The Prisoners Dilemma of Defect Disclosure

August 21, 2018August 22, 2018 Jeff Mlakar2 Comments

Cory Doctorow wrote an excellent piece about the disclosure of software security defects. The post “Telling the Truth About Defects in Technology Should Never, Ever, Ever Be Illegal. EVER.” spells out the current predicament and suggests a way forward.

This topic is contemporary, impactful, and fascinating. It spans various domains such as InfoSec, free speech, censorship, and private corporate rights

Read on as I analyze the article and offer my thoughts about security vulnerability disclosures.

Feature Image Attribution and License.

T-SQL Tuesday #105 – Brick Wall

August 14, 2018 Jeff MlakarLeave a comment

The topic for this months T-SQL Tuesday #105 (hosted by Wayne Sheffield Blog/Twitter) is:

“Tell me about a time when you ran up against your own brick wall, and how you worked it out or dealt with it.”

Gather around for story time as I relate a story from the field.

How to Move and Configure tempdb Files

August 10, 2018August 9, 2018 Jeff Mlakar1 Comment

Every SQL Server instance relies heavily on tempdb to function. Because of this it is important to properly setup and configure tempdb. If you work on a system with a sub optimal tempdb setup then you may have to move files. Read on to see a technique for getting this job done.

How to Insert Into a Table Using Excel to Write SQL

August 3, 2018August 3, 2018 Jeff MlakarLeave a comment

Today I want to show off a quick trick I learned many years ago that is useful to this day.

The Scenario: you have a spreadsheet, CSV file, or some other delimited flat file and need to load that into a database. There are many options to load data into SQL Server; however, a quick method I am fond of is to use Microsoft Excel and manipulate the data to craft insert statements then paste into SSMS and execute.

Read on to see how to parse and load a CSV flat file, character delimited flat file, and columnar text.