My Favorite SQL Links

Learning a new programming language can be challenging to some, while come completely naturally to others. When I was in college, my best source for learning a new language was the class itself, and teachers. When working on your own projects and encountering your own first set of seemingly irreparable errors, it does help to have a teacher answer the questions that the books do not cover for what you are specifically attempting to do.

Of course, this will only work if that person is available within a learning environment, if you have a mentor or friend to help you, or if you explain the error within a forum. Forums usually are of great help, but sometimes it is difficult to convey what you are trying to achieve. As an amateur programmer, I had personally found getting information from multiple sources to be the best way to learn. If I came across a difficult concept within the book, I found reading up from different sources until it made better sense. YouTube is also very helpful when learning or even sometimes useful for experienced developers. I also find other blogs to be heavily useful because they can contain anything from answers to common problems, or even share excellent methods.

SQL is my favorite language, and I am delving into a new part of it every day. I do plan to branch out to other languages, but SQL and SSIS (SQL Server Integration Services) have been my major focus for now. My first SQL Server book was Murach's SQL Server 2008 for developers. Even though this is just a book my college picked out at the time, I still find it quite useful to go over. I am still using http://www.w3schools.com/sql/ for code reference. Even though it is easy to memorize code I use daily, I still do not have the years of experience that quite a few do. I reference this quite a bit. I recently used this comprehensive tutorial for Fuzzy Lookup in SSIS: http://www.codeproject.com/Tips/528243/SSIS-Fuzzy-lookup-for-cleaning-dirty-data , as well as SSIS Adventures with Fuzzy Matching: http://consultingblogs.emc.com/jamiethomson/archive/2005/03/30/SSIS_3A00_-Adventures-with-Fuzzy-Matching.aspx .

So far, using tutorials and modifying them to my needs has been the best rout, and I do hope to add my own ideas to the world of tutorials eventually.

Preloaded OS and Factory Restoration

What can one say in their blog? I suppose everything within their lives; but relevancy to something usually makes for good posts.  This blog was begun early within my college career; originating for a class in which weekly posts gained a grade.  It made sense, but I have since deleted everything on here about the class; as I kind of just want to focus on programming, IT, and general notes that am amateur like me comes across.

First of all; I have begun some of my own IT work by repairing friends computers.  I am by no means a consultant at this point; as I am a recent college graduate with little experience. Anyway, fixing problems with my own laptop as well as working with computers owned by friends, I have learned much about laptops.  My own is an Asus N61J with a preloaded Windows 7 that I had purchased (and had immediately become a necessity) in the middle of my college years .  Initially, preloaded systems were new to me; mostly because I have never performed any troubleshooting on them.  This is the first computer that I have brought myself; with all of my other computers being given to me when my husband upgraded to whatever gaming giant he needed at the time.  Thus, I had inherited old computers from him when he decided he needed to upgrade parts. Learning about the preloaded versions and what they do had taught me that they are actually quite nice.  Even though I still agree that building your own computer and buying your own OS is more efficient; I still have found the preloaded OS' have their own spark.

I had a pre-loaded Windows 7; a factory installed OS that is reloaded from user created disks and a factory restore point on the hard drive on a hidden partition.  Regardless of all of the bloatware; the factory OS already contains the drivers and user friendly installments on the computer.  This does not mean the computer will not need Window updates, but much of the work is already done.  For a computer savvy person, these things do seem to get in the way, but I do see their practical use.

My computer begins the recovery procedure by pressing the F9 button repeatedly on startup.  This takes it into the recovery options with instructions through the process. A few months ago, I fixed a friends Toshiba netbook by restoring it to factory conditions.  In this case, Toshiba's restoration procedure is all within the Toshiba options; with this one being within the Toshiba Disk Creator selection.  Again, it was all step by step instructions to restore the entire computer from the hidden partition, and I had her computer running soon after. Again, much bloatware and 'free offers' were deleted not too long after the computer was restored.  Today, I am in the process of fixing an HP Pavillion.  This little computer was able to be easily restored from the partition with the repetitive pressing of the F11 key on boot.  It had fairly simple instructions and a couple of hours of baby-setting the computer.

Pre-loaded OS installments usually encourage the user to make back-up recovery disks when receiving a new, or factory restored machine. I have found that many users actually do not perform this step, which ends up causing them problems in the future. Other times, the recovery disks can get damaged or lost. Usually, this is not too terribly concerning due to the fact that most of these computers recovery is also on a hidden partition of the hard drive and can return the OS to factory settings. However,it is always possible for the partition to become corrupted; causing the disks to be necessary.  In this case, your option is to fix and deal with your broken OS, buy Windows 7, or load a free OS onto the computer.  These options are not always the most optimal; but when it comes to preloaded OS's, they are usually the ones you have to face.  Of course, I would imagine if I called HP and requested boot disks; they would probably send them to me in a few weeks or so.  It's always possible.