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BradSchacht

SQL Maintenance Plan Doesn't Delete Backups

12/8/2009 by BradSchacht  -  Comments: 3  -  Views: [5336]

I recently created a maintenance plan for our server to backup all the databases on a daily basis. In the cleanup step I set it to delete backups older than 7 day. I let the plan run for a week and checked on it to make sure the old backups were being deleted. This would be kind of a useless post if everything was working correctly, so as you guessed, they were not being deleted. I check everything on the plan: Username, folder name, first level subfolders, permissions on the backup folder, sql ...

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BradSchacht

SQL Update Using a Join

12/4/2009 by BradSchacht  -  Comments: 3  -  Views: [2907]

You may need to do an update on joined tables to get a more conditional update. For instance, I have a Student table as well as an AcademicStatus table. The Student table contains all the students (profound, I know) and the AcademicStatus table tells if a student is in good standing, at risk, or has dropped out based on a StandingID. The Student table also lists a graduation date and a current bit to show if the student is currently enrolled. While generating data for these particular tables rec...

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BradSchacht

Google Search From Firefox Address Bar

12/2/2009 by BradSchacht  -  Comments: 2  -  Views: [1930]

During the recnet launch of the new community site www.BIDN.com I found a few features in Google Chrome while I was testing that I wanted to bring to Firefox. Specifically the search bar functionality. In Google Chrome the address bar doubles as the search bar. This is and is not the case with Firefox. In Firefox if you type a search into the address bar it will do a Google Search and bring you to the first search result. In effect it is like doing a Google search and clicking "I'm Feeling Lucky...

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BradSchacht

Convert FAT32 to NTFS

12/2/2009 by BradSchacht  -  Comments: 2  -  Views: [3435]

I was recently working with some virtual machines during testing and needed to copy one of the VPCs to a developer. He brought me his hard drive and I proceeded to copy the Virtual Hard Drive onto his external USB drive. The operation failed and I was not sure why. It was a big mistake to assume the drive was formatted in NTFS format, which I figured "why wouldn't it be", as it was actually in FAT32 which has a file size limitation of 4GB. So he changed the drive to NTFS and everything worked pe...

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BradSchacht

Trouble Viewing Reports in Report Server

11/20/2009 by BradSchacht  -  Comments: 0  -  Views: [1793]

Have you ever opened your report server only to find a blank section of nothing-ness where your reports should be? The solution to your problem is more than likely in the permissions. The easiest fix for this situation is to right click on IE and select Run As Administrator. There are, however, ways around having to run IE as an administrator each time you want to view reports. If disabling UAC is not an option you can try to do the following: 1. Run Internet Explorer as Administrator (Right Cli...

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BradSchacht

Database Design

11/18/2009 by BradSchacht  -  Comments: 1  -  Views: [1734]

Designing a database can be a daunting task, especially on a large scale. There are several ways inside of SQL Server Management Studio to do design. You could create your database and right click on the ‘Tables’ node and enter all the information there. Column names are listed out followed by their data types with all the properties being set below. This is a quick and easy way to edit your tables as well as design them. The issue occurs when you start to set table relationships. A lot of peopl...

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BradSchacht

Saving Changes is Not Permitted

11/18/2009 by BradSchacht  -  Comments: 0  -  Views: [1498]

Have you ever created a table thinking everything looked amazing and was designed perfect only to come back and need to add to it? Maybe you need to change a data type, add a column, delete a column or move a column. It's an easy fix, right. Just right click on the table, go to Design mode and make your changes. Well, this would be a pretty useless story if all that worked flawlessly. As you close the table to save all your great, wonderful, glorious changes you are greeted not with a screen tha...

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BradSchacht

Choosing a Test Environment

11/7/2009 by BradSchacht  -  Comments: 4  -  Views: [789]

64-bit or 32-bit, Windows Vista or Windows XP? These are just a couple of the questions asked by today's product testers. With the computing world we are in today, you cannot expect an initial build of a product to work in every environment. In order to make sure your products operate as planned in the real world you must test! Product testing is a key part of the development process. The right setup and software environment can save time and money during this critical step. We opted to go with ...

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