SSH Login Banners
There are two places where login banners can be configured.
What might be less well known are techniques for disabling their display when logging in via SSH …read

MySQL
In my spare time I do some work for a local charity - which has meant getting up to speed with some new (for me) web and database software. …read

SAP Expert Sessions
A bunch of recorded Webex sessions hosted by SAP - SAP DB2 expert sessions …read

SAP DB2 9.7 recommended parameters
SAP Note 1329179 documents the parameter settings SAP recommend for DB2 9.7…read

IBM - DB2 IC80476 and IC70265
IC80476 - AUTOMATIC STATISTICS COLLECTIONS CAN BE FORCED DUE TO LOCK CONFLICT WITH THE LASTUSED DAEMON.
IC70265 - LASTUSED column of SYSCAT.INDEXES is not updated in case when the table and index are not created in the same tablespace …read

Use VARCHAR_FORMAT in DB2
Want to format output of date or timestamp column in DB2, use theVARCHAR_FORMAT function …read

Use db2pd to get table usage statistics …read

Removed files but filesystem usage still 100%
Filesystem usage at 100%, removed files, usage not going down, lsof to the rescue…read

Powershell and database monitoring
I like Powershell, a lot; it makes Windows worth using (for me anyway).
For a variety of reasons my current work environment uses Oracle, DB2 and SQL Server and, given the correct client software is installed, Powershell can connect to all of them…read

Did you know #8
We have a lot of Windows servers which we, as a team, need to log on to fairly regularly.
It often happens that you try to connect to a server only to find that the default two RDP connections are both in use…read

Scheduling background jobs in SAP
The scheduler supplied by SAP is capable of time and event based scheduling.
Time based scheduling can be described as basic…read

DDL implicit commit
The perils of assuming DDL behaviour in one RDBMS translates to another…read

DB2 server authentication and file permissions
Describes a simple procedure for resetting the file permissions of an entire DB2 directory tree…read

Did you know #7
In a crontab it is possible to specify shortcuts for execution times and define variables which can be used in command strings …read

Did you know #6
In SQL Server, you can easily find details for an object by querying the local sysobjects table …read

Ayrton Senna
We've had a couple of quotes from Ayrton Senna …read

DB2 Versions
Couple of problems caused by install of SAP GTS which seems to require DB2 9.1 …read

Windows 7 User Account Control (UAC)
When logging on to Windows 7 as a user that is a member of the Administrators group your user token is split into two tokens… read

Virtualbox 4.1.0 is available for download.

Old Joke
There are 10 types of people in the world.
Those that understand binary and those that don't.

Windows Script Host
Not my favourite scripting environment but there are occassions when it's useful.
One such is scripting an update of SAP passwords across multiple servers… read

The Golden Rule
I can't help but agree with the sentiments expressed by Paul Randall… read

Did you know #5
I still find scheduled jobs running DTS packages using DTSRun with encrypted parameters… read

Online Backups
No, not the ones you do while your database is available.
This is about the backups you might do to an internet storage provider. … read

SQL Server client-side trace
Microsoft KB article 929728 describes a situation that can occur in SQL Server 2000 and 2005 when you use SQL Profiler to perform a client-side trace of the events in the instance. … read

DB2 Workload
Uses a single workload setting to configure several registry variables at once … read
See also 'SAP' workload

Did you know #4
You can make a connection using SQL Server Windows authemtication using non-Windows authenticated accounts … read

Rework
If you haven't read Rework then do … read

Did you know #3
The db2 command line suggests using QUIT to leave the command line processor.
What it does not tell you is that QUIT does not break the back end process or database connection … read

Did you know #2
DB2 9.5 introduced the db2dsdriver.cfg configuration file to define connection attributes for databases and aliases for databases. … read

Did you know #1
SQL Server version 2005 introduced a new system database, [mssqlsqlsystemresource]. … read

In case you were wondering, the current site logo is a rather out of proportion picture of our dogs,
I'm working on a better one … read

Virtualbox 4.0.0 has been released.
Make sure you download and install the extension pack … read

See the old year out with a laugh, watch Ronnie Corbett and Harry Enfield at their best:
My Blackberry Is Not Working! - The One Ronnie, Preview - BBC One

This was taken in mid December, just after about 5 inches of snow which laid for about 2 weeks.