Notes from SQLSaturday #21 – Part 1

I started the logistics preparations last Sun (8 days ago), finalizing the print version of the schedule, the eval cards,...

PASS Update #16

A one topic post this time. As a candidate for Vice President of Marketing for PASS this year I asked...

SQLSaturday #21 Shirt Snafu!

Thought I’d share a funny story. Way back before SQLSaturday #1 my friend Shawn recommended a local shirt/embroidery vendor, I...

Book Review: The Deceived

The Deceived by Brett Battles

I haven’t post on any fiction lately, thought it was time to write about something more...

SQL Lunch/Call for Speakers

Patrick Leblanc has started a new project called…SQL Lunch! The concept is to present a 30 minute topic every two...

SQLSaturday #21 Is Tomorrow (Oct 17)

I’m writing this in advance because I’ll be busy with all the last minute preparations, but I’m looking forward to...

Sparse Columns – ConvertSVtoXML & XMLToResv

Not very often I run across something with zero matches in a search engine, but had it happen recently. I had set up a simple demo of a sparse column set and happened to look at the execution plan, was interested to see that the Compute Scalar was backed by ConvertSVtoXML. This was on a select from a table with one row, and then, being a little more curious, updated it with an xml fragment I saw a call to ConvertXMLtoResv. I’d venture that those serve to convert back/forth from XML storage.

Live Writer Plugin for Amazon

Among the things I’m experimenting with this quarter is changing my book reviews to include an affiliate link to Amazon....

PASS Election Voting Has Started

You should get an email if you’re eligible to vote with a subject line beginning with ‘Vote for the 2010/2011...

SKUUpgrade =1 in SQL 2005

One of the things on my todo list for this past week was to upgrade a SQL 2005 Standard Instance...