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Day: October 20, 2022

A WPF-Based Countdown Timer

Jeffrey Hicks keeps track of time:

Last year I released a PowerShell module called PSClock. The module contains a command to create a transparent WPF form displaying a clock. Shortly after, someone posted a request for a countdown timer. Not an unreasonable request and one I finally got around to implementing. However, I already had a module with a number of timer and countdown-related commands called PSTimers I had been thinking of a WPF-based timer, so this solved two problems.

Read on to see how it works.

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An Analysis of Resumable Online Index Operations

Chris Taylor sums it up:

This is more of a heads up for me / reminder regarding some of the caveats to using ONLINE / RESUMABLE index operations with SQL Server.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a ton of advantages to using ONLINE and RESUMABLE which I will highlight below but here is the link to the Microsoft Learn page if you want more in depth information

Read on for the pros and cons. I do like the idea, though I personally haven’t used the feature.

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Power BI Line Chart: Summarized or Split

Prathy Kamasani gives us options:

A colleague of mine came to me with an interesting use case, “ Switch between a summarized value or selected value with multiple legends”. For example, I have five countries and their GDP values. When the end user goes to the report, the user would like to see the average GDP of all countries, but when the user selects single or multiple countries on the slicers, the line chart should show only selected values.

Click through for the guide.

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The Importance of Power BI Object Names

Paul Turley sends us an e-mail:

Using common language is critical but often trivialized, when describing requirements, deliverables and project expectations. When people are working together, depending on each other to complete important tasks, they must have a clear understanding of the common language and terminology. It is usually only after a word, phrase or abbreviation has been used with an assumed meaning that we realize the error and have gotten ourselves into trouble. Often, on a daily basis, I review project proposals and requirement documents containing inaccurate language related to Power BI project work. I also getting a lot of virtual eye-rolling when correcting seemingly inconsequential language. But I can also cite many cases when subtle misinterpretations became costly mistakes.

This is at a higher level than naming measures or dimensions.

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Extended Event Duration Filtering and Looping

Erik Darling notes a problem with time-based filters on operations:

There are six waitfor commands that each pause for 1 second. In between them are queries that finish in milliseconds.

If I watch the event output, eventually, I’ll see this:

Okay, so the stored procedure took more than 5 seconds, but… no individual query took more than 5 seconds.

This happens a lot and I’m not sure there’s a good answer for it.

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