Links for the Week 2009.09.20

SQL SERVER

Distributed Queries – Remote Login Permissions and Execution Plans You can sometimes end up with SQL Server not generating good execution plans for remote queries. I just assumed that this was a problem with remote queries. Turns out that I was wrong and all you really need to do is give some specific permissions to the remote login. You learn something new every day. John Paul Cook : Script to create all foreign keys Let’s make some foreign keys! How many times have you had to drop and recreate all of your foreign keys? I’ve had to do it, especially for complicated ETL processes where I really don’t feel like following the rules and I’d prefer to just throw data at a schema and validate it later. John Paul Cook has a great way to generate all of your keys as a drop and create. BOOM! DONE!

DEVELOPMENT

Microsoft StreamInsight : Updated Sample Package StreamInsight is part of the new complex event processing framework that will be unleashed on the world in SQL Server 2008 R2. This mainly includes internationalization fixes and an updated help file. [Running Rake tasks in E-Text Editor](http://www.lostechies.com/blogs/derickbailey/archive/2009/09/18/help-e-text-editor-can-t-run-my-rake-tasks.aspx “Help! E-Text Editor Can’t Run My Rake Tasks… - new ThoughtStream(“Derick Bailey”); - Los Techies : Blogs about software and anything tech!”) e-text editor is a lot like TextMate, but for Windows. It’s a must if you’re doing any kind of Ruby development and don’t want NetBeans or Eclipse eating 95% of your system memory. I’ve run into problems using it to run my rake tasks in the past. My solution was to keep a terminal window open. Apparently there’s a better way. Git Resources Git is what traditional source control wants to be when it grows up. I’m still learning and I have a long way to go on being 100% comfortable with git, however here’s a list of resources to help you along your route to using some sweet sweet version control.

STUFF & THINGS

Retro games are cool. I love retro gaming. In part because I don’t have a 3d accelerated graphics card in my macbook and my options are for retro games or flash games. The best part is that these aren’t abandonware games, these are legit games that have legally been released to the community. Go download some retro games. (The site is kind of slow because lifehacker linked to them, but be patient, it’s so worth it.) i love typography has a link dump. I heart fonts. I heart link dumps. I super heart font link dumps. Mistakes can be good. Matt at 37signals talks about the importance of revealing your mistakes and being honest about them and ties it in with an anecdote about Julia Child’s frank approach to her own cooking. I remember an episode of her show from when I was young where she tenderized meat with a 2×4. 20 years later I needed to tenderize meat, but I had no meat tenderizing hammer. But I did remember her advice about covering the meat and using anything available. So I covered the meat in saran wrap and then covered a book in saran wrap and I had a meat tenderizer. I’ve also used a shoe. True story.