T-SQL Record Separatorhttps://www.joellipman.com/articles/database/t-sql/t-sql-record-separator.html

11 October 2011 used in an Excel file. Some of our end customers are not even computer literate so the SQL query had to do the bulk of the work. The SQL query we send to the database has to insert separator rows so ideally we would like: Day ---------------- Monday...

• Type: Article
• Author: Joel Lipman
• Category: Transact-SQL
• Language: en-GB

How to Display Report Execution Time in SSRS (milliseconds)https://www.joellipman.com/articles/microsoft/ssrs/how-to-display-report-execution-time-in-ssrs.html

17 November 2011 second(s) This isn't what I want... It wasn't accurate enough and always saying 0 seconds was just confusing the end-user... Workaround #1 Although I'm convinced of a solution considering the ReportServer database will be able to tell you how many...

• Type: Article
• Author: Joel Lipman
• Category: SQL Server Reporting Services
• Language: en-GB

Performance Report - Background colors based on dataset valueshttps://www.joellipman.com/articles/microsoft/ssrs/green-red-background-colors-based-on-dataset-values.html

02 December 2011 color the backgrounds based on whether they are the fastest or slowest in the set. Something like: The DataSet This should work on your reporting server as well. I'm using the database "ReportServer". select * from ( SELECT TOP 1 c.[Name] AS...

• Type: Article
• Author: Joel Lipman
• Category: SQL Server Reporting Services
• Language: en-GB

No rows returned in Oracle causes SP to failhttps://www.joellipman.com/articles/database/pl-sql/no-rows-returned-in-oracle-causes-sp-to-fail.html

24 January 2012 a username. No rows are returned for the first query and a zero isn't inserted. Note: Running just one of the queries will work as normal with the NVL function. Running the second based on the first will error this procedure. One Issue I just kept...

• Type: Article
• Author: Joel Lipman
• Category: Oracle PL/SQL
• Language: en-GB

MySQL: Display Users and Duration in Matrix Timesheethttps://www.joellipman.com/articles/database/mysql/mysql-display-users-and-duration-in-matrix-timesheet.html

27 April 2012 was to separate both tables (activities and users) rather than trying to join these, and to let PHP do a bit more of the work: User Query $t_value = $the_team_id_that_i_want_to_look_at; $user_list_query=" SELECT DISTINCT u.UserID, CONCAT(u.FirstName, '...

• Type: Article
• Author: Joel Lipman
• Category: MySQL
• Language: en-GB

Print Directory Contents to a Filehttps://www.joellipman.com/articles/microsoft/windows-os/print-directory-contents-to-a-file.html

19 July 2012 with the action name (eg. "Print Directory Contents To File" - replace spaces with underscores if you are unsure this will work) Add a key to this one called "command" Under the "command" key, there should be a new string value called "(Default)". If...

• Type: Article
• Author: Joel Lipman
• Category: Windows OS
• Language: *

Connect to Joomla database in standalone scripthttps://www.joellipman.com/articles/cms/joomla/connect-to-joomla-database-in-standalone-script.html

17 August 2012 How? Based on a script I found on StackOverflow. Not sure what version they were using so I modified it to make this work with my environment (Joomla 2.5.6). This is a cut down version of my download.php script: //init Joomla Framework define( '_JEXEC',...

• Type: Article
• Author: Joel Lipman
• Category: Joomla
• Language: en-GB

Inline Labels in Form Fields using Javascripthttps://www.joellipman.com/articles/web-development/js/inline-labels-in-form-fields-using-javascript.html

21 August 2012 the value of a field of a form from it's default when it is clicked on so that it auto-clears and changes to how it normally works. Example? Note the value in the below field. Now click on it and it disappears, allowing you to type normally. Clear...

• Type: Article
• Author: Joel Lipman
• Category: JavaScript
• Language: en-GB

Adding a selectable background to a Yootheme templatehttps://www.joellipman.com/articles/cms/joomla/adding-a-selectable-background-to-a-yootheme-template.html

19 November 2012 Admin Panel > Extensions > Template Manager > Styles > "Select the Background" > Save/Apply Done! Additional Note I do not work for Yootheme. I did not post this to Yootheme forums because you have to be a paying member to access these and I tend to...

• Type: Article
• Author: Joel Lipman
• Category: Joomla
• Language: *

DataScramble - Randomizing data rowshttps://www.joellipman.com/articles/database/t-sql/datascramble-randomizing-data-rows.html

07 December 2012 and inserts these. I would recommend using the DataTumble script over this one as this leaves data very difficult to work with: Before: StudentID StudentName DateOfBirth ----------- -------------------- ------------- 1 John Smith 1990-03-21 2 Fred...

• Type: Article
• Author: Joel Lipman
• Category: Transact-SQL
• Language: en-GB

Set up Desktop SlideShow in Windows 7https://www.joellipman.com/articles/microsoft/windows-os/set-up-desktop-slideshow-in-windows-7.html

22 January 2013 group policies at home. Why? We get problems with this because none of our staff are full administrators of their local workstation. As IT staff we have elevated privileges but not absolute rights to configuring our computer. And we still need to...

• Type: Article
• Author: Joel Lipman
• Category: Windows OS
• Language: en-GB

CharIndex Reverse - find occurrence starting from end of string in TSQLhttps://www.joellipman.com/articles/database/t-sql/charindex-reverse-find-occurrence-starting-from-end-of-string-in-tsql.html

28 January 2013 Not quite right, as we got the last occurrence counting from the beginning rather than the end, so we still need to work out the starting point: SELECT LEN(@Haystack) - CHARINDEX(@Delimiter, REVERSE(@Haystack)) -- yields "23" SELECT SUBSTRING(@Haystack,...

• Type: Article
• Author: Joel Lipman
• Category: Transact-SQL
• Language: en-GB

Access MySQL databases using Oracle SQL Developerhttps://www.joellipman.com/articles/database/mysql/access-mysql-databases-using-oracle-sql-developer.html

01 February 2013 I also need to use Oracle databases in my day job so the Oracle SQL developer is already a pre-approved software for our work computers. We have SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) as well for our SQL Server instances but it wasn't practical to link...

• Type: Article
• Author: Joel Lipman
• Category: MySQL
• Language: en-GB

Administrator Program Shortcut without Prompthttps://www.joellipman.com/articles/microsoft/windows-os/administrator-program-shortcut-without-prompt.html

25 February 2013 to: - Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise - User with Local Administrator Privileges (required for setup) Why? Our work has group policies and two of our programs, Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate (VS2010) and Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS),...

• Type: Article
• Author: Joel Lipman
• Category: Windows OS
• Language: *

Fix Oracle Tnsping 3511 without Windows Registryhttps://www.joellipman.com/articles/database/pl-sql/fix-oracle-tnsping-3511-without-windows-registry.html

04 March 2013 if I tnsping any oracle database, I get something along the lines of: Message 3511 not found; No message file for product=NETWORK, facility=TNSMessage 3512 not found; No message file for product=NETWORK, facility=TNSMessage 3513 n ot found; No message...

• Type: Article
• Author: Joel Lipman
• Category: Oracle PL/SQL
• Language: en-GB

SSIS Skip Rows in Excel Source filehttps://www.joellipman.com/articles/microsoft/ssis/ssis-skip-rows-in-excel-source-file.html

04 April 2013 selected. View the Properties panel for this. Under Custom Properties » OpenRowset, you should see the name of the Excel worksheet you specified as the datasource (eg. "Sheet1$"). Using the example above: Sheet1$A11:AL12 Selects all data from column A,...

• Type: Article
• Author: Joel Lipman
• Category: SQL Server Integration Services
• Language: en-GB

Improve Default Joomla Search https://www.joellipman.com/articles/cms/joomla/improve-default-joomla-search-heuristics.html

07 May 2013 - Applies to Joomla 2.5.x +, 3.4.x What? So I can't stand the way the default "Search" component in Joomla works. The default is to sort the results by popularity (hits) or by most recently added (depending on your version) which I have never seen in...

• Type: Article
• Author: Joel Lipman
• Category: Joomla
• Language: en-GB

T-SQL concatenate an incremental row numberhttps://www.joellipman.com/articles/database/t-sql/t-sql-concatenate-an-incremental-row-number.html

24 May 2013 employee. 002 00204 003 00305 Almost There! So we're using the ROW_NUMBER() functionality with an ORDER BY which seems to work somewhat. But using the code above still produces an error which can only be seen when using more records and more employees....

• Type: Article
• Author: Joel Lipman
• Category: Transact-SQL
• Language: en-GB

Compare two databases using T-SQLhttps://www.joellipman.com/articles/database/t-sql/compare-two-databases-using-t-sql.html

24 September 2013 full schemas. Use a comparison tool to compare the outputs. Method #2 Enhancing the above which does a little more of the work, requires in the following query for you to replace the terms "myDB1" with the first database name and "myDB2" with the name...

• Type: Article
• Author: Joel Lipman
• Category: Transact-SQL
• Language: en-GB

Joomla Component: Set default params on installationhttps://www.joellipman.com/articles/cms/joomla/joomla-component-set-default-params-on-installation.html

24 October 2013 the component, they would usually need to go into the admin panel and set the ACL permissions. I want my component to work out-of-the-box: // No direct access to this file defined('_JEXEC') or die; // com_XXX is your component name class...

• Type: Article
• Author: Joel Lipman
• Category: Joomla
• Language: en-GB