An Alternative to SELECT COUNT(*) for Better Performance
Sometimes rapid code development doesn't always produce the most efficient code. Take the age old line of code SELECT COUNT(*)...
2013-05-07
5,283 reads
Everyday SQL
Merging SQL Server and Softball Just for Fun
With opening day of Major League Baseball season finally here, I thought I’d take the time to cover two of...
2013-04-02
1,280 reads
Use Powershell to Pick Up what Database Mirroring Leaves Behind
Database mirroring has been around since SQL Server 2005, and it's turned out to be an excellent step up from...
2013-03-26
2,448 reads
T-SQL Tuesday #40 - Proportional Fill within a Filegroup
T-SQL Tuesday #40 is underway, and this month's host is Jennifer McCown (blog|twitter). The topic is about File and Filegroup...
2013-03-15 (first published: 2013-03-12)
2,889 reads
Dealing with a Fragmented Heap
Just for the record, this happens to be one of my favorite interview questions to ask candidates.
At some point in...
2013-03-05
2,330 reads
The Performance Impact to Prefix Stored Procedures with sp_
Last week I ran across a blog post by Axel Achten (B|T) that outlined a few reasons why you should...
2013-02-19
1,458 reads
T-SQL Tuesday - Use Powershell to Restore a Database on a Different Server
T-SQL Tuesday - This month's party is hosted by Wayne Sheffield (blog|twitter), and the topic is about Powershell and how to use...
2013-02-12
8,151 reads
What is DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS Telling Me About My Data?
Per Books Online, DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS displays current query optimization statistics for a table or indexed view. Basically it shows you...
2013-02-14 (first published: 2013-02-05)
5,474 reads
How to Remove (Undo) Table Partitioning
I have seen plenty of articles and blog posts out there for how to setup and implement table partitioning, but...
2013-02-04 (first published: 2013-01-29)
8,723 reads
sp_PerformanceCounters - Get a Health Check of SQL Server's Performance
During your career as a DBA, you'll run across articles by SQL experts or other DBAs that just give you...
2013-01-22
1,345 reads
Blogs
Presenting with Visual Studio Code
A while back I wrote a quick post on setting up key mappings in...
Advice I Like: In 100 Years
By Steve Jones
In 100 years a lot of what we take to be true now will...
dataMinds Saturday 2026 – Slides
At Saturday the 21st of February I’m presenting an introduction to dimensional modelling at...
Forums
AllocationType as ROW_OVERFLOW_DATA
Hello, I inherited a number of tables with like 20-30 column using nvarchar(256) in...
is it true we cant debug c# scripts in ssis anymore under vs
Hi, i'm running vs2022. I'm trying out a c# script that i'd like to...
Question of the Day
Missing the Jaro Winkler Distance
I upgraded a SQL Server 2019 instance to SQL Server 2025. I wanted to test the fuzzy string search functions. I run this code:
SELECT JARO_WINKLER_DISTANCE('tim', 'tom')
I get this error message:Msg 195, Level 15, State 10, Line 1 'JARO_WINKLER_DISTANCE' is not a recognized built-in function name.What is wrong? See possible answers