Guest Columnist: Dinesh Asanka

This review of RedGate's new SQL Multi Script tool that aids you in deploying a script across multiple databases.  Read more...

SQL Server 2005 has added many new T-SQL commands, one of which is the OUTPUT command. Longtime SQL Server author Dinesh Asanka brings us a short look at how you can use this command.   Read more...

Longtime author Dinesh Asanka takes a look at one of the new tools on the market, SQL Refactor from Red Gate.   Read more...

SQL Server 2005 has brought about many paradigm changes, including substantial changes to the SQL Server Agent subsystem. Dinesh Asanka takes a new look at roles and counters in 2005.   Read more...

SQL Server allows multiple triggers on a table, but the order in which they are executed can sometimes cause problems. Author Dinesh Asanka brings us a technique for managing the order of execution for your triggers.   Read more...

Do you have a need to generate bar codes for an application? Check out this new product, reviewed by Dinesh Asanka, that uses Reporting Services to help you easily print bar codes.   Read more...

One of the lesser used features of SQL Server is the ability to access the functionality in various DLLs using a COM interface. Dinesh Asanka brings us a basic article with a few examples in how you can work with COM components from inside SQL Server 2000.   Read more...

How many times have you wished you could throttle the CPU use of SQL Server? Or for a database? Prevent your developers from using too many resources while sharing the server with production or QA. ArmTech for Windows can do this and Dinsesh Asanka brings us a review of how this product worked in his environment.   Read more...

SQL Server can support many different languages through Unicode. Author Dinesh Asanka brings us a basic article on how the server supports different languages.   Read more...

SQL Server 2000 has an amazing ETL tool in Data Transformation Services that is included at no charge, something none of the other database vendors include. DTS has great flexibility to make your job easier, but it has some quirks in this version. The Multi Phase Data Pump is hidden inside the tool, but can provide a great programming environment and Dinesh Asanka brings us a look at what you can do wit this tool.   Read more...

SQL Server and Access are usually linked together as Access used for applications at the beginning of their lifecycle that are later moved to SQL Server when the load gets too high or the data sizes grow. There are often cases where you may also want to use SQL Server as a backend to an Access application. But how do you get your data from Access to SQL Server? Author Dinesh Asanka brings us an overview of the various ways that you can move your Access database to SQL Server.   Read more...

On this site, we have taken a contrarian approach to looking at the ways to configure SQL Server with our Worst Practices series. However Microsoft still looks at it from the other side and release a tool called the Best Practices Analyzer for SQL Server. Author Dinesh Asanka brings us a short look at this tool.   Read more...

Auditing in SQL Server is something that is becoming more and more prevelant, and will likely become more regulated over time. Dinesh Asanka brings us a new article on the basics of SQL Servers most powerful auditing configuration, C2 level auditing.   Read more...

Version control in SQL Server is fairly immature, to put it nicely. Fortunately it's also an area that a number of vendors are working to make smoother. Dinesh Asanka looks at dbMaestro, a tool from Extreme Technologies to help you track changes in multiple databases.   Read more...

Continuing his series on SQL Server and InfoPath 2003, the new reporting tool that has been added to Office. This time Dinesh looks at a practical application using expense entry along with some more features of this new tool.   Read more...

Continuing with Dinesh Asanka's series on SQL Server and Infopath 2003, he shows us this time how to build a report that joins two tables and includes some conditional formatting. Infopath 2003 is part of Office 2003 and is a great quick and dirty tool for getting to your SQL Server data.   Read more...

Storing passwords in SQL Server for authentication by your application is a common practice. But not always a good one. Someone with access could easily see all passwords and perhaps cause mischief inside your application. Imagine the office gossip getting access to your HR application as the HR director! Not a good thing. Dinesh Asanka has written a short piece on how you can use a built in function in SQL Server to encrypt these passwords and use them with a minimum of effort.   Read more...

Office 2003 has a new tool: InfoPath 2003, which can work with SQL Server along with numerous other data stores. It's a great way to begin working with XML, Web Services, and many of the newer technologies that are available today. Join Dinesh Askanka on his journey to learn more about InfoPath2003 in the start of another series.   Read more...

SQL Server has no change management integrated with the native tools. This means that each person must develop their own method of handling changes, or live with the chaos that will inevitably ensue. There are a number of articles written about various ways to handle change management and Dinesh Asanka shares his here. Read on and see if this helps you get a handle on changes in your environment.   Read more...

It's not often you'll need to access the registry from SQL, but when you do - these functions make it happen!   Read more...