Mark's Blog

SQL Server 2008 - Compressed backups

Mark the Geek — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:32:32 GMT

Hi everyone! it's been a while, I've been playing a bit with SQL 2008.

One thing that impressed me was the compressed backups... You'd think it would that compressed backups would be slower, since they had to be compressed (more cpu).

Well, in most cases CPU isn't the bottleneck, disk is, so most of the time the compressed backups are alot FASTER!

I'll have some more thoughts on SQL 2008 as time goes by.

Securing SQL Server...

Mark the Geek — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 09:33:00 GMT

Here are some hints for securing sql server....

here's my rant for today (it's been a while)

Why is it people ignore the basics? Why do they insist on ignoring the principle of least privlege?

Here's a couple of simple things you can do to help secure your SQL server (when developing code)

Connect to the SQL server with a non-DBO account, grant it execute rights to Stored procedures and thats it! Don't use inline SQL and don't grant it Select insert update and delete on views or tables. By doing this you'll avoid may problems down the road.

thats it for today folks!

Why do people lie on their resumes???

Mark the Geek — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 03:09:00 GMT

Here’s my rant on resumes:

Why do people lie on their resumes?

I recently interviewed a candidate who had ‘SQL server DBA’ on their resume – this so called DBA didn’t even know what an index was. How can someone put something on their resume when they don’t know the first thing about it? Do they think they will be able to ‘fake it’ through the interview?

When I interview candidates, I ask a lot of technical questions. Usually after the first 3, I have can tell if they know their stuff.

I’ve noticed more and more people embellishing their resumes… this is doing a disservice to themselves and the people wasting time interviewing them. A SQL server DBA should be able to back up a database, perform basic performance tuning and basic database design.

So what gives? Are people getting hired without technical interviews based on their resumes? What do they do once the get the job and have to produce?

Welcome

Mark Horninger — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 22:14:00 GMT

Hello and welcome to my blog. I’m a SQL server DBA; developer; college professor, and all-around technologist. Here you’ll find rants about technology, interviewing, certification, mentoring and all sorts of other technical stuff.

I hope to post every few days but who knows?