CStechcast.com brings you another audio podcast filled with a half hour of solid information for IT professionals. This week we interview Andy Leonard, Microsoft MVP and co-author of several books including Professional Software Testing with Visual Studio 2005 Team System: Tools for Software Developers and Test Engineers , and we talk about the importance of database testing. In the news we talk about some major security gaffs involving malware on servers that led to identity theft and rigged searches on major web sites, plus new attacks against DNS, hacking Windows Server 2008 and the MacBook Air, and EnterpriseDB's open source Postgres database gets new life with new funding and a competitive update. The "Worst Tech Move of the Week" goes to Warner's proposed music tax on ISPs, the "Weekly Tech Tip" brings you ways to improve page file performance in Windows, and disaster recovery planning gets "A Closer Look". A big giveaway for you from Quest Software for a copy of Change Director for SQL Server, so enter at our web site CStechcast.com by clicking the Contest button. Links to stories discussed during the show: Attackers booby-trap searches at top Web sites (C|Net News.com)
Malware Cited in Supermarket Data Breach (Associated Press)
EnterpriseDB Looks to Bolster Product Line (eWeek)
NIST Unveils Tool To Foil DNS Attacks (ENT Magazine)
Minimizing Information Leakage in the DNS (National Institute for Standards and Technology)
MacBook Air Hacked In Two Minutes (Information Week)
Hacker Pours Cold Water on Windows Server 2008 Security Design (eWeek)
Warner Music Pushes ISP Tax For Music Downloads (Information Week)
Jim Griffin says ISP music tax only one possibility (C|Net News.com) 
Don't Miss The Giveaway! Don't miss our big giveaway of Quest Software's Change Director for SQL Server. Change Director for SQL Server provides a powerful automated solution for managing change to SQL Server databases. Please enter using the "Contest" button on the CStechcast.com homepage. Leave comments at the blog, on the feedback form, or at our voicemail. Tell your friends to subscribe to CS Techcast! Thanks for listening. Link to the episode: http://www.cstechcast.com/home.aspx?Episode=18 - Eric Beehler (consortioservices.com/blog)
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Web 2.0 is all the rage, making users more productive by offering new programming methods and applications used on an Internet platform. This expanding ability for greater productivity is great, but it comes with a side effect; new security threats that were previously unheard of. New attacks require new security considerations for your environment. We cover recent threats from Web 2.0, Flash, bot-nets, and we talk about some new considerations you should think about as you move forward in protecting your network with these new threats lurking. Download the white paper from us, Eric Beehler and Eric Johnson, at http://redmondmag.com/techlibrary/resources.asp?id=621. - Eric Beehler (consortioservices.com/blog)
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The title, a play on translated Japanese advertising; the cstechcast.com podcast, real information for IT professionals. Get ready for the newly released Microsoft Windows Server 2008 operating system with our interview of Greg Shields, frequent TechMentor presenter, Redmond Magazine contributing editor, and author of the new book: Windows Server 2008: What’s New/What’s Changed. Check out the details and a free sample chapter at sapienpress.com. The news hails the coming of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 along with lingering problems and updated Microsoft Deployment tools; FireFox 3, Safari for Windows, and IE 8 are bringing back the 90's; it's Browser Wars 2: Attack of the Clones, Hyper-V may break the Microsoft release pattern with an EARLY release, and reality show "The Office" proves itself to be a self fulfilling prophecy. Comcast gets all up in the grill of the FCC for the "Worst Tech Move of the Week", the "Weekly Tech Tip" is presented by our SharePoint Zen master, and we discuss the book The Rational Guide to Building Technical User Communities in our rip off segment of Oprah's book club with "What We're Reading". Thank's to Quest Software for sponsoring the software giveaway, enter at cstechcast.com. Find them at quest.com.
Links to stories discussed during the show:
Vista SP1 Goes Live (ENT Mag)
Windows Vista SP1 Wreaks Havoc On Some PCs, Users Complain (Information Week)
Microsoft deployment tools ready as Windows Server 2008 arrives (TechTarget)
Mozilla says Firefox 3 ready for prime-time (Reuters)
Battle of the betas: Firefox 3 beats IE8 (Computer World)
Apple launches Safari for Windows (ZD Net)
Court Notes That Empty 'The Office'-Style Workplace Concepts Not Subject To Copyright (TechDirt)
Comcast Says FCC Has No Authority To Stop Traffic Shaping (TechDirt)
We metioned author Greg Low, author of The Rational Guide to Building Technical User Communities. We also wanted to provide a link to his SQL Server podcast at sqldownunder.com. Thanks Greg for keeping the spirit of real life technology communities alive.
