nerdiness devours me

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-3-7)

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:33:19 +0100

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-3-7):

Popular Science 137-year archive

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 07:45:39 +0100

We’ve partnered with Google to offer our entire 137-year archive for free browsing. Each issue appears just as it did at its original time of publication, complete with period advertisements. It’s an amazing resource that beautifully encapsulates our ongoing fascination with the future, and science and technology’s incredible potential to improve our lives. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-2-28)

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:06:47 +0100

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-2-28):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

Chilean Quake Likely Shifted Earth’s Axis

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 07:30:07 +0100

Chilean Quake Likely Shifted Earth’s Axis:

The earthquake that killed more than 700 people in Chile on Feb. 27 probably shifted the Earth’s axis and shortened the day, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist said.

(via)

20 Fresh Sets of Free Icons for Web Designers

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:48:18 +0100

20 Fresh Sets of Free Icons for Web Designers

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-2-21)

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 05:46:34 +0100

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-2-21):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

Arbeitsspielereien

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:52:50 +0100

Arbeitsspielereien

Wenn Maschinen zu Erfindern werden

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 07:35:27 +0100

Wenn Maschinen zu Erfindern werden

iRobot Swabs the Deck of the USS Freedom

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:17:10 +0100

iRobot Swabs the Deck of the USS Freedom :

Some of the newest robots to join the US Navy aren’t spy planes or attack drones, they’re house cleaners.

Nginx, the little Russian web server taking on the giants

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 11:48:34 +0100

Nginx, the little Russian web server taking on the giants:

According to Netcraft, 7% of all websites on the internet are now using nginx. This is all the more amazing when you consider that nginx was developed by just one person.

Link dump of 3 years of favorites, mostly programming/computer stuff

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 09:55:00 +0100

Link dump of 3 years of favorites, mostly programming/computer stuff

31 Rare Wordpress Themes

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:24:00 +0100

31 Rare Wordpress Themes

SSIS: Performance Tuning Techniques

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:41:30 +0100

SSIS: Performance Tuning Techniques:

A great MSDN article about how you can squeeze the best performance out of your package dataflows.

Update: I just found some more performance tuning articles while doing some research on other SSIS related stuff.

Optimizing SSIS Package Performance Part 1 and Part 2 describe whats going on under the hood of the two main engines of SSIS: the runtime and the data-flow engine.

Merge command in SQL Server 2008

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:28:00 +0100

Merge command in SQL Server 2008:

Shame on me, I completely missed the new addition to T-SQL in SQL Server 2008, the MERGE command. It let’s you perform inserts, updates and deletes against a table in a single statement. This should come in handy if you’re building data warehouses or have a general need to keep tables in sync.

SSIS: Using a checksum to determine if a row has changed

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:51:00 +0100

I just read an interesting article that helps me simplify my incremental load packages by using a checksum of the processed row to determine if the underlying data has changed. While scanning through the comments of the article, I realised that using the simple checksum component recommended in the article could eventually lead to missing a data change. Luckily there is a advanced hashing component available, supporting MD5 and SHA1 hashes.

SSIS 2008 Logging

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:48:00 +0100

I’m just trying to configure a custom logging mechanism for my SSIS packages and had some problems with the location and structure of the dbo.sysssislog table which is automagically created by the Integration Services (if you happen to use a integrated security database connection; else you need to grant CREATE rights to the corresponding database user). While googling I found some helpful tips by Joe The Business Intelligence Guy:

