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it usually takes SQL Server two or three seconds to respond

then you're incompetent. stackoverflow uses SQL Server 2008, and serves 12-14 million pages a day.

I blogged about my top 10 questions to ask before taking an IT job, and some of 'em included:

#5 "Is twitter blocked by the Firewall?" makes it kind of difficult to take the list seriously, even though the others are really good suggestions, for the most part.

I blogged about my top 10 questions to ask before taking an IT job, and some of 'em included:

8. What is the on-call rotation schedule?
7. In the last year, how many times has the on-call person been called?
4. Can I schedule vacations around the holidays?

Heh heh heh - time to dust off my fake RIAA lawsuit press release to scare your friends with. It's a press release ripped off Yahoo, but you can fill in your friend's name and occupation to generate an official-looking link. Tell them you saw their name in the press release, and watch 'em drop their coffee. The link to turn themselves down at the end of the article clues them in that they've been had. Generate a personalized link at http://www.brentozar.com/breakingnews/.

Last time I published this on Slashdot, a few people got fooled so badly they sent me threatening emails. Hee hee... Of course, last time, I didn't get near the top of the postings, so my server didn't get much of a load. I can almost hear the DSL line screaming in protest as I click Submit.

Oddly, I only had to change the date and a couple of numbers. The other headlines on the page still ring true as current: rebuilding Iraq, SCO's salvation, and the flash mob craze.

I've been using the very inexpensive ServersAlive from Woodstone since 1999, and I've been very pleased with it. It's much friendlier to use than Big Brother or MRTG (and yes, I use both of those as well). The user interface is great, very easy to point-click your way through, and you can also SSH or Telnet into it to do other administrative tasks.

It can check everything from pings, snmp, databases, web pages, services, processes, port checks, and more. For whatever it doesn't check, you can design external checks, and users share their external checks for things like Lotus Notes and file counts.

The alerting is absolutely top-notch: you can set up teams and people, and each person can have their own notification settings & schedules via ICQ, MSN, email, pager, and more. I love it because I can have my alerts delivered to the right place at the right time.

The user community is very active: there's a great email list with a lot of helpful people. I've personally written lots of web templates for it, and other users have added external checks for stuff like Lotus Notes, ODBC database checking, and more. The developers are also extremely responsive, and they do beta builds every few days with new features. For example, MSN recently turned off their old protocols, but Woodstone had already made available a new version that works with the new protocol, and explained to the email list what the ramifications were.

The newest version 4 added an Enterprise Version that can log to ODBC, so you can build web-based analytical reporting as well. That version goes for $179, but there's a free 10-check-only version and a $99 normal version. Can't say enough good stuff about this - it's outlasted four network admins at my company because the alerting at from my house (using ServersAlive) has always outperformed every solution we've put in at the office, including Big Brother, WhatsUpGold, and a few others.

I had a little fun with a Yahoo press release the other day, and made a version on my own site that's database-driven, so you can stuff somebody's name in an innocuous link. In this one, it's Julian Morales, but here you can put in anybody's name and email them the link to scare the pants off 'em.

I had a little fun with a Yahoo press release the other day, and made a version on my own site that's database-driven, so you can stuff somebody's name in an innocuous link. In this one, it's Julian Morales, but here you can put in anybody's name and email them the link to scare the pants off 'em.

I whipped up a fake news release using Yahoo's story yesterday, just for yuks. It looks like this:
http://www.brentozar.com/breakingnews/riaa.aspx?ex =10600&Language=EN&&partner=GOOGLE&Refer=5

The names in the press release are dynamically generated, though, so you can put in a friend's name & occupation and point them to the site, making them think their name was in the press release. (Okay, so I've got too much spare time.) You can set them up here:

http://www.brentozar.com/breakingnews/

I whipped up a fake news release using Yahoo's story yesterday, just for yuks. It looks like this:
http://www.brentozar.com/breakingnews/riaa.aspx?ex =10600&Language=EN&&partner=GOOGLE&Refer=5

The names in the press release are dynamically generated, though, so you can put in a friend's name & occupation and point them to the site, making them think their name was in the press release. (Okay, so I've got too much spare time.) You can set them up here:

http://www.brentozar.com/breakingnews/

I can't say enough good things about turtles. You can either get aquatic turtles like red-eared sliders that spend most of their time underwater in an aquarium, or you can get regular box turtles that can wander around on the floor. They're very sturdy, they're easy to take care of, they live for tens of years, and they've got great personalities.

Personally, I prefer aquatic turtles: if you have to leave them alone for a week (for vacation, trips, whatever), you can get a little automatic feeder and you don't have to worry about them pooping all over the place like dogs. They're beautiful to watch when they swim, plus you can take them out and play with them.

Plus, they'll eat meat: you can throw a couple of live feeder fish, crickets, or whatever in the tank and watch the thrill of the chase.

I can't exactly say that they're trainable, but they're very smart. Mine have learned to climb up on my feet and sit there when they want me to play with them. They'll just camp out on my socks or shoes and wait patiently for me to sit down on the floor.