It's time for the first MidnightDBA web contest! 

OMG Really?? What do I win? 

It's your chance to win "Windows 7: The Definitive Guide, 1st Edition", By William R. Stanek (@williamstanek on Twitter).

AWESOMESAUCE! HOW do I win?? 

Watch the PASS Summit interview we did with MVP Allen White - linked from our DBAs @ Midnight page - and email Jen@JenniferMcCown.com (use "midnightDBA" in the subject) with the answers to three questions:

1. What is Allen White's answer to: What DB platform holds more corporate data than ANY other DB platform in the world?
2. Sean said “That's what she said”.  What was Jen's reply?
3. What Dr. Seuss book does Sean reference by title?

That's it? 

Well, yeah.  Oh sure, it's simple, basic, childish even.  We could make you jump through coding hoops or sing us a song.  Actually, that's a good idea...no, no, we'll stick with the quiz.  Enjoy, and pass it on.  Drawing for the book will be held Tuesday, November 24, and the winer will be posted by midnight!

-Jen McCown, http://www.MidnightDBA.com

P.S. We reserve the right to change the prize to something virtual (like a credit at Amazon or something) if the winner lives in a country that wants to charge us $4,000 for import fees...

I had a guy at work tell me that he'd read about turning AWE on for 64bit SQL.  That sounded TOTALLY wrong to me, so I checked BOL, which says "AWE is not required and cannot be configured on 64-bit operating systems."  I got all self-satisfied, but then I thought, I'd better check with the internetz.

Thanks to Denny Cherry (@mrdenny on Twitter) for pointing me to a reputable resource: Bob Ward's most excellent CSS SQL Server Engineers article "Fun with Locked Pages, AWE, Task Manager, and the Working Set…". This in essence says that BOL is right in one sense: the sp_configure option for AWE makes absolutely no difference for 64-bit SQL. But you can get the effect of "locking pages" (not to be confused with page locks) by using the 'lock pages in memory' privilege set. (See also Bob's accompanying article Do I have to assign the Lock Pages in Memory privilege for Local System?). 

Edit: Here's a blog by Slava Oks that also addresses 64bit and AWE (thanks for the link goes to Mladen Prajdic)

Bottom line: AWE has NO effect on 64 bit systems! (And, you set "lock pages in memory" independently, if that's the behavior you're looking for.)

-Jen McCown

http://www.midnightdba.com/

Feeling the crunch today to finish up and hand off work before leavign for #SQLPASS (yeah, I used a Twitter hashtag in a blog...wanna make something of it? :)  so we're going with the "clean, efficient" style today.  Free stuff for you:

• Thanks @BuckWoody for the list of free college and other courses
• Thanks @MicrosoftPress for another free ebook: Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2. "Covers new features & refinements in R2."
• Thanks to the internetz and MVPs for the free, downloadable "Developers, Developers, Developers" IT eBook (download PDF from MS)
• Thanks @BrentO for your PASS Summit session previews
• For those who are registered to go to PASS, remember to download the presentation slide decks from the Agenda tool  Your login is the email you used when you registered.
• Oh, and I just bought and downloaded the eBook version of "Twitter Wit" from Barnes & Noble. When you buy an ebook from them, you get 5 others for free, including Dracula, a Jane Austen book, and the Merriam-Webster dictionary. I just thought that was cool.
• Finally, you guys should go check out Wil Wheaton's (remember Wil Wheaton?  Of "Die Westly Die" fame on Star Trek Next Generation? Turns out he's a cool dude, and a geek like us.) "Memories of the Futurecast" podcasts from iTunes.  Hilarious.  Blog, Twitter.

Happy days,

-Jen McCown, http://www.MidnightDBA.com

Free is greatness.  Please to enjoy:

North Texas User Group Next Week!

North Texans (and anyone in earshot): Free training, networking, and SQL community ties at the North Texas SQL Server User Group.  Next meeting is in a week, Thursday 9/17.  Topic this month is "Bad SQL - Why Does This "Perfectly Good" T-SQL Run So Slow?"

Oops...

Ok, sorry folks...it looks like this wasn't a legit free offering.  So sorry all, and especially to the authors of said book.  That's what I get for being naiive....

More Free Goodness!

-Jen McCown, http://www.MidnightDBA.com

At the risk of stealing his thunder, I think I'll make my first blog post about Sean's latest greatest idea, the Midnight Snacks.  We'll soon be offering daily video snippets, or "Snacks", for your edification.  I've just recorded a few vids on one of the great unsung heroes of computing, the keyboard shortcut.  Here's the cheat sheets to go along with those vids:

Favorite keyboard shortcuts

________________
1 - Text editing keyboard shortcuts

CTRL A, S, X, C, V, Z

CTRL Home

CTRL SHIFT End, Home
SHIFT End, Home

________________
2 - Window control/nav keyboard shortcuts

ALT-Tab
ALT-SHIFT Tab
Alt-F4
ALT-SHIFT n, x(, r)
Windows L, R, #... (QuickLaunch in vista, pinned in 7)

________________
3 - Old school "classic" text menus/kbrd shortcuts

Alt-F C to close
 F N for new file (or ctrl-N)
 F S to save (or ctrl-S)
 F A to save as
 F O to open (or ctrl-O)
 F P to print (or ctrl-P)
Alt-E U to undo (or ctrl-Z)
Alt-E F to find, or F3 (or ctrl-Z)

These are still applicable even when you can't see the text menus, like in IE, and MS Office.