Windows RT is a nice little computer. It is designed specifically to run applications from the Windows Store. It does not have the same architecture of WinTel machines, and therefore cannot run the applications like you run on your desktop or laptop. This doesn’t mean you have a horrible platform as there are thousands of RT enabled applications doing most […]

Single Page Applications (SPA) are growing as a popular web design. They differ from other web applications in that these pages do not refresh entirely unless the user chooses to do so. Instead, different features of the web page make calls to the web server, and the results are injected into the current Document resulting in a look and feel […]

Dilip shares features about Computed column that make them most useful. He includes times when using Computed Columns are helpful, as well as cautions for situations that may occur if you do use them. Dilip writes: Computed Columns have been in vogue for many years and are really helpful. Here, are some examples/points in this context: You store a mathematical […]

SQL Server has two built in functions for generating a hash value, CHECKSUM and HASHBYTES. CHECKSUM is not as sophisticated as HASHBYTES resulting in a higher probability of a duplicate hash for different input values. Still, it provides a lot of power, and is used for the HASH JOIN technique built into SQL Server itself. One thing that is really […]

Today I wanted to brainstorm on some of the uses for computed columns in SQL Server. When the computed column is created it can either be persisted or dynamic. The kind you use is determined by the purpose of the computed column. Sometimes we like to track the birth date of a person, or some significant date. Then we want […]

Is it possible for a product to be too good? I am wondering if that may be so. It used to be a goal to create a product that had a long lifetime. The value was in the quality and longevity. Today it seems vendors would wish their products were not so good. Here are a few examples: Windows XP […]

Web API is Microsoft’s implementation of RESTful services in the Dot Net platform. It has an interesting history in that it was not originally part of the web services. However, as the product matured it became clear that it needed to be closely aligned with the simplicity of the HTTP protocol, resulting in moving the product development to the web […]

There is a new growing measurement for “Uptime” as systems become distributed. We used to be proud of the fact that our server had not been cycled (re-booted) for a long period of time. Servers staying up months or years provided bragging rights to individuals managing them. Today that is becoming less the case. The more important measurement is the […]

Did you know that PostScript was one of the first universal page rendering languages that was compatible across platforms. Primarily it was a printer markup language, and was supported by major printer companies. HP and Apple both supported PostScript heavily in device drivers. You could output your print to a PostScript file and open it with a simple text editor; […]

Some time ago I was demonstrating to a colleague how to locate databases containing a column with a specific name and type. I was using the INFORMATION_SCHEMA views in order to find the column instances. I was asked, “Are you using INFORMATION_SCHMA? Isn’t that deprecated?” My response was simple…this is an ANSI standard, and it works accurately and efficiently. Years […]