Recent posts
2017 according to Google Analytics
I’ve got Google Analytics running on my site, because I’m curious about the traffic I get. 2017 has been the first full year I’ve had GA running, so I figured I’d take some time to look back at how the last year has been from the perspective of my website. read full post
Some 70-461 exam tips
I passed the Microsoft 70-461 exam today with a score of 885 points. Obviously I can’t speak about the contents of the exam (yay NDA), but here are some general tips on passing this exam: read full post
Debugging the broken SQL Server 2017 installer
Today I tried installing the latest Express Edition of SQL Server: version 2017. Sadly, Microsoft no longer seems to offer offline installers. If you look at their download page, you’ll only find the option for downloading a small, 5 MB bootstrapper that will then take care of downloading the actual installation files. Even Scott Hanselman’s famous page only links to it now, instead of any real installation media. read full post
ESA Open Day 2017
I attended the ESA Open Day this year, at ESTEC in Noordwijk (The Netherlands). read full post
Solving Einstein's Riddle the lazy way
There’s a logic puzzle called Einstein’s Riddle (originally known as the Zebra Puzzle) which is supposedly pretty well-known, as far as logic puzzles are concerned. It’s also claimed to be quite difficult, with only 2% of people capable of solving it, although that sounds pretty sensationalist and I can’t find a source for that figure. read full post
Intercepting interpolated strings in C#
If you use C#, you’re probably familiar with interpolated strings, introduced in C# 6. In case you’re not, this: read full post
Entity Framework conditional includes
If you’ve ever worked with Entity Framework, then you’re probably familiar with the .Include(…) function. You’ve probably also wondered if it’s possible to perform a conditional include (i.e. including only those entities that match a certain predicate). The include function itself doesn’t allow for this, and I thought it simply wasn’t possible until a coworker showed me the following trick. read full post