Jen McCown

We were busy little bees over the Labor Day holiday (or, for our European readers, "houliday").  All of these are great, of course, but I'm going to steer you DIRECTLY to Sean's new video on Recovering SQL Passwords…do not pass anywhere or collect anything, just watch it!

• Recover SQL Passwords – Did you know that SQL Server stores username/password combos in cleartext in memory?  And did you know that you can also use a debugger to sniff the memory to retrieve those passwords?  Here I show you how to attach to an instance of SQL Server with a debugger and get a password you need to retrieve.  Thanks again to Sentrigo for bringing this to all of our attention.  12 minutes
• T-SQL: CASE Statement –  Here’s an intro to case statements, in the form of a conversation with Sean.  I cover simple case and searched case, and the special use of null.  BTW, I really like this video, and I don’t say that very often. 12 minutes.
• Grouping Basics: Level Zero – Here’s a ground level intro to grouping, with a lovely 80s arcade theme.  See the next blog post for the written companion to this video. 10 minutes.
• Dirty Tricks:  List from CMD – Here’s one of my dirty tricks: getting a list of folders or files from a command prompt, and formatting it for use in code using  Word. This is the extended remix version of a Midnight Snack. 7 minutes.
• Troubleshooting Simple Flatfile Load Errors – In this video I put together a small SSIS flatfile-to-SQL package, and troubleshoot a couple of errors.  11 minutes.
• Who Should Manage Backups – SORRY GUYS!!! This was about a 45min video and a glitch with the computer lost the first part of it so you only get the last 19mins.  We thought about recording it again, but we honestly don't remember what we said so I made the command decision to just post it as-is. 19 min.

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

When you create a new Integration Services (SSIS) package in Visual Studio, it's named Package1.dtsx by default.  When you rename the package – and you should always rename the package to something meaningful – you're asked "Do you want to rename the package object as well?"  You'll want to answer YES every time. Donald Farmer clarified this in the MSDN forums:  

In Visual Studio you rename a file – the *.dtsx file. However, the SSIS package is an object in the file. So if you don't rename the object you could have a package file called MySuperPackage.dtsx containing a package object called MyOldPackage. Try saying no to the dialog once and check the name property of the package in the properties window – select the package by clicking in the background of the object explorer.

I tried an experiment: I created a new package and renamed the file "Package1.dtsx" to "Meaningful.dtsx". When the rename package object dialog appeared, I clicked No.  Let's take a look at the code…down near the bottom you'll see this:

<DTS:LoggingOptions>
<DTS:Property DTS:Name="LoggingMode">0</DTS:Property>
<DTS:Property DTS:Name="FilterKind">1</DTS:Property>
<DTS:Property DTS:Name="EventFilter" DTS:DataType="8"></DTS:Property></DTS:LoggingOptions>
<DTS:Property DTS:Name="ObjectName">Package1</DTS:Property>
<DTS:Property DTS:Name="DTSID">{7F058592-B791-4A54-BFAA-E49BC5E99365}</DTS:Property>
<DTS:Property DTS:Name="Description"></DTS:Property>
<DTS:Property DTS:Name="CreationName">MSDTS.Package.1</DTS:Property>
<DTS:Property DTS:Name="DisableEventHandlers">0</DTS:Property></DTS:Executable>

The file is named Meaningful.dtsx (not shown), but the DTS:Name="ObjectName" is still Package1.  When I deployed this, the package name in SQL Server was Package1; it ignored the file rename.  This will cause problems if you do this with different packages; each has a different filename, but each is deployed as Package1, so it'll get overwritten. 

So that's a long way of saying: Rename the file, click Yes to rename the object.

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

Okay database friends and neighbors, we’re trying out a new & different video format this week that we're calling DBAs @ Midnight!  Sean and I record just us talking about whatever SQL-related topic we feel like, and so far we're getting pretty good feedback on our first effort.  Check out the first foray as real talking heads here in How To Study.  Be sure to let us know in comments / email / Twitter what you think.

We posted some new videos this week:

• Source Control in SSMS: Here Sean shows you how to setup source control in SSMS, and who should and shouldn't use it. 12 minutes.
• Insert Non-duplicate Rows: A video from Jen on a coding scenario — inserting rows — that illustrates the process of solving a problem from the simplest case to your intended result. 12 minutes.
• Intro to ASP.NET: This is Sean's intro to getting started writing pages in .NET and you'll get up and running on a couple easy data-driven pages. 31 minutes.

We have something like a dozen or more videos slated for this week, so keep an eye out for updates.  And remember, we do take requests.

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