spam

I just killed the discussion board I had going over at www.ifilter.org

I was having to delete a lot of spam, and it was driving me crazy. I also read someplace that this type of spam can even affect your google ranking. ifilter.org is the #1 site when you google for 'ifilter'. I don't want to give that up so some moron can promote his porn site.

5 things you didn’t know about me

Jason Row tagged me with the now infamous "5 things you didn’t know about me" thing.

Since I've just started blogging, nobody knows anything anything about me yet. So this is much easier for me.

1) I'm a SQL Server guy. I'm both DBA and database developer in a small office. I also have to build reports (I use Reporting Services) and applications (VB.NET). I expect most of my blogging to be related to this.

2) Since I live in the world of SQL Server, I never spent any time learning web development. This is illustrated nicely by my awful looking site at http://www.ifilter.org. Furthur evidence can be found in my choice of Blogger as my soapbox. Surely I should have looked at WordPress or something. I hope to improve in this area.

3) I learned to program on one of these. I was 10 years old when I started with a

10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD"

20 GOTO 10

RUN

That is, if my memory serves me, which it often doesn't.

4) A new baby is due in our house any day now. That means the blogging, which started out very slowly, will continue to be slow.

5) I never thought of myself as a Microsoft fan, but I got tired of choosing technologies that nobody was using a couple years later. I think all the Apple switchers might find themselves in that boat. Again.

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Default databases in SQL Server 2005

Ok, I made a bad mistake yesterday, but at least I learned from it.

In SQL Server 2005, if you take your own default database offline for some reason, you can no longer connect to the server. You open up SSMS and when you try to log into the server, you get "Cannot Open User Default Database". So if you are the admin, you just locked yourself out of the system!

Yes, I did this to myself. At least it was on my test box.

The solution, which I found here, is use sqlcmd.

C:\> sqlcmd -E -d master

1> ALTER LOGIN [BUILTIN\Administrators] WITH
DEFAULT_DATABASE=master

2> GO

Thanks to "Lothan" who posted the solution.

How to be a successful blogger in 5 easy steps

I have a blog. Therefore I am a blogger. If you are reading this, then I am a successful blogger.

For my first post ever, I thought I would share some tips as to how you, too, might become a successful blogger.

Step 1

Setup a blogger account.

Step 2

Think very carefully about what you want to post. This step will take you somewhere between 12 and 24 months.

Step 3

Pick up Scoble's book, "Naked Conversations". Read it very carefully, so you understand the blogging culture.

Step 4

Let the book sink in. Maybe another 8 months or so. You don't want to rush into anything here. Subscribe to lots of blogs and lurk for a while.

Step 5

Be sure to include an Amazon associates link in your first post, so that everyone knows you are in this for the right reasons.