We have an upcoming requirement to kick all users out of a database before running a backup. So I'm saving this script for future reference (thanks to Chris for posting it to the SQL Down Under List):CREATE PROC [dbo].[sp_SpidKill] @db VarChar(200) AS DECLARE @Tmp VarChar(10) DECLARE @spid VarChar(10) DECLARE @Kill VarChar(200) SELECT @spid = Min(spid) FROM master.sys.sysprocesses WHERE dbid = DB_ID(@db) WHILE @spid IS NOT NULL BEGIN SET @Kill = 'KILL ' + @spid EXEC(@Kill) SET @Tmp = @spid SET @spid = NULL SELECT @spid = Min(spid) FROM master.sys.sysprocesses WHERE dbid = DB_ID(@db) AND spid > @Tmp END Tags: sql server, database,...

I've recently finished the excellent Defensive Design for the Web, authored by some of the people behind 37 Signals (Getting Real, Signal vs. Noise blog). The book is subtitled "How to improve error messages, help, forms and other crisis points", and is referenced in Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think - one of the key reasons behind me reading it (I enjoyed Steve Krug's book a lot). At only 246 pages, Defensive Design is a short book which means it's a quick read (and not very expensive!). There's lots of illustrations, and the book is neatly divided up into digestible chapters,...

Flock might just be the package to make me switch browsers from IE/Maxthon for my home computer time. Flock is billed as "the social web browser" and integrates data from sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and Delicious, listing all your friends in the one place along with the last time they updated something. It is open source, has a built-in photo uploader for Flickr, and works with the majority of Firefox extensions (it's actually built on top of Mozilla), among other things. I've tried Firefox in the past but just didn't see how it was any better than Maxthon, which basically...

I'm definitely CSS-challenged, so I was interested when I found the CSS Layout Generator, which allows you to enter how many columns, whether you want a header and/or footer, and colors for your page layout. It then provides the CSS and HTML, optionally validated for HTML or XHTML (link via Daniel Walzenbach, via Jason Haley). Tags: web, layout, design, css

If you use Prototype, there's a very helpful, very new library of extensions at Scripteka.com (thanks to Ajaxian for the link). Using Scripteka, you can browse extensions by tag, or view the latest or most popular extensions, all with links back to authors' sites and demos. The site itself also uses Prototype and has some nice examples of in-place refreshing. If you develop web pages and don't use Prototype, check out Scripteka to see what you're missing out on. It's like adding a slice of cheese to your Vegemite sandwich...making a great thing even greater :-) I like the fact that selecting...

I've been really enjoying Word and Excel 2007. They work as expected and I actually prefer the new "ribbon" to the old toolbars and menus. I even know where to find most of the functions :-) However, the Outlook 2007 interface is a little "inconsistent" (the program itself is fine). First, a quick screenshot: Here are my five gripes on the Outlook 2007 interface: Outlook should use the "ribbon" interface. I like the "ribbon". Word uses it. Excel uses it. Why can't Outlook? The double-chevron above the To-Do bar expands the To-Do bar, and "pins" it. However, only the double-chevron is selectable which presents...