http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Popular Content posted on SQLServerCentral.comen-us360sjones@sqlservercentral.com (Steve Jones)What are the differences between SQL Server 2000 and 2005? It's a question that DBAs are often asked by those who don't work with SQL Server on a daily basis. Steve Jones begins a short series on the differences by examining some of the core administrative differences. http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Administration/2988/2008/05/08http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Administration/2988/Build List Updated with Cumulative Update 7 for SP2. http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Administration/2960/2008/04/23http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Administration/2960/Many people have used a "Numbers" or "Tally" table without really knowing what it does. This is an introduction as to how a Tally table replaces a loop.http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/TSQL/62867/2008/05/07http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/TSQL/62867/In the first article of a new series on T-SQL tips, Jacob Sebastian brings us a very useful technique. How to pass a table to a stored procedure so some set of rows can be operated on using some business logic. http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Stored+Procedures/2977/2008/05/02http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Stored+Procedures/2977/One common problem in querying is to reference the previous row in a data set as part of a calculation. David McKinney brings us an interesting solution using SQL Server 2005.http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/62159/2008/03/13http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/62159/Everyone has a set of handy utilities and tools that they use with their SQL Server, but sometimes convincing an employer to purchase tools is hard. Longtime DBA David Bird brings us a list of the tools he likes to use and are FREE. http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Miscellaneous/2959/2008/04/10http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Miscellaneous/2959/Jacob Sebastian takes a look at some different ways to write your WHERE clauses. A good basic article for those starting to work with T-SQL.http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/61918/2008/02/27http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/61918/We often see ways to improve your career, but there's a flip side as well. In the spirit of our "worst practices" series, Steve Jones takes a look at ten skills that could cost you your job if you can't perform them. http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Miscellaneous/2744/2007/12/03http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Miscellaneous/2744/Performing an upgrade to the next version of SQL Server is something more and more of us will be doing as the support for SQL Server 2000 wanes. New author Sachin Samuel brings us an overview of the process and options that you have for performing an upgrade. http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Administration/2987/2008/05/07http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Administration/2987/Security was a major focus of SQL Server 2005 during its development, both in terms of making the product secure as well as enhancing the options. Security expert Brian Kelley brings us a look at how the paradigm of logins has changed and what you need to look for in SQL Server 2005. http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/SQL+Server+2005+-+Security/sqlserver2005logins/2474/2008/04/11http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/SQL+Server+2005+-+Security/sqlserver2005logins/2474/Just because it looks set based, doesn't mean it is. T-SQL Crackerjack Jeff Moden takes a look at a mistake that many query writers make.http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/61539/2007/12/06http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/61539/SQL 2008 has some key improvements over SQL 2005. This article deals with backup compression and faster backups in SQL 2008http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Compression/62746/2008/05/05http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Compression/62746/Steve Jones continues with his look at how SQL Server 2005 differs from SQL Server 2000, this time tackling the differences from a developer perspective. http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/News/3036/2007/05/31http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/News/3036/Some useful undocumented extended and stored procedures in SQL Server 2005http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Stored+Procedures/62868/2008/05/09http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Stored+Procedures/62868/Row Level Version is one of the most coolest features introduced by SQL 2005.http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/SQL+Server+2005/62464/2008/04/07http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/SQL+Server+2005/62464/Buck Woody examines examines some of the decisions you'll need to make when embarking on your DBA career, and some the character traits and skills that will help you succeed and progress.http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Administration/61680/2007/12/20http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Administration/61680/Send SQL query results as HTML-formatted e-mail using SQL Server Integration Services.http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/SSIS/62678/2008/04/23http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/SSIS/62678/SELECT statements should be the most popular query in SQL Server, so why are they unpopular? It's the complex, confusing MDX SELECT statement that warehousing expert Vincent Rainardi is writing about.http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/MDX/61825/2008/02/20http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/MDX/61825/This article describes one method of implementing a reporting system in SQL Server 2005http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Reporting+System/61688/2008/01/21http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Reporting+System/61688/Discusses Index Selection impact when functions are wrapped around WHERE clause filtering columnshttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL+Optimization/61809/2008/02/28http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL+Optimization/61809/Dealing with NULL data is something that often confuses new SQL Server developers, but even experienced DBAs might not understand all the intricacies of NULL operations. In a follow up to his highly acclaimed Four Rules of Null article, Michael Coles brings us a few new tricks with NULLs. http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Advanced+Querying/2829/2008/01/25http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Advanced+Querying/2829/This article from new author Thomas Pieries, brings us a few methods for changing a Non-IDENTITY column to IDENTITY and vice versa as well as examining the advantages and disadvantages of each way.http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/61979/2008/02/21http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/61979/This article helps the DBA find and fix issues quickly by creating a DBA Morning Checklist.http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Database+Administration/62480/2008/04/14http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Database+Administration/62480/SQL Server expert Jeff Moden discusses a common problem seen in many update statements.http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Performance+Tuning/62278/2008/03/14http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Performance+Tuning/62278/Different ways of passing sets of data between stored procedures.http://www.sqlservercentral.com/redirect/articles/62313/2008/04/08http://www.sqlservercentral.com/redirect/articles/62313/SQL Server 2008, code named Katmai, has some very interesting additions to the SQL Server platform to make your development tasks easier. One of these is passing a table variable as a parameter to a stored procedure and regular columnist Jacob Sebastian shows us how. http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/News/3182/2007/09/12http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/News/3182/It's been almost three years since SQL Server 2005 was released and Steve Jones current recommendation is that you don't upgrade right now. Read on to see why he's giving this advice. http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Administration/3094/2007/07/11http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Administration/3094/Using hints in a query is something that most DBAs don't ever seem to bother with, but when they do, NOLOCK seems to be their hint of choice. Wayne Fillis brings us a detailed examination of how this particular hint actually affects the performance of your system. http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Performance+Tuning/2764/2007/12/17http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Performance+Tuning/2764/A few notes from a consulting engagement that might get you to think about what to expect from your next contractors.http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Career/62512/2008/04/15http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Career/62512/New author Jack Corbett brings us a look at a way of finding out what caused your error in Integration Services.http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Integration+Services/62662/2008/04/21http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Integration+Services/62662/