Shane on November 3rd, 2006

I recently wrote that I switched all my domains over from SRLNet to Dreamhost.com. I closed the account on 10/11 by jumping through all the hoops to file a ticket on their support system. When I received a bill 11/1, I replied to the automated email, and BANG! Instant response. The reply was that dreamhost [...]

Continue reading about SRLNet Has Separation Issues

Shane on November 2nd, 2006

I didn’t get a chance to catch Michael Ault’s presentation at the recent TCOUG, but I heard it was a good talk. Thank you Michael for putting the slides online. SQL Tuning 101 Development Techniques for Data Warehouses

Continue reading about Michael Ault on SQL Tuning

Shane on November 2nd, 2006

The holy grail of a former .NET web developer is how to combine the techniques of agile and test-driven development with ETL tools and data volumes. Mark Rittman shows that he is a brother-in-arms with my quest.

Continue reading about Testing Framework for ETL

Shane on November 2nd, 2006

This excellent piece in DMReview deliberates on some criteria for selecting (or justifying) an ETL tool. We are struggling with this right now. Our shop uses a combination of Informatica and SQL Server DTS for our ETL jobs. With Oracle Warehouse Builder 10gR2 and SQL Server Integration Services both released as viable alternatives, we need [...]

Continue reading about Why Do We Use Informatica?

Shane on November 2nd, 2006

Rule number two of blogging is to title your posts after search terms people might use on Google. I’m sure this title will get a lot of traffic. (Rule number one, by the way, is to write a lot.) Anyway, Margy Ross and Ralph Kimball write an interesting article about interviewing customers during the analysis [...]

Continue reading about Office Anthropology 101 by Alan Alda

Shane on November 1st, 2006

So I need to import data from Excel into SQL Server. I whip up a new table, knock out a quick package, run the package, and look at the data. Looks fine, okay. Email the customer so they can look at the table. Two days later I get the email from the customer saying, “How [...]

Continue reading about What to do when Excel guesses wrong