Natural Born Killers (The series) – Day 4 Indices

To those that don’t know me “Natural Born Killers (The Series)” sounds like a very strange choice for a SQL...

SQL Server Running Slow

A user calls to say the app or server is slow today.  Here’s a quick summary of how I get...

TechEd North America 2013 videos online

Microsoft has posted ALL the session videos for TechEd North America 2013 and they are available for free!  What a...

TRY, CATCH, and Transactions

The T-SQL TRY/CATCH structure (“new” in SQL 2005!) is, as the professionals say, da bomb. It’s also underused and under-understood,...

use Table Variables in transaction

when using table variable, please note table variable doesn't support transaction rollback. here is the words from BOL

Because table variables...

Das Keyboard - First Thoughts

There seems to be a lot of buzz around mechanical keyboard lately as more and more manufacturers have started producing...

Dealing with Auditors: Password Settings

Yet again I've seen an audit request where the auditor wants the DBA to show what SQL Server's settings are...

Natural Born Killers (The series) – Day 3 Scalar UDF’s

To those that don’t know me “Natural Born Killers (The Series)” sounds like a very strange choice for a SQL...

New Page - "How to Get Involved With the SQL Server Community"

I recently composed an email (on the side) for a client DBA looking for info on getting involved with the...

ORDER BY the numbers

Have you ever needed to order by a calculated column? You might have written it something like this:
SELECT LoginID, YEAR(HireDate)...