Category Archives: Off-topic

Obtaining a random result set in PowerShell

Posted on February 28, 2012 by

Given a set of data how does one return an arbitrary subset?  Well in T-SQL we’d do this: So how can we do this in PowerShell?  Well in pretty much the same way actually.  Pipe to Sort-Object and then to … Continue reading →

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Seriously off topic: Ignoring spelling and grammar in certain text styles in Microsoft Word

Posted on January 9, 2012 by

When writing detailed design and deployment guides I get frustrated by Word rightly having issue with the spelling and grammar of my PowerShell snippets.  It makes the Spelling and Grammar checker almost redundant, for example, in my 374 page detailed … Continue reading →

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sp_executeSQL to the rescue

Posted on December 5, 2011 by

(a.k.a. my DEFAULT constraints aren’t working –NULL is being written to the DB.  Where are my default values?) I encountered a bug in a stored procedure I’d written that took me a little longer to fix than it should have … Continue reading →

Posted in Off-topic, SQL Server, Troubleshooting | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Seriously off topic: creating a semi-circle in Visio 2010

Posted on November 22, 2011 by

I wanted to depict the CS and MV as two halves of a circle (coloured differently) and I really couldn’t work out how to do it.  I found reference to the Fragment command but that is nowhere to be seen … Continue reading →

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