What is the fastest way to update a newly created column in a large table? New author Bimal Fernando brings us a look at a technique he uses for just this situation.   Read more...

Have you ever wanted to ensure that keywords in your data are easily searchable? Have you struggled with full-text search? New author Michael Ahmadi brings us an interesting idea for a keyword tracking and searching subsystem based on T-SQL and triggers.   Read more...

When automating administrative actions for SQL Server, there are a number of ways to handle the workflow. Longtime SQL Server DBA Roy Carlson brings us a technique for using a text file as input to the standard SQL Server tools.   Read more...

The use of bitmasking is usually limited to decoding values in the system views, but it can be useful in other places when you want to save space. New author Lee Everest brings us an introduction to bitmasking and its use in SQL Server 2005.   Read more...

SQL Server 2008 is well on its way to being complete and released with the release of the second CTP recently. There aren't a tremendous number of changes, but one of the more interesting ones is the changes to date and time handling in this new platform. The time and date datatypes have been separated and longtime SQL Server author Vincent Rainardi brings us a short look at how there can be used.  Read more...

Continuing with his series on Alias Data Types, Yakov Shlafman shows us how to work wtih ADTs when constriaints are involved.   Read more...

The SQL Server Tables and Exchange Web Services sample demonstrates a powerful integration of Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007 and Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005 features. This integration enables you to provide data from both Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server to client applications so that the data appears as if it were stored in SQL Server. As you will see, this creates some exciting development scenarios.  Read more...

What is the fastest way to update a newly created column in a large table? New author Bimal Fernando brings us a look at a technique he uses for just this situation.   Read more...

Have you ever wanted to ensure that keywords in your data are easily searchable? Have you struggled with full-text search? New author Michael Ahmadi brings us an interesting idea for a keyword tracking and searching subsystem based on T-SQL and triggers.   Read more...

New Author! Deadlocks aren't the most common problem but they happen they can really degrade performance. Shiv works through how to nail down what is causing the deadlock.   Read more...

In the previous articles, Jacob Sebastian looked at using XML to save a sales order with variable numbers of line items to a SQL Server 2000 database. In this part, he expands upon the processing to access that data from multiple nodes.   Read more...

In the first part of this series, Jacob Sebastion showed us how to use XML to save a sales order to the database with a variable amount of line items. In part 2, he continues looking at XML in SQL Server 2000 with some advanced XML processing.   Read more...

How many times have you tried to save a sales order to your database? For many DBAs this is a common scenario and one of the challenges is the many round trips for the various line items. Jacob Sebastian brings us the first part of a four part series looking at how you can use XML to reduce the round trips in SQL Server 2000.   Read more...

When automating administrative actions for SQL Server, there are a number of ways to handle the workflow. Longtime SQL Server DBA Roy Carlson brings us a technique for using a text file as input to the standard SQL Server tools.   Read more...

The use of bitmasking is usually limited to decoding values in the system views, but it can be useful in other places when you want to save space. New author Lee Everest brings us an introduction to bitmasking and its use in SQL Server 2005.   Read more...

New author Jambu Krishnamurthy brings us a look at table variables and how they differ from temporary tables in SQL Server 2000.   Read more...

Testing is an important part of programming and it is no different with SQL Server development. Longtime author Grant Fritchey brings us a look at the new testing features available in Visual Studio 2005.   Read more...

The definitively "hands-on" guide to handling dates and times in SQL Server  Read more...

SQL Server does a great job of handling concurrency & ensuring that users can make changes in multi-user systems without conflict. However there are times a strict calling order is needed.   Read more...

Not many people enjoy using Globally Unique Identifiers (GUIDs), partly because they are cumbersome to type and work with for humans. However they fill a need and can provide some interesting benefits. SQL Server expert Andy Warren takes us through what a GUID is and how you can use it easily in your code.   Read more...

SQL Server 2008 is well on its way to being complete and released with the release of the second CTP recently. There aren't a tremendous number of changes, but one of the more interesting ones is the changes to date and time handling in this new platform. The time and date datatypes have been separated and longtime SQL Server author Vincent Rainardi brings us a short look at how there can be used.  Read more...

How many times have you tried to save a sales order to your database? For many DBAs this is a common scenario and one of the challenges is the many round trips for the various line items. Jacob Sebastian brings us the first part of a four part series looking at how you can use XML to reduce the round trips in SQL Server 2000.   Read more...

Continuing with his series on Alias Data Types, Yakov Shlafman shows us how to work wtih ADTs when constriaints are involved.   Read more...