More Security "stuff"

If you're using newer versions of Windows, you may have seen the following message when trying to install our (and many others') products:

It shows up on Windows 8 when using Internet Explorer, and on Windows 10 with any browser.
This is a part of Microsoft tightening security in fighting malware (which is a good thing!) but it does mean that many innocent executables will be blocked as well.

Long story short - if you get this message while installing our products, you many need to temporarily disable SmartScreen, or (a temporary workaround found to be working for now) running the setup from a network location (even the same machine, something like \\127.0.0.1\c$\temp).

Needless to say, our apps are completely safe, clean and do nothing more than enhancing your SQL Server experience.

Keep it safe! :)

Trial versions

We've had some reports of users getting a 'Trial Expired' message right after installing.
This is happening due to insufficient permissions to create local files in the same folders

We have recently released a new versions that should address this issue. However, if you're still experiencing this problem, simply "Run As Administrator" for that first time.

Regardless to that, if you need more time evaluating one or more of our products, feel free to ask us for extended trial requests.

Introducing LABS, our app playground.

A bit about the "LABS" part in Docco labs

So, in addition to our well matured products, we keep creating new apps, usually built around needs we come across during our daily tasks.
While these apps are usually not shared publicly, I've decided to introduce (some of) them to the public. That - in order to expose them to a wider audience (such as yourself) let you use them freely and hopefully get some feedback.

While far from being complete (consider that a one-sentence disclaimer), all of those apps will be available for download upon request (on the first stage) and widely available later.

OK, so, before we lose our TL;DR readers, let's jump right to it! shall we?
(You can start by reading the taglines, and then drill-down to whatever interests you)

*** Validate SSDT Publish Script

Tagline: Make sure you SSDT deployment scripts are not locking down your databases

For those of you using SQL Server Data Tools (a.k.a SSDT) for continuous delivery, you may have encountered cases when a generated deploy script is trying to drop and recreate multi tables.
Why does this happen? well, a typical scenario would be that a developer is trying to add a new column to an existing table, but instead of adding it last, he or she is adding the column in the middle of the table.
What happens then?
Well, since there is no T-SQL syntax of pushing a new column in the middle of a table, the generated script will do the following:

• create a tmp_xxxx table with the new structure
• copy over all content from the original table
• drop the original table 
• sp_rename the tmp table to the original table
• restore all FK's indexes etc.

And that's the *SIMPLE* case. When the table has a lot of references, other tables may be affected as well! And if these are large tables and you're in prod, you can only imagine the potential downtime you'd experience by that deployment.

So, that's the main reason for the validation app to be born. Here's what it does:

• Analyze the SSDT generated .sql script of any build
• Detect tables re-creations
• (Now comes the cool part)
• Connect to the destination database and measure the dropped/re-created table size
• If the total size is over a predefined threshold - raise a flag and return a 'fail' notice on the build.

So, to summarize, this 'lab' app will save you from unintentionally run deployments that will potentially lock your database for quite a long time.

This is a console app, with a powerful configuration options allowing you to customize many aspects such as scripts locations, destination database connection scripts, size threshold and more.

Here's a sample screenshot:

*** Splunk to SQL Table

Tagline: Turn (almost) any Splunk query into a well-formed SQL Table


If you are unfamiliar with Splunk, it is (wiki quote):
"Splunk (the product) captures, indexes and correlates real-time data in a searchable repository from which it can generate graphs, reports, alerts, dashboards and visualizations"

While having the exporting abilities, run a Splunk query result into a SQL Table is not an easy task. At least if you're not using "Splunk to SQL Table"! :)
So, what this app does is basically the following (assume everything is heavily configurable)

• Connect to a Splunk server, run a pre-defined splunk query
• Analyzes the result, converts to a SQL Table with optimal data-types (based on content)
• (So for example, that OrderId will be "INT" rather than "NVARCHAR(MAX)")
• Connect to a configured SQL Instance
• Create the table, push the content in.

Some screenshots? sure!

Splunk search screen:

+

The App (with relevant configuration)

=

A new SQL Table

*** Text/CSV file slicer

Tagline: A powerful slicer for large text/csv/tsv files

Whenever in need to split a big "something"-delimited file, this powerful tool will do the job, allowing a lot of different customizations such as:
- Control the naming patterns of the output files (identities, guids, random strings and more)
- Repeat headers on each file
- Control the end-of-line characters (windows/unix compatibility)

While you may find other tools out there, this one has been written to provide more robust option base. Oh, and it's also *REALLY* fast!

The screenshot shows the simple UI implementation, the tool itself is basically a console app.

Turn JSON into a SQL Table

One of the new features introduced in the latest version of ClipTable is the ability to parse (most) JSON data (as long as it can be converted to tabular format).

While ClipTable's main purpose is to turn any textual data into a SQL Table (either from your clipboard or a flat file) - we've made two 'other' formats it can read. The first was xml, and now, quite naturally - JSON.

Want to see how it works? Here's a quick example:

Run ClipTable

Copy this following (JSON) text to your clipboard:

[
 {
  color: "red",
  value: "#f00"
 },
 {
  color: "green",
  value: "#0f0"
 },
 {
  color: "blue",
  value: "#00f"
 },
 {
  color: "cyan",
  value: "#0ff"
 },
 {
  color: "magenta",
  value: "#f0f"
 },
 {
  color: "yellow",
  value: "#ff0"
 },
 {
  color: "black",
  value: "#000"
 }
]

Now, Paste!

You should be getting this:

And if you don't know ClipTable yet - the distance between this point to actually having a SQL Table with the above data is about two clicks away.

Feel free to try, and challenge with other tabular clipboard content.

ClipTable - Data import made easy! (Real easy!)

Your new data Import-Export power tools

If you’re working with databases, you are obviously no stranger to the endless need for getting data in and out the database. And not only the traditional inserts and selects, but rather importing from/exporting to “foreign” sources.

Two of our tools are just around that area and can pretty much solve any scenario of import/export you may come across!

How?

Well, the first tool, SqlTableZip can export a data from any query (table, stored procedure execution result, free t-sql) into a compressed file - Which includes the query text, headers, field types, and of course, the data - highly compressed!

This (.sqz) file, can be moved around and restored anywhere. Supporting multiple SQL Server versions, including Azure (so in fact, it is also a very easy way to get data in & out between Azure and local SQL Instances)

DBA’s sending production-data to developers (who don’t have access), Field engineers bringing offline data for analysis/support purposes, or even a simple table-level backup -- these are all valid scenarios that SqlTableZip can take care of; easily, quickly and with zero-hassle.

There are no size limits. You can backup huge amount of data and everything runs super-fast.

So, getting data in & out of SQL Server is covered, but what about data some comes from foreign sources?

If your source is a table coming from anything like html formatted tables, xml, excel, pdf, word and pretty much any other tabular format that needs to be turned into a relational-database table: ClipTable is here to help!

Instead of supporting each of the formats above (and many more) - we took a different approach by building a smart algorithm that can analyze the content you copy into your clipboard.

So the process becomes very simple - you select the desired content, paste it into ClipTable and get a new table ready to be created.

ClipTable will determine the correct format, the best field data types, column names and the correct row/col delimiters. All of these are automatically done and all that is left for you, the user, is to decide where you would like the new table to be created.

As a bonus - ClipTable supports most of the popular relational databases out there today - so you can create your new table/s in SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL and Firebird.

So, to summarize: if data import/export is part of your routine, this is definitely worth trying.
To learn more and of course get the software, visit our website @ www.doccolabs.com

ClipTable to support Firebird Database

Calling out all Firebird Database users!

ClipTable, our revolutionary *anything* to SQL Table importer, is now offering Firebird support!

What does this mean?

If you are new to ClipTable, this is a robust application which lets you copy any tabular data to your clipboard (yes, Ctrl-C) and paste it into ClipTable, which analyzes the input and creates an optimal SQL Table with all the data.
This replaces the need to manually modify the data in order to insert it into a table.
ClipTable engine can detect the most suitable data-types, sizes, headers, delimiters and everything else involved in the table creation.
Firebird support now joins the existing SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL and PostgreSQL which are currently supported.

What's required?

In order to work with Firebird, you'll need to install Firebird's ODBC drivers from this link: http://www.firebirdsql.org/en/odbc-driver/
Also - ClipTable runs on Windows and required .Net framework 4.5 (included in Windows Update, but just in case - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30653)

Known Issues

There are currently not known issues reported. If you encounter one, please contact us at support@doccolabs.com

Get the latest version here - http://doccolabs.com/products/cliptable

ClipTable on Steroids!

A new version of ClipTable was released earlier today and among other changes it contains a very important improvement - The clipboard/file parsing engine is now 10x Times Faster (!)

This, along with the native 64 bit support, now enables you to import large objects, of any kind into your SQL Server.

For those of you who are still not familiar with ClipTable - It is an application that lets you copy any tabular data from any application (for example - Word, Excel, Acrobat, web sites and more) and turn it into an optimized SQL Table in seconds!
There is no need to deal with field types, sizes, delimiter or any other hassle along the way.

You can download, learn more and get to know our other products at www.doccolabs.com