Characteristics of good recruiters

I've written some articles about spam recruiters. To put it very bluntly, spam recruiters are evil. They do not work for your best interests; they are just looking to make a buck. And it's a pervasive problem. Do a Google search for "recruiter spam" and take a look at all the hits that come up. …

Paying it forward

Once upon a time, I wanted to be the rockstar in pretty much anything and everything I did, whether it was my job, my extracurricular activities, or my relationships.  I wanted the glory and the recognition.  More importantly, I wanted to be respected for whatever I did.  In my youth, I thought that demonstrating that …

Ranting my frustration about connect requests

This article may seem to go against one of the things that I preach in my 'blogging presentation, and that is to avoid frustrated rants and "getting it out of your system." Maybe I should be a little more specific. One should avoid mindless rants in which you angrily spew your passions without any thoughts, …

SQL Saturday #855, Albany — the debrief

This past weekend, we (the CASSUG user group) hosted our sixth SQL Saturday. I've attended dozens of SQL Saturdays, but the ones that we hold in my own backyard are always the most special to me. This is one of my favorite events of the entire year, and I look forward to it each summer. …

I’m a twit… I mean, I’m on Twitter

Okay, I'm a lemming. I finally caved. For years, I've assiduously avoided Twitter. As I've been telling people, "I refuse to twit (sic)." I've never felt the need for it, I've never felt compelled to join it (to be honest, the hype surrounding it did more to repel me from it than make me want …

You gotta do you first

This morning, per my typical Monday morning, I stopped at Cumberland Farms for my morning coffee. The fellow behind the counter -- I've written about him before -- was understandably disappointed. We've been talking about his career and things to help get him jump-started. He had been looking forward to attending our SQL Saturday this …

Networking for introverts

I'm sure that many of my friends would describe me as being outgoing, and even outspoken. I've spoken at a number of SQL Saturdays, and (as a musician), I've performed in front of audiences (I've long since lost my fear of performing int front of a crowd). So it might surprise some of you when …

When does “making it pretty” become “bad design”?

Within the past week, I came across a couple of examples where designers, in an attempt to make something "aesthetically pleasing" ended up creating a bad design. In the dimly-lit stall, I couldn't see the graphic to flush. The first example, strangely enough, came from a public toilet (don't worry, I won't go TMI on …

Getting ready to speak at my first PASS Summit

I'm speaking at my very first PASS Summit this year! I intend to 'blog about my experience with my first PASS Summit. Hopefully, my exploits will help others who, like me, are also preparing for the first PASS Summit. This represents the first of those articles. As I write this, PASS Summit is still four …

Ransomware and DevOps

Another post by Steve Jones that I think is really important…

Voice of the DBA

Ransomware.

A scary topic and one attack that is apparently more common than I suspected. Before you go further, if you haven’t restored a database backup in the last month, stop and go verify your DR plan works. That’s one of the overconfident issues facing lots of government and businesses. While this might not help your entire organization, at least you’ll have some confidence in your process and that you can recover a database.

This is a great article from Ars Technica and worth reading: A take of two cities: Why ransomware will just get worse. I’d recommend you read it and think about a few things. First, do you have insurance because things (or substitute your own word here) happen? Second, have you really tested a DR plan for some sort of software issue like this? You might think about a way to restore systems in an air-gapped…

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