Can I change the dbo.sp_ssis_addlogentry system stored procedure to non-system stored procedure and if so how is this done?
Yes – you must drop and recreate the procedure (and don’t run [sp_MS_marksystemobject] N’[dbo].[sp_ssis_addlogentry]‘)
Can I change the dbo.sysssislog system table to non-system table and if so how is this done?
Yes – you must drop and recreate the table (and don’t run execute [sp_MS_marksystemobject] N’[sysssislog]‘)
Is the new SSIS 2008 logging stored procedure dbo.sp_ssis_addlogentry different than the SSIS 2005 logging table dbo.sp_dts_addlogentry?
No
Is the new SSIS 2008 logging table dbo.sysssislog different than the SSIS 2005 logging table dbo.sysdtslog90?
No, the schema is the same
Can I change the dbo.sp_ssis_addlogentry procedure to reference a different named table other than dbo.sysssislog?
Yes – you must drop and recreate the procedure changing the referenced table name found after INSERT INTO
I often name this table as Audit.ETLAuditSSISLog
Can I change the name of the dbo.sysdtslog90 table?
Yes – you must drop and recreate the table
Additionally, you must drop and recreate the SSIS 2008 logging stored procedure dbo.sp_ssis_addlogentry
in order to change the referenced table name found after INSERT INTO
I often name this table as Audit.ETLAuditSSISLog
Can I change the name of the dbo.sp_ssis_addlogentry procedure?
No – SSIS will simply recreate the procedure if it is missing while the solution/package is configured to used SQL server logging.

Additionally, if you intend to use the sysssislog table in database different from msdb, you just need to use a custom connection manager, pointing to the appropriate database. Here’s the CREATE script for your conveniance:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[sysssislog](
 [id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
 [event] [sysname] NOT NULL,
 [computer] [nvarchar](128) NOT NULL,
 [operator] [nvarchar](128) NOT NULL,
 [source] [nvarchar](1024) NOT NULL,
 [sourceid] [uniqueidentifier] NOT NULL,
 [executionid] [uniqueidentifier] NOT NULL,
 [starttime] [datetime] NOT NULL,
 [endtime] [datetime] NOT NULL,
 [datacode] [int] NOT NULL,
 [databytes] [image] NULL,
 [message] [nvarchar](2048) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
 [id] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF,
 IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON, 
ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON)
 ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY] TEXTIMAGE_ON [PRIMARY]

You’ll also need to create the stored procedure sp_ssis_addlogentry:

CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[sp_ssis_addlogentry]
 @event sysname,
 @computer nvarchar(128),
 @operator nvarchar(128),
 @source nvarchar(1024),
 @sourceid uniqueidentifier,
 @executionid uniqueidentifier,
 @starttime datetime,
 @endtime datetime,
 @datacode int,
 @databytes image,
 @message nvarchar(2048)
AS
 INSERT INTO sysssislog (
 event,
 computer,
 operator,
 source,
 sourceid,
 executionid,
 starttime,
 endtime,
 datacode,
 databytes,
 message )
 VALUES (
 @event,
 @computer,
 @operator,
 @source,
 @sourceid,
 @executionid,
 @starttime,
 @endtime,
 @datacode,
 @databytes,
 @message )
 RETURN 0

Unfortunately I could not find a way to create the table or procedure in a different schema. The package logging mechanism expects them to be in the dbo schema and I couldn’t find a way to customize that behaviour to my likings.

(via)

Toward a Grand Unified Theory of n00bs

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:49:00 +0100

Toward a Grand Unified Theory of n00bs:

A great article by Dan Grover about the average internet/tech user (aka noob) and why it is so hard for us tech-savvy folk to comprehend their foolishness. Dan tries to explain whats going on in a noob’s mind and how software developers may come to their aid.

Library for simple drawing with jQuery

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:26:28 +0100

Library for simple drawing with jQuery:

Simple but cross-browser library.

Applies SVG (using Keith Wood plugin for jQuery) or canvas method if supported on the client browser (includes explorercanvas patch for ie). If not, applies methods derivated from the work of Walter Zorn for compatibility.

Do What Defines You

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:41:00 +0100

Do What Defines You:

Children understand that the fun part about the journey of life is throwing caution to the wind and trying new things to see how they identify with you, and swimming in the joy of feeling yourself get lost in the things you have a passion for. And once you realize they’re within you, you’ll feel an impenetrable calling to them, as if they’re part of your destiny. When you find something like that, nobody can pay you to give it up.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-2-14)

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:50:23 +0100

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-2-14):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz