Professional Development

SQLServerCentral Editorial

Small Changes, Big Results

  • Editorial

Last week I was able to attend THAT conference in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. It was my first time in the great state of cheese, and the conference lived up to its reputation. As a developer focused conference (rather than a database conference), I didn't have much expectation that my session about automating database changes would […]

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2023-08-05

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SQLServerCentral Editorial

What Counts for a DBA: Skill

  • Editorial

Practice makes perfect:” right? Well, not exactly. The reality of it all is that this saying is an untrustworthy aphorism. I discovered this in my “younger” days when I was a passionate tennis player, practicing and playing 20+ hours a week. No matter what my passion level was, without some serious coaching (and perhaps a […]

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2021-08-14

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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