Simple Talk's newest commentator, Phil Factor, reveals the dark side of hiring database specialists: "Soon after he had been shown his desk in our crowded, open-plan IT office, he began laughing out loud, sporadically and inappropriately, while reviewing code. It wasn't my code, so I didn't mind."
2005-11-10
4,525 reads
Sometimes coincidences happen that make you sit back and say Hmm. Couple of days back Ovidiu, one of our senior developers, came by and asked me to blog about the Pivot transform. Then earlier today someone doing a high end POC down south need the same information.
2005-11-09
2,070 reads
Where does Access fit in Microsoft’s future? Before that question is answered, we should examine why it might be important.
2005-11-08
5,350 reads
Now it's time to review yet another migration related product from AdventNet. It is called "AdventNet SwisSQL Sybase to SQL Server Migration Tool 2.1". As the name suggests, this migration product automates the conversion of Sybase ASE (Adaptive Server Enterprise) T-SQL stored procedures, inbuilt functions, triggers, tables, views, and other database objects to Microsoft SQL Server T-SQL.
2005-11-04
1,103 reads
2005-11-03
3,365 reads
The problems caused by the SQL Sapphire Worm, also know as the SQL Slammer, have caused many sites to do a quick upgrade to SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 3 (SP3). It includes the fix that prevents infection by the worm. While moving to the latest service pack is usually a good thing, to do so without thorough testing risks breaking a working application. That is exactly what happened to one of my clients over the weekend.
2005-11-02
2,068 reads
You can just hear it now: At the table down the hall, there’s a group of people having, (as it seems to you) yet another academic discussion on the merits of third-normal form and the structure of primary keys. You’ve heard many discussions like this before — it all seems so pointless. After all, doesn’t it just boil down to “create table” commands and a bunch of DDL? You mastered all that in your first DBA class. What could be so hard?
2005-10-31
3,688 reads
Right out of the box, SQL Server 2005 does not install many of its services (such as SQL Server Reporting Services) or does not have features turned on by default (.NET integration), thereby reducing the attack vectors that hackers could use to compromise your data security.
2005-10-27
2,024 reads
Check digits–not to be confused with checksums–are often added to numeric identifiers such as customer and product numbers to reduce the chance of incorrect entries. Sequences of numbers are notoriously easy to mistype, and constraints alone generally won't do the job. In this excellent article, Lynn Fields shows you how to implement the "Cadillac" of check digit methods–the Verhoeff Dihedral Group.
2005-10-26
2,735 reads
One of the most difficult database operations to scale-up on high-end server systems is the network call. In fact, without special precautions, a high call volume database application can have severe negative scaling on large systems. It is suspected that this problem is more pronounced on NUMA systems than basic SMP systems. A NUMA system with 16 processors can have significantly lower throughput capability than an otherwise comparable 4-way SMP system.
2005-10-25
1,754 reads
By Steve Jones
With the AI push being everywhere, Redgate is no exception. We’ve been getting requests,...
By Steve Jones
fawtle – n. a weird little flaw built into your partner that somehow only...
AWS recently added support for Post-Quantum Key Exchange for TLS in Application Load Balancer...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Where Your Value Separates You...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Fixing the Error
Comments posted to this topic are about the item T-SQL in SQL Server 2025:...
On SQL Server 2025, I have a database that has this collation: SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS. I decide I want to run this code:
SELECT UNISTR('*3041*308A*304C*3068 and good night', '*') AS 'A Classic';
I get this error:Msg 9844, Level 16, State 4, Line 24 The char/varchar input type uses an unsupported collation. Only a UTF8 collation is supported with char/varchar input type in UNISTR function.What is the easiest way to fix this error? See possible answers