Blog Posts

• Backing Up a SQL Server Database

  September 16, 2018

  Backing up a database is something I’ve always found easier done within a query window. There’s not much to it; That’s what I’m used to writing. I’ve no need to worry about the copy_only option these days, or check SQL Server Editions to see if I can use…

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• Restoring a SQL Server Database

  September 4, 2018

  This is a simple guide to restoring a full backup file in SQL Server, providing an overview of a few options that are available during the process. It is always a good idea to read through Microsoft’s documentation on database restores before proceeding. This will ensure that you…

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• Copying Dates into Excel

  July 9, 2018

  There’s often a need to quickly copy/paste a database query output into an Excel sheet, rather than exporting as a .csv file. When you do this for a DATETIME column though, it’ll show up in Excel looking something like this. I don’t think Excel likes the milliseconds. This…

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• Stack Exchange Data Explorer

  July 8, 2018

  As a DBA, I’ve found Stack Exchange Data Explorer to be a really useful tool for exploring and analyzing the data from the Stack Exchange network of websites. It’s kind of like having a SQL playground where you can run all sorts of queries and see what insights…

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• Monitoring Database Growth Events in SQL Server

  May 20, 2018

  Database growth events occur when a SQL Server database file reaches its capacity and automatically grows to accommodate more data. These events are configured in the database properties, where you can define growth increments in MB or GB. Properly configuring these settings is important for maintaining performance, as…

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• Show Line Numbers in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)

  May 16, 2018

  This is a tip on how to show line numbers in the SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) query window. This is useful when you receive an error message with reference to a line in your code, although it’s not a necessity to have it enabled as you’ll see…

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• Reset Default PostgreSQL User Password

  May 15, 2018

  A common scenario working with Postgres is when you have forgotten your default Postgres user password. This is the password you will have entered during your Postgres installation. This is a guide on how to reset the default Postgres user password. This should hopefully help you resolve this…

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• How To Install PostgreSQL on Windows

  May 14, 2018

  PostgreSQL is a free open-source RDMS that is widely used and forked. Other than PostgreSQL itself, Redshift is the only other forked database I’ve ever touched. This blog post is a very simple wizard run-through of installing PostgreSQL and Stack Builder on Windows for testing. # Install PostgreSQL…

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• Show Available Disk Space in SQL Server

  May 13, 2018

  This blog post is to share a script that you can run in SQL Server (versions 2008 R2 and above) which shows the available disk space for all local volumes on a SQL Server host. I’m also including a quick note on how to get this information with…

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• Killing SQL Server Processes (SPIDs)

  April 17, 2018

  Sometimes in SQL Server, you encounter processes that need to be terminated—whether it’s a query running wild, consuming too many resources, or holding up others. In this demo, we’ll set up a blocking SPID to simulate such a scenario, then resolve it by identifying and killing the offending…

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