It’s Tuesday, and the Monday post is late.  A weekend of smoking quite a few pounds of pork kept me in a meat coma.  The three day weekend also kept motivation to get this post out low, but hey, it’s Tuesday and might as well share this – since I can’t share the pork with many of you.  As usual, this post is a summary of last week’s blog and twitter activity.  If you want to catch the links as the week progresses, follow me on twitter (@StrateSQL). This is a good chance to catch up on data platform technology and career related information I’ve shared in the last week and activity on this blog.

Most Popular Article Shared

Last weeks most popular link is an blog post by Steve Jones (Blog | @way0utwest) on extended events.  As an extended events fan, this is a great post especially for those who are still new to extended events.  In the post, Steve goes through the steps to create a session that can track logins. Check out the post, if you get the chance.

Last Week’s Popular Posts

The most popular posts on this blog in the week are:

1. 31 Days of SSIS – The Introduction (574)
2. 31 Days of SSIS – Raw Files Are Awesome (1/31) (293)
3. Get Just The Tools: SSMS Download (293)
4. 31 Days of SSIS as a Book (242)
5. Looking to SQL Server 2014 High Availability In Standard Edition (172)
6. XQuery for the Non-Expert – Value (165)
7. Security Questions: Removing Logins From Databases (128)
8. Security Questions: Grant Permissions to All Stored Procedures (121)
9. Security Questions: What permissions are required to create temporary tables? (116)
10. Determining Filegroup for a Table (114)

Last Week’s Top 20 “Reading” Links

Along with the most popular link, here are the top twenty items relating to SQL Server, technology and careers that were shared last week. If you missed them throughout the week, here’s the opportunity to get caught up on some items that other’s read after I linked them out.

1. Tracking Logins with Extended Events [24 clicks]
2. Learning R: Hard Lessons [23 clicks]
3. Obsessing over query operator costs [16 clicks]
4. And other pointless query rewrites [15 clicks]
5. Announcing preview of R Visuals in Power BI Desktop [13 clicks]
6. Probe Residual on Hash Match [13 clicks]
7. Dropbox is falling prey to a common fallacy [12 clicks]
8. Look at Blocked Process Reports Collected With Extended Events [12 clicks]
9. Partitioning on a Budget [12 clicks]
10. Sparse Columns in SQL Server : Impact on Time & Space [12 clicks]
11. Data recovery: investigating weird SELECT failures around corruption [12 clicks]
12. SQL Server Setup Error: The directory name is invalid [11 clicks]
13. Blameless PostMortems and a Just Culture [11 clicks]
14. SQL Server Diagnostic Information Queries Detailed, Day 4 [11 clicks]
15. Does an index scan always read the entire index? [11 clicks]
16. Blame Minimum Wage, Not Carl’s Jr. CEO, For Automated Restaurants [11 clicks]
17. Minimizing impact of widening an IDENTITY column – part 1 [10 clicks]
18. Power BI–Marvel vs DC Movie Analysis [10 clicks]
19. On the addition of useless where clauses [10 clicks]
20. Ugly Pragmatism For The Win [10 clicks]

Last Week’s Posts From Previous Years

Sometimes the most useful content on a blog wasn’t written in the past week, it’s often other articles shared in the past that resonate with readers. Check out the following links that I published in past years over the past week:

1. What Are Your Indexing Strategies? (2011-03-22)
2. Getting Rid of a Certificate (2010-03-26)
3. Index Black Ops Series (2011-03-26)

Other Items Shared

Of course, no week would be complete without a few off-topic links. These have nothing to do with technology or your career, but they are interesting and worth a second look.

1. A Dancer’s Thoughts On Microsoft’s GDC Party [73 clicks]
2. True Story. Oz Twins Share a Boyfriend and Want to Get Pregnant Together [34 clicks]
3. New Rumors Surface Regarding Axl Rose’s AC/DC Gig [30 clicks]
4. Why Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine is Actually Way Better Than The 2016 Deadpool [25 clicks]
5. McDonald’s Says its Wage Hikes Are Improving Service [13 clicks]
6. SpaceX & Tesla Top List Of “Meaningful” Tech Company Jobs [10 clicks]
7. Freakanomics Radio: The United States of Cory Booker [7 clicks]
8. Freakanomics Radio: The No-Tipping Point [5 clicks]
9. Engineering Exec Departs ULA After SpaceX Comments [5 clicks]

Got something you think I should read and share, leave a comment below. Also, if you want to see all of the links that were tweeted out last week?