About me
I have been developing software from my early teens and stayed with technology after leaving school. Initially focussing on software development, networking and IT support type roles, I found...
2017-05-03
17 reads
SQL Server Rocks!
VirtualBox SQL FCI - Given Network Name Is Unusable
The other day I needed to test some HADR requirements on my local machine so using VirtualBox, I created a...
2017-04-19
2,760 reads
VirtualBox SQL FCI – Given Network Name Is Unusable
The other day I needed to test some HADR requirements on my local machine so using VirtualBox, I created a 2 server Windows 2012 R2 failover cluster with shared...
2017-04-19
14 reads
Moved blog to Ghost
Another year, another blog update lol!... Last year I remember doing a significant version upgrade for my self-hosted Orchard CMS...
2017-04-12
230 reads
Moved blog to Ghost
Another year, another blog update lol!… Last year I remember doing a significant version upgrade for my self-hosted Orchard CMS software on the DiscountASP hosting platform and it all...
2017-04-12
10 reads
Apologies in advance
This is a quick post to apologise in advance if all my historical blog posts get republished.
Recently it appears that...
2017-04-06
321 reads
Olcot and Arratoon Ancestry
I have spent a fair amount of time researching the Olcot and Arratoon ancestry and I am very interested in the family tree, especially pre 1900 in India. If...
2017-04-03
10 reads
Pluralsight = Essential Training
Edit (11-Sep-2016) See comment that pricing tiers have been adjusted since this blog post
I've been aware of Pluralsight for a...
2016-09-11
196 reads
Pluralsight = Essential Training
Edit (11-Sep-2016) See comment that pricing tiers have been adjusted since this blog post I’ve been aware of Pluralsight for a couple of years and as I’m always looking...
2016-09-11
10 reads
Update duplicate xml attribute values to unique value
I was going through some really old blogging ideas and I stumbled over this one and seeing as I love...
2016-06-23
1,070 reads
Blogs
Advice I Like: Pyramid Schemes
By Steve Jones
If someone is trying to convince you it’s not a pyramid scheme, it’s a...
Using Prompt AI for a Travel Data Analysis
By Steve Jones
I was looking back at my year and decided to see if SQL Prompt...
FinOps for Kubernetes: Leveraging OpenCost, KubeGreen, and Kubecost for Cost Efficiency
In the era of cloud-native applications, Kubernetes has become the default standard platform for...
Forums
Database file shrink issue.
Hi experts, I have a 3+ TB database on a 2019 sql server which...
The North Star for the Year
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The North Star for the...
Multiple Escape Characters
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Escape Characters
Question of the Day
Multiple Escape Characters
In SQL Server 2025, I run this code (in a database with the appropriate collation):
SELECT UNISTR('%*3041%*308A%*304C%*3068 and good night', '%*') AS 'A Classic';
What is returned? See possible answers