NET developers solve problems they are virtually guaranteed to encounter at some point in...
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743 Views |
At RedGate Software, I work on a .NET obfuscator called SmartAssembly. Various features of it use a database to store various things (exception reports, name-mappings, etc.) The user is given the option of using either a SQL-Server database (which requires...
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1426 Views |
Today we're officially releasing version 1.0 of .NET Demon, the Visual Studio Extension Alex Davies and I have been working on for the last 6 months. There have been beta versions available for a while, but we have now released the first "official" version...
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509 Views |
I came across ThreadLocal<T> while I was researching ConcurrentBag. To look at it, it doesn't really make much sense. What's all those extra Cn classes doing in there? Why is there a GenericHolder<T,U,V,W> class? What's going on? However,...
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652 Views |
Developers have long since had to context switch between two IDEs, Visual Studio for application code development and SQL Server Management Studio for database development. While this is accepted, especially given the richness of the database development...
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561 Views |
It's the same old old problem you want to make a set of columns the same height but life it too short for the CSS only version. It's technically possible to do but nowadays you can't run the web without having javascript turned on. There must be an easier...
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1160 Views |
A developer suggested to me recently that the life of the DBA was, surely, a dull one. My first reaction was indignation, but quickly followed by the thought that for many people excitement isn't necessarily the most desirable aspect of their job. It's...
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633 Views |
Testing a database upgrade script as part of a continuous integration process will only work if there is an easy way to automate the generation of the upgrade scripts. There are two common approaches to managing upgrade scripts. The first is to maintain...
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1010 Views |
Of all the valuable attributes of a DBA covered so far in this series, ranging from passion to humility to practicality, perhaps one of the most important attributes may turn out to be the most seemingly-nebulous: foresight. According to Free Dictionary...
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1765 Views |
This post will describe how to set up basic database continuous integration using TeamCity to initiate the build process, SQL Source Control to put your database under source control, and the SQL Compare command line to keep a test database up to date....
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480 Views |
Typically, when I install SQL Server Management Studio and run it for the first time, the first thing I do is to close the Object Explorer Details window. After all, it doesn't seem to serve a useful purpose, duplicating information that already exists...
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597 Views |
I wanted a simple example of a hierarchical query using a common table expression in SQL Server. MSDN had an example called Recursive Queries Using Common Table Expressions, but it relied on the Adventure Works database and was joining across three...
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686 Views |
As part of my product management role I regularly attend trade shows and man the Red Gate booth in the vendor exhibition hall. Amongst other things this involves giving product demos to customers. Our latest demo involves SQL Source Control and SQL Test...
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683 Views |
For the past several months I've been working on something new. This is a hosted service for maintaining cloud applications cunningly named Red Gate Cloud Services. It's been live since the beginning of the year and it's free to try it out too. Schedule...
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1385 Views |
Excited about the new async/await feature in C# 5? Can't run your application on .NET 4.5 yet? Well that's unsurprising, I'm not sure I'd want to use a beta version of the CLR in production. But I would be quite happy to use Visual Studio 11 on my development...
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488 Views |
Today I needed a really lightweight way for a desktop app to send me information. What I came up with is quite neat, so I thought I'd share. Create a form using Google Docs with only one question with a text answer Find its form key from the URL...
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462 Views |
You may have seen my blog post on how to add all of the assemblies from a folder into the GAC. Here is a quick PowerShell script to do the reverse - it looks through a list of assemblies in a folder and removes them from the GAC: $gacUtilLocation...
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477 Views |
As a SharePoint developer, I find it a lot easier to manually deploy files to the GAC during development instead of allowing Visual Studio to do a complete retract / redeploy. There are tools out there like CKS Dev that give you the "Copy to GAC"...
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2069 Views |
So, you want to obfuscate your .NET application. My question to you is:
Why?
What are your aims when your obfuscate your application? To protect your IP & algorithms? Prevent crackers from breaking your licensing? Your boss says you need to? To...
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1234 Views |
When it was announced, I confess was somewhat surprised by the striking new "Metro" User Interface for Windows 8, based on Swiss typography, Bauhaus design, tiles, touches and gestures, and the new Windows Runtime (WinRT) API on which Metro...
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2338 Views |
Although not everyone is practicing continuous integration, many
have at least heard of the concept. A recent poll on www.simple-talk.com indicates that 40% of
respondents are employing the technique.
It is widely accepted that the earlier issues...
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