Giveaway!
Don't miss our big giveaway of Quest Software's Change Director for SQL Server. Change Director for SQL Server provides a powerful automated solution for managing change to SQL Server databases. We appreciate your listenership, so take advantage of this attempt at buying your love. This is a great package and your chances of winning are pretty good, so don't forget to enter at cstechcast.com.
Link to the episode: http://www.cstechcast.com/home.aspx?Episode=17
- Eric Beehler (consortioservices.com/blog)
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CStechcast.com brings another podcast episode to the starting line with guest Kalen Delaney. This SQL Server expert and authoritative author of the Inside SQL Server series gives us her take on SQL Server 2008. Find the latest from Kalen Delaney at insidesqlserver.com and SQLCommunity.com. In the news; 10,000 legitimate sites were hit by a SQL injection to deliver malware, Microsoft get their Dynamics apps revved up for the enterprise, Apple makes the iPhone business savvy, and the NCAA gets set to dunk on your network bandwidth. The "Worst Tech Move of the Week" is pre-installed with viruses courtesy of bad Q.C. at Chinese factories, we reach back in our storied histories for our favorite "Data Center Disasters", and the "Tech Tip" exposes easy to use shortcut keys in SQL Server Management Studio.
Links to stories discussed during the show:
Hackers Look to Steal Online Gaming Passwords
Anatomy of a SQL Injection Incident
Anatomy of a SQL Injection Incident, Part 2
A Glimpse of Microsoft's Enterprise Goals
Apple releases iPhone SDK, announces push e-mail, Exchange support
How to Not Bring the Network to Its Knees During March Madness
Shout out to the "Couple of Admins" podcast at mindofroot.com, Steve Jones at the Voice of the DBA podcast and SQLserverCentral.com, and Peter Varhol at the Redmond Report for giving us props. Don't forget to leave your comments here on this blog, refer-a-friend to our podcast from the link on our homepage, leave your feedback, and keep tuning into cstechcast.com.
Link to CS Techcast Episode 16 podcast: http://www.cstechcast.com/home.aspx?Episode=16
- Eric Beehler (consortioservices.com/blog)
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Just a quick note today. Our buddy, SQL Server MVP and author Paul Nielson has decided to throw some code out there (two stored procedures) in the wild that will help DBAs understand and utilize the new data compression feature in SQL Server 2008. Head over to his site, www.sqlserverbible.com, to get the details (I don't want to steal his thunder here)! Thanks Paul!
--Josh
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A special episode at cstechcast.com this week as we record our podcast live from PASS Camp. This keynote address features an expert panel to explore the upcoming SQL Server 2008 database release with questions on features, technology, and strategy for our panel. Featured on our panel are Paul Nielsen - Microsoft SQL Server MVP and author of the “SQL Server Bible” book series (SqlServerBible.com), Kevin Cox – member of the SQL Server Product Group in the Customer Advisory Team at Microsoft (sqlcat.com), and Ben Hoelting - a .NET developer with Colorado Technology Consultants (benhblog.com). Of course, we also have our own co-hosts contribute; Eric Johnson, Microsoft SQL Server MVP, and Josh Jones, published author on many SQL topics. Author and co-host of the podcast Eric Beehler moderates the discussion. We are offering a video version of this episode as well; check it out at cstechcast.com. Detailed topics include the delay of the official launch and it's effect on the market and its supporters. We also discuss SQL Server 2008 in the enterprise and how it takes on its biggest competitors, IBM and Oracle. On the flip side, we discuss perhaps the smallest competitor, mySQL, and what SQL Server is doing to stay small business friendly. Attendees bring up questions on horizontal scalability and data modeling tools. We get into it with new developer feature LINQ and the possible consequences to proper database management. We also get a read on the panelist's favorite new features of SQL 2008. 
We would like to thank Quest Software for allowing us to bring you this event through their sponsorship of this episode. Find out how they can help you with their suite of database management solutions at quest.com. Don't forget our drive to find new listeners through our Amazon.com gift certificate giveaway. Go to cstechcast.com and "refer-a-friend". Leave your comments at this blog post and thanks for listening. Link to CS Techcast Episode 15 podcast: http://www.cstechcast.com/home.aspx?Episode=15
- Eric Beehler (consortioservices.com/blog)
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CStechcast.com brings you the expertise of Michael Stiefel, a Microsoft MVP in Connected Systems Development, to explain the concepts behind Software as a Service (SaaS). Michael can be found at reliablesoftware.com. News on deck: Windows Vista takes price cuts and more lumps from Dell, Google says to Microsoft "Do you want a piece of me?" and releases Google Sites, sliding skills found in the security field, and the Cobra language goes open source. In our segments; Network Solutions steals our domain so we can't register "The Worst Tech Move of the Week", we take a trip down memory lane with "This Month in Tech History", and we talk about SQL Server 2005 and the BUILTIN\administrators group in the "Weekly Tech Tip".
Links to the stories discussed in our podcast:
Microsoft Cuts Vista Prices to Urge Upgrades
Dell Pointed Out Vista Mistakes, Internal Documents Show
Google Takes Aim at SharePoint
IT Security Skills Falling Short
Cobra Language Slithers into Open Source
All comments can be left at this blog post. Click our listener survey at cstechcast.com to provide us feedback and enter our Amazon gift certificate giveaway when you refer-a-friend. It's not spam and we don't want the e-mail address, we just want to bring more tech to the world. Don't forget about the live event next week and, if your in the Denver area, come check out the Colorado PASS Camp a free two day event on SQL Server and related technologies.
Download the Episode Here
- Eric Beehler (consortioservices.com/blog)
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Andy Warren wrote an article on SQLServerCentral.com the other day about the maximum row size in SQL Server 2005. I don't want to re-hash what Andy already said so you can see the article here: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Development/2862/. The gist is that Microsoft built SQL Server to be able to handle rows of data that grow beyond 8060-bytes. It does this by moving certain data off to other pages and leaving behind a 24-byte pointer. Well, after reading Andy's article, I got to thinking, just how many varchar(8000) columns can you stick in a table and fill up before SQL Server fills the page with pointers. I conducted a test.....first off I made a table that contained 400 varchar(8000) columns using the following, now slightly truncated, script: CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Test](
[BigColumn1] [varchar](8000),
[BigColumn2] [varchar](8000),
[BigColumn3] [varchar](8000),
....
[BigColumn398] [varchar](8000),
[BigColumn399] [varchar](8000),
[BigColumn400] [varchar](8000)
)
GO Use your imagination, or if you want, a little fill magic in Excel to generate the rest of that create table script. Running this script was not all good, SQL Server did warn me of the impending doom, much like SQL Server 2000 would do if you tried to add more than 1 varchar(8000). Warning: The table "Test" has been created, but its maximum row size exceeds the allowed maximum of 8060 bytes. INSERT or UPDATE to this table will fail if the resulting row exceeds the size limit. Now on to the fun part, a quick insert statement to get us going: INSERT INTO Test(
BigColumn1,
BigColumn2,
BigColumn3, ...
BigColumn398,
BigColumn399,
BigColumn400)
VALUES
(
'TestD',
'TestD',
'TestD',
... 'TestD',
'TestD',
'TestD'
) And finally the update statement to really mess things up: UPDATE test SET BigColumn1 = REPLICATE ('0123456789', 800)
UPDATE test SET BigColumn2 = REPLICATE ('0123456789', 800)
UPDATE test SET BigColumn3 = REPLICATE ('0123456789', 800) ...
UPDATE test SET BigColumn272 = REPLICATE ('0123456789', 800)
UPDATE test SET BigColumn273 = REPLICATE ('0123456789', 800)
UPDATE test SET BigColumn274 = REPLICATE ('0123456789', 800) Well, you may now be asking, why didn't you run all 400 updates? Well, after 273 ran without an error, row number 274 finally died with the old familiar error: Msg 511, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Cannot create a row of size 8064 which is greater than the allowable maximum of 8060.
The statement has been terminated. So there you have it, in case you ever had the same thought that I did about how big a row can really be.......now you know, 273 great big columns! P.S. If you are thinking of designing a 273 column table full of nothing but varchar(8000) columns, please don't. For the love of all that is tech, just stop touching SQL Server and find something else to do with your time. Eric J - www.cstechcast.com
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We’ve had a few people send us e-mail via our feedback page with questions on the book. I thought I would share with everyone the more important questions that can help your effort to study. Usually if one person asked a question, more people are wondering the same thing. The first one is regarding errata. One question specifically about where to find it published. Our publisher, Sybex, handles publishing any errata for the book. It exists on their web site at: http://www.sybex.com/WileyCDA/SybexTitle/productCd-0470165340,navId-291004,pageCd-errata.html and at: http://www.sybex.com/WileyCDA/SybexTitle/productCd-0470165359,navId-291004,pageCd-errata.html. If you have found an error, they have a link available to submit the issue. I am currently working on rebuilding the lab for Vista deployment for our 70-622 Vista enterprise support book in an attempt to make it a little more user friendly. When Vista released, a bunch of new tools for deployment released with it as well as a new method of installation. That is the only issue that has been submitted to me so far. So, if you are struggling with that, I’ll admit, longish lab, I would encourage you to supplement with the Microsoft Guide here: http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/88f80cb7-d44f-47f7-a10d-e23dd53bc3fa1033.mspx?mfr=true until the updated lab is posted. I’ll update the blog when that happens. The background on a book like this is that the release is very compressed. As much as we tried to catch any issues, it’s not like writing the great American novel. We get a very limited amount of time with a brand new operating system and constantly morphing objectives for the test. We pour through the features and try to give you the information you need to meet the objectives and be proficient in support of the product. The publisher actually needs 3 or 4 months after we are done writing and reviewing to prep for publishing and distribution. You can imagine the pressure that creates on an author.
On another note, we received a very nice user review on Amazon.com for our title on the 70-623 Vista consumer support book. We love to get feedback. Otherwise, how would we know how we are doing?
If you have a question for the authors, we welcome your input and accept feedback at our website http://www.consortioservices.com. If the question applies to everyone, I will post a blog about it. - Eric Beehler (consortioservices.com/blog)
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Josh Jones and I got to interview Kalen Delaney earlier today for our podcast. It was really a lot of fun and she provided us with a lot of great information. Come hear what she had to say on CS Techcast by visiting http://www.cstechcast.com. The interview will be released in the next few weeks, probably right after our live show from PASSCamp in Denver.
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We're moving our podcast to an earlier Monday release to make sure our information is super fresh, available at cstechcast.com. This week, the second part of our chat with the authors of The Craft of System Security, Sean Smith and John Marchesini. The news gives us Google Apps for enterprise, malware slips into popular sites, a roadblock from Yahoo for Microsoft, security patches from MS and Apple, and Vista SP1 is RTM, but no one can find it. Plus the RIAA gets a nod for "Worst Tech Move of the Week", the "Weekly Tech Tip" helps out you SharePoint administrators, and we "Tech It Old School".
Show Notes
Links to stories discussed in the show:
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/02/google_lets_ent.html
http://www.nytimes.com/idg/IDG_002570DE00740E18002573E70076F8A2.html?ref=technology
http://entmag.com/news/rss.asp?editorialsid=9521#1
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Apple-Plugs-QuickTime-Malware-Installation-Hole/
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Windows-Users-Brace-for-MS-Patch-Tuesday-Barrage/
http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9061838&intsrc=hm_list
http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=3184
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/02/08/riaa_wants_filters_for_end_users/
Thanks for listening. Do us a favor and fill out the listener survey, available on the cstechcast.com homepage. Spread the word about CS TechCast and leave specific show comments at this blog post. Thanks.
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We turn the big 1-0 with our latest podcast, available at CStechcast.com. This week we talk to the authors of The Craft of System Security, Sean Smith and John Marchesini, the first of a 2 part interview. The news brings the ginormous Yahoo-Microsoft merger, cable cuts in the Med makes the Internet vulnerable, Cisco manages the data center from the switch, VMWare moves beyond the hypervisor, and your boss is prepping for a recession. Plus, "The Worst Tech Move of the Week" and "A Closer Look" at tech certifications.
Show Notes
Links to the stories discussed in our podcast:
http://www.news.com/Microsoft-bids-44.6-billion-for-Yahoo/2100-1014_3-6228705.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2008/01/ciscos_new_data.html
http://entmag.com/news/rss.asp?editorialsid=9470#6
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Careers/Economic-Worries-Hitting-IT-Pros/
If you enjoy the podcast, please fill out our survey at cstechcast.com (click the listener survey button). Its free and would help us immensely. Plus, tell everyone you know to listen to CS Techcast. Leave your comments at this blog post. Thanks!
- Eric Beehler (consortioservices.com/blog)
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We had a technical glitch with the MP3 file that went out originally. If you have a problem listening to the podcast, please download it again. It's all fixed.
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