New Releases!

Releases day is upon us!
ClipTable v1.0.1.5, Now also supports XML input.
In other words - you can copy almost any XML data into your clipboard and let ClipTable do the magic of turning this data into a table. (Need to check the option in "Advanced Options" tab.

In addition, we've released minor updates to Database File Explorer & Log Table Viewer - mostly around engine updates and native SQL2012 support.

Give it a shot
Feedback and Comments are welcome.

Domain changes

Hi,
As you may have noticed, sqlstripes.com now redirects to doccolabs.com (to a SQL Stripes product page)
This is done as part of a consolidation process we're doing which ends up by having all content under a single homepage (doccolabs.com, that is...)

So, from now on, download & purchase SQL Stripes here  - http://www.doccolabs.com/sqlStripes.html

SQL Stripes 2012 Edition is coming...

We're about to release SQL Stripes 2012, which, among other fixes & changes, introduces full support for SQL Server 2012, which recently came out.

Version is expected to be released in the upcoming month

Cheers :)

SQL Stripes 2012 Screenshot

Get to know - Database Log-Table Viewer (DLTV)

Let me begin by quickly describing the problem we're trying to solve -
When you develop in a SQL Server environment and reaching a point where your environment contains multiple Stored-Procedures, functions, Jobs and other T-SQL related scripts, you often need a simple logging solutions for tracking processes, progress or any other activity in your system.

I'm not taking about profiler-level tracking of just seeing *anything*, but a more pin-point messages such as:
"YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS - Proc1: Started"
"YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS - Proc1: Gathering new users data"
"YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS - Proc1: Adding users to queue table"
"YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS - Proc1: 20%"
"YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS - Proc1: 60%"
"YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS - Proc1: 100%"
"YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS - Proc1: Done"

Now, consider you write such messages (which you simply store in a table created for the purpose), and would like to quickly access them, either by real-time, search, tree-based exploration etc...

Ta-da! That's exactly what we do!

The Log Table viewer project provides a unified logging interface for your SQL code.
A set of log-based procedures for your Server Side And a powerful log viewer/explorer for the client side

Setup is easy -
After installation, you jump right into the configuration screen, on which you define where the log table/procedure are located (tblLog / usp_write_to_log)
If they don't exist yet, you can easily create them using a single click; Save, and that's it - you're ready to go!

As a side-note, you can either specify your server using the regular SQL dialog, or use our "Server Repository", which hold your server collection and available as a shared list by all of our products. (Post about the repository is also coming soon)

So now, both client/server sides are ready. Next thing you do is start writing your log messages.

Test it - connect to the server/database you've configured the client to access, and write this:
EXEC usp_write_to_log @Source='MyScript', @message='Hello World', @severity=1

Execute...

Now go back to the client, click on the "Real-time" tab, and see your message.
Quite simple, wouldn't you say?

Get DLTV here: http://www.doccolabs.com/products.html#LogTableViewer


Here are some sample screenshots of the client in action:

Real-time view

Explorer

Enjoy! (it's free and all...)

Database File Explorer v1.0.1.5 released

Database File Explorer, our revoluntioary database->file->disk space viewer, has a new version which just came out!

Some of the new features on the new versions are:
- Added quick search box
- Faster switching between view modes (Database-based / Drive-based)
- Added a new button to launch Management Studio (SSMS) with direct server connection
- UI improvements


I'm going to write an entire post on this app soon, in the meantime, feel free to grab it:
http://www.doccolabs.com/products.html#DatabaseFileExplorer


Here's a screenshot from the recent version:

ClipTable now supports MySQL & PostgreSQL

This is a follow-up to our previous post was - Get to know ClipTable.
We've got a lot of feedback from SQL Server users who started using ClipTable on a daily basis.
In addition, the word has spread beyond the SQL Server community and we actually got some requests to have ClipTable support other database engines.

SO WE DID!
And even created a new/modified logo, here goes:

As from the latest version, ClipTable also supports MySQL and PostgreSQL!

Few things to keep in mind though,

• This is only the first beta to support these engines, which means errors may occur. Be nice and report to us any misbehavior you find.
• ClipTable is a Windows app, so apologies to all mysql/postgres who resent windows :)
• Special connectors & drivers for each engine are not included within the setup. When loading the app you'll get links for each driver (if you already have them installed, nothing special to do)

Again, since this is quite preliminary, please let us know how your experience was like.

Get ClipTable here: http://www.doccolabs.com/products.html

Get to know – ClipTable

ClipTable objective is quite simple – 

revolutionize the way you’re importing data into your SQL Server.

New: ClipTable video is now available - Watch it!

Why:

I’ve been serving as a DBA for quite some time, performing production as well as development tasks.

One of the things I always found quite time-consuming was import data, any data, into a SQL table format for additional processing.

While it always works at the end, this type of task never became easier.

Here’s a typical scenario:

• One of my customers hands me an Excel file containing his user data (let’s say, 50,000 users).
• I open the Excel, see that it contains multiple sheets; one of them contains the data I need.
• I choose the direct import option, using SSIS.
• Trying to use Excel as input, getting an error and after a while, recalling that there’s an issue of reading Excel files when 64-bit office is not installed (hence missing the Jet/ODBC driver)
• OK, giving up on the direct Excel->SQL path, going for the CSV->SQL
• <Taking a deep breath, making another cup of coffee>
• Saving sheet as CSV
• Trying SSIS again with flat-file input
• Battle continues with:
•   Finding the right row/col delimiters
•    Finding the best data-types (number, dates, text etc…)
•    Finding the correct length for each column
•    Hoping there are no “text qualifiers” (because this means further work and rules out working with bcp)
• Importing… Finger crossed…
• Worked? Great
• Didn't work? Got an annoying unreadable SSIS error? Go back and try again…

Pardon for not drawing the above as a flowchart, but I hope you’re getting the point.

This is just one example. I’ve personally had so many of them I could write an entire article on the subject.

I could - but instead, I’ve spent my time simply writing a solution for this annoying problem.

So, the incentive was there, and my objective was to eliminate the frustration on this process.

How:

First, I wanted to eliminate the need of having input drivers for any format (my example above was Excel, but the table may come from PDF, Word, any webpage etc…)

So the natural solution was to use the clipboard. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, we let Windows do the work of translating anything to a readable text format.

Next, we need to “understand” the data;

This is where ClipTable’s smart engine is being used – analyzing the reverse-engineering the live data to understand the correct fields, types, delimiters etc…

And last – I wanted to quickly access any of the SQL Servers within my organizations (i.e. the “Destination”) and for that, I’ve implemented the Shared Repository component (which will be discussed on a different blog post)

The Result:

Taking the same example from the 1^st paragraph, this could have taken way over an hour.

By using ClipTable, I simply:

• Copy the users data from the relevant sheet
• Letting ClipTable do the field/type analysis and turn it into a SQL formatted table
• Choose my destination
• Done!

That’s it – no more than 2 minutes and all done.

If you want to see more, go to our website (doccolabs.com) and get it – it’s totally free.

Hope we managed to help you save at least an hour on your next import task.

Let us know J