Tracy McKibben

My real name is Tracy McKibben. I’ve been working with database products for over 20 years, starting with FoxBase running on Xenix. Over the years, I’ve worked with all flavors of FoxPro, some Clipper and dBase, and starting somewhere around 1995, SQL Server. I’ve even dabbled with Oracle, though I’ve tried to block out all memories of that experience.

At present, I’m the Senior SQL Server DBA and the DBA Team Supervisor for Pearson VUE. All opinions expressed on this site are my own and do not reflect the opinions of Pearson VUE.
  • Interests: Tech, gadgets, model railroading, photography, and of course SQL Server!

Blogs

Flyway Tips: AI Deployment Script Descriptions

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A New Word: Fawtle

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Post-quantum key exchange – Insurance policy for your packets

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AWS recently added support for Post-Quantum Key Exchange for TLS in Application Load Balancer...

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Forums

Where Your Value Separates You from Others

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Where Your Value Separates You...

Fixing the Error

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Fixing the Error

T-SQL in SQL Server 2025: Encoding Functions

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item T-SQL in SQL Server 2025:...

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Question of the Day

Fixing the Error

On SQL Server 2025, I have a database that has this collation: SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS. I decide I want to run this code:

SELECT UNISTR('*3041*308A*304C*3068 and good night', '*') AS 'A Classic';
I get this error:Msg 9844, Level 16, State 4, Line 24 The char/varchar input type uses an unsupported collation. Only a UTF8 collation is supported with char/varchar input type in UNISTR function.What is the easiest way to fix this error?

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