Sorry, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization 

Please post sample data.

Yes! Alternative b) is the strength of RDBMS. Alternative a) is a violation of 1NF and should be avoided.

Now that I read this, I remember having used it myself before...

Thanks!

I would run a trace to track this down.

Please don't multipost:

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/forums/shwmessage.aspx?forumid=4&messageid=186799

Something like this?

declare @dt datetime

select case when @dt is null then 0 else 1 end

set @dt=getdate()

select case when @dt is null then 0 else 1 end

-----------

0

(1 row(s) affected)

           ...

http://snipurl.com/fata

is a most recent thread.

I don't like your sarcasm here and I didn't want to get personell.

While you made a good observation on this CLUSTERED PRIMARY KEY,...

We have one server here, that's completely busy with the call center database being the only one on that server, while another server hosts some 30+ less frequently used and...

I'm not completely against the use of dynamic sql. However, it is way too often too quickly advocated while there are better static solutions available. Just read Erland's dynamic search...

Do this at the client.

I can't think of a solution for this right now, since you can't GROUP BY a common criteria here. However, your SELECT statement might be...

You were very lucky that you've got the job.

You have several more or less severe mistakes here.

First, a heap is a table without a clustered index. It is...

You can't restrict this. Everybody who connects can issue a

SELECT * FROM master..sysdatabases

The reglementing factor here however is the access to the databases.

I really like DATETIME columns as candidates for clustered indexes, since I deal very often with range queries for date intervals. I think this is the best way to go...