Active Directory Tools

I just found one of the sweetest freeware tools for recovering deleted objects in Active Directory. http://www.quest.com/object-restore-for-active-directory/

Quest also has other helpful freeware for Active Directory among other things.

SQL Magic Part 1 - Select Distinct Tricks

Select Distinct is possibly one of the most useful SQL tools but one of the most flawed. Select Distinct will give you only 1 column of data. Why is that? Shouldn't it be able to do a distinct selection on a target column and also return the other row's columns? One would think so but this is not the case.
If you need to grab all columns out of a table while doing a select distinct you can try something like this:
SELECT * FROM DUPES AS D3 WHERE 1= (SELECT COUNT (*) FROM DUPES AS D2 WHERE D3.ID=D2.ID AND D3.NAME <> D2.NAME)
This gives you all the records (and all columns) where there is only 1 instance of an item. You can adjust the 1 = ( Select to a 2>= to get all items that have 2 or or fewer instances of the data you are looking for.
You can do a multi-column distinct query using a sub-select for example:
SELECT DISTINCT (ID) FROM DUPES AS D3 WHERE 1= (SELECT COUNT (*) FROM DUPES AS D2 WHERE D3.ID=D2.ID AND D3.NAME = D2.NAME AND d3.MEMBER = d4.MEMBER)
Of course we could do even more fun stuff given another level of sub-select query but SQL will not go more than 1 level in sub-selects. If we could do a two level sub select we could return all columns for a given distinct query by appending a select * from dupes where 1= (select distinct.... (select count(*)...))
Granted we can write stored procedures to do some of this stuff programmatically but deficiencies in the Distinct function are significant and cost a great deal of time in work-arounds. If new SQL standards come out any time soon they should include a Distinct function that allows for a multi column distinct specification AND wildcards.... ex: SELECT *,DISTINCT (ID, MEMBER_KEY) FROM... or perhaps better... SELECT * FROM DUPES HAVING DISTINCT(ID,MEMBER_KEY)

Herding Cats

Managing developers is like herding cats. Developers are skittish, fickle and smart enough to be dangerous. Every programmer thinks that he is the next Bill Gates which is ultimately not too far out of the realm of possibility.

With this in mind how does one manage programmers through a restructuring or other major shift in development? The answer is non-obvious to those who have never done this before but surprisingly simple...
1) Always start with building trust. This means that you have to know what you're doing.  It also means that you need to invest serious time in the project.
2) Don't buzz-word drop. Everyone hears something different when people drop buzzwords and almost inevitably it will lead to preconceptions of what is being discussed. And this includes talking in broad generalities.
3) Keep discussions/meetings to the point and don't let them wander off topic.
4) Use fist-of-five decision making or use a proper Decision Analysis process with requirements and a ranking cube.
5) Be smart go-Agile. It's a foregone conclusion that old methods do not work. Agile systems represent 80% of the successful software development projects.
6) Put project management where it belongs... with a group representing each discipline within the division. Let them chose their own team to lead the project.
7) Stay out of project management... act as oversight, don't meddle
8) Drive discipline-specific pride by finding creative ways to encourage BA, QA, Dev, PM teams to take pride in what they do and build personal skill and presige.
9) Keep the team together whenever possible. Lay-offs and firings are almost always counter-productive.
10) Reward, Reward, Reward and go back to step #1.

So if you are doing a major revamp of how your company does things... give these ideas a try.

~DC