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LessThanDot

A decade of helpful technical content

This is an archive of the posts published to LessThanDot from 2008 to 2018, over a decade of useful content. While we're no longer adding new content, we still receive a lot of visitors and wanted to make sure the content didn't disappear forever.

SQL Server Precision And Scale Problems

Many people are confused about SQL Server’s precision and scale. This is unfortunate because choosing the correct values for precision and scale is critically important when you perform math operations using the decimal/numeric data type. The point of this blog is to explain how SQL Server determines the data type for math operations, and the order in which conversions occur. For example: Select 10 / 3 UNION All Select 10 / 3.

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How threads can mess up the order of things.

Today I was trying to print a bunch of reports. The reports were supposed to come out in order because the are numbered. You can do this in one report I hear you say… no because I use an old version of a reporting engine and that engine doesn’t really support multipage reports very well. You see I need to print a dutch version on one side and the french version on the other side.

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How to export an outlook calendar to word

Someone today asked me how to copy paste the calendar in outlook to a word document. I couldn’t find the answer to that question but I found a suitable alternative instead. The alternative is to use this dot (template) file instead. I found it on this Microsoft site.. This isn’t made for us europeans, as the Note says. NOTE: This template solution is designed to work only with U.S. versions of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office.

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The donkey and unit testing

In dutch there is this saying. Een ezel stoot zich nooit tweemaal aan dezelfde steen. A literal translation would go like this. A donkey never bumps into the same stone twice. or Even a donkey does not bump himself twice against the same stone… A less literal translation would be this. Fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me.

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Sometimes I could hit myself.

Of course I would never hit a beautiful, charming and intelligent man like myself but I sometimes think about it. Especially if I do stupid things like this. vbnet Public Shadows Sub ShowDialog(ByVal Parent As System.Windows.Forms.Form) Implements Forms.Interfaces.Ifrm.ShowDialog MyBase.ShowDialog(Me) End Sub You get this error if you do that. System.ArgumentException: Form showDialog tried to set an ineligible form as its owner. Forms cannot own themselves or their owners. Parameter name: owner

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Setting a standard DateFormat for SQL Server

Each SQL Server has a default language. You can see what the default language is by executing these commands (in a query window). sp_configure 'default language' This will tell you what the default language is (sort of). It actually returns a config_value with an integer that represents the language id. You can then run… sp_helplanguage You will see a list of languages that SQL Server supports. The odd thing here is that the server’s language setting will not solve your problem.

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Do not truncate your ldf files!

You’re the perfect DBA. You have a small environement but critical none the less. You’ve setup your disaster recovery plans based on a backup schedule and solid plan. You’ve gone as far as to copy backups to external disk along with the tape backups the server administrators take nightly. Logs are backed up every 15 minutes just to make sure you can recover from anything including corrupt data and the largest of all fall outs.

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Cumulative update package 2 for SQL Server 2008 is available

Cumulative update package 2 for SQL Server 2008 is available. Here is what is fixed in this cumulative update SQL Hotfix bug number KB article number Description 50003172 959783 FIX: A deadlock occurs when you implement DDL statements against the partitions that are defined in a partitioned table in SQL Server 2008 50003229 945127 FIX: You may still experience the performance issue that is described in KB article 940945 after you install Cumulative Update 3 for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 50003353 957812 cannot merge a publication that has spatial types that include large values with a SQL Server CE subscriber 50003372 956216 FIX: The Transact-SQL debugger automatically saves changes to a script file when you run the script in debugging mode in SQL Server 2008 Management Studio 50003413 959889 FIX: When you try to install a failover instance, the unsupported X86 option is available for you to select on the options landing page in SQL Server 2008 50003417 959767 FIX: Memory consumption by MEMORYCLERK_SOSNODE and USERSTORE_SCHEMAMANAGER may cause a performance slowdown of a SQL Server 2008 database 50003451 959768 FIX: Writeback to a measure group is not reflected in a linked measure group 50003457 957815 FIX: A SQL Server 2008 query returns incorrect results when you create a spatial index in a table that contains a composite primary key 50003504 959769 FIX: A DMX prediction query returns incorrect results when you query a logistic regression model in SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services 50003529 959770 FIX: Column data is incorrect when a lot of data is processed by the SSIS Fuzzy Grouping transformation 50003541 959771 FIX: Excel 2007 cannot connect to an OLAP cube on a server that is running SQL Server 2005 50003542 959773 FIX: When you use Excel 2007 Service Pack 2 to make a subselect query with calculated members, the query returns unexpected error 50003543 959774 FIX: The Excel 2007 Filter function does not evaluate calculated members so that Excel PivotTable advanced filters return unexpected results 50003562 959776 FIX: Visual Studio 2008 stops responding when you leave a SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services-based database project idle for some time 50003580 958479 FIX: Error message when you try to export a SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services report by using Report Manager: "

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SQL Server Fabric and DATAllegro demo at PASS, SQL Data Services Public CTP Available

Microsoft has shown DATAllegro at the PASS conference. They have removed Linux, the database it was running on and also the old file system. DATAllegro is running on Windows with NTFS and SQL2008 now. Can’t wait for the Kilimanjaro CTP 🙂 Another thing shown at PASS is SQL Server Fabric. SQL Server Fabric gives you the ability to manage your SQL Server environment as a whole. Inside SQL Server Management Studio there will be a new view named Fabric Explorer connecting to a Fabric Control Point.

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Why English is really important to us non-english speakers.

Today I read We are Typists first, Programmers second by Jeff Atwood. The man has a point but that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the fact that the IT business seems to be centered around the English language. Don’t get me wrong, that is not bad, I think it is actually a good thing that we can speak the same language around the world.

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