You can only have one filegroup for tempdb, you can increase the number of files for that filegroup which may increase performance. I think the...

Have you tried a reboot? :w00t:

I think a lot more detail on the problem is needed in order to help you.

THe only thing you can do is LEFT JOIN to all tables and then include case logic in the SELECT clause.

Or, you can use dynaminc SQL!

Having the ability to...

Seems like you havnt configured the variable correctly. Have you configured the package like this:

http://www.sqlis.com/post/Looping-over-files-with-the-Foreach-Loop.aspx

The maintenance plan will handle network locations as long as they are UNC paths and permissions are correct.

Can you resume the mirroring session? A network outage of more than (x) minutes will put the session