A simple way to rename a file from within a T-SQL Script, primarily designed to add a date-time stamp. Works in 2000 and 2005.  Read more...

A Sudoku solution with set based T-SQL approach utilizing binary values and operators, to ease the algorithm.  Read more...

As much as we're SQL Server folks here, sometimes we do need to connect to other data stores. Hai shares some of his experiences doing so. Might come in handy someday.   Read more...

Are you taking care of yourself as an IT professional? We try to cover all aspects of your SQL Server career here, not just the technical stuff. Longtime SQL Server guru Michael Coles brings us some health tips in an interview with Dr. Jerry Sanders   Read more...

Most of us DBAs have worked on our career to get where we are. A DBA is usually a second or third step in IT and we we've looked to advance our understanding of technology. Jeffrey Yao now brings us a new level of database work to which we may aspire.   Read more...

Two weeks ago Andy started his wildly successful series on Worst Practices. This week he continues that series discussing why failing to use primary keys and clustered indexes are worst practices. Agree or disagree, read the article and join the discussion. One thing you'll have to admit, reading an article by Andy is a lot more interesting than reading Books Online!   Read more...

This procedure works like the sp_spaceused procedure but this one shows statistics for all tables in the selected database or for all databases (excluding tempdb and model).   Read more...

New Author! Don Peterson writes his first article for us and explores why he considers XML to be...bad! There are some interesting points made here and if you've haven't thought about what XML means to you as a DBA, it's a subject worth spending some time on.   Read more...

Free SQL Server 2000 Encryption for your data!!! Author Michael Coles has put together a tolljit and some XPs that you can use to encrypt your data with the Blowfish algorithm. It is hard to write good applications that encrpyt data and manage the keys and security. This will give you a great headstart on protecting your data.   Read more...

This terse script shows an easy (but "dirty" - so not advisable for production environments - rather for personal use) way to select data from stored procedure.  Read more...

The procedure below deletes all records from the specified database's(except master, model, msdb and tempdb) tables (except those from the schema 'sys').  Read more...

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.   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...

Created view displays all text columns' collations in the current database with the information whether the collation is different from the database's one.  Read more...

This procedure generates a dataset with combinations of elements_to_select taken from number_of_values element set. It prints also the prepared query.   Read more...

The script shows one of ways generating number sequence - this one uses CTE  Read more...

Dice.com recently completed a salary survey for 2007. If you didn't participate, Steve Jones summarizes the results for DBAs.   Read more...

This procedure prepares a query for generating permutations of n-numbers set and executes it.  Read more...

Importing data files is always a challenge for a DBA, especially when the files might vary in format. Having one codebase is important and new author Mark Balasundram brings us the template for a high performance application to do just that.   Read more...

This procedure searches for a specified text in all (or one selected) databases in all (or selected) tables.  Read more...

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.   Read more...

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.   Read more...

Continuing with his series on XML in SQL Server 2005, Jacob Sebastian brings us a number of examples on how to work with XML in different situations with SQL Server 2005.   Read more...