Data Debt
The idea of data debt seems both silly and obvious to Steve. We all have too much data and it's out of control.
2025-01-31
149 reads
data
Building a Culture of Data: The Technical Aspects
In the first part of this two-part series, I covered the mostly non-technical aspects of building a data culture. While the lion’s share of the work will be getting people to work together and embrace ever deeper use of data, as a reader of Simple-Talk, a lot of this transition will be technical.
2024-05-15
Being Responsible for Data
There is an interesting court case on who is responsible for the data being posted on the Internet. Steve has a few thoughts today.
2023-03-29
272 reads
Gathering Data Through Life
Every once in a while, I find a list of places posted on the Internet with a "how many have you visited?" question attached. This might be US states, countries, cities, or even attractions. I love traveling with my wife and having new experiences, and as we've gotten older, we value the experiences more than […]
2022-04-29
138 reads
Do You Have ALL the YAML?
There are lots of data exchange formats, and one of them that has become popular is YAML. However, are you sure you have the entire file?
2021-07-26
1,372 reads
The Next Data Decade
There are lots of predictions that people make at the start of every year. I've written quite a few over the years, but in 2020 I decided not to make any. After all, there are plenty of other people making them. One person that did make some was Jeff Clarke, COO of Dell. He wrote […]
2020-04-22
131 reads
2019-12-18
256 reads
2019-11-26
374 reads
Fragmented or Centralized Data
Is it better to copy and distribute data or centralize it? Steve has a few thoughts today.
2019-10-15
253 reads
Data Challenges and Travel
A few problems in travel have Steve thinking about the complexities and challenges of companies that coordinate lots of data.
2019-07-23
269 reads
Blogs
PowerPoint to HTML with Claude AI
By Steve Jones
I had an idea for an animated view of a sales tool, and started...
Don’t Miss Out – SQL Server Query Tuning Fundamentals Starts Next Monday!
Next Monday, February 9, 2026, my one-day live online training SQL Server Query Tuning...
Monday Monitor Tips: SQL Auditing Preview
By Steve Jones
One of the features we advocates have been advocating for is a better way...
Forums
25 Years of SQL Server Central
Comments posted to this topic are about the item 25 Years of SQL Server...
The Decoded Value
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Decoded Value
Deploying SQL Server Developer Edition in Kubernetes: A Cost-Effective Alternative to RDS
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Deploying SQL Server Developer Edition...
Question of the Day
The Decoded Value
In SQL Server 2025, what is returned from this code:
DECLARE @message VARCHAR(50) = 'Hello SQL Server 2025!'; DECLARE @encoded VARCHAR(MAX); SET @encoded = BASE64_ENCODE(CAST(@message AS VARBINARY(1000))); SELECT BASE64_DECODE(@encoded)See possible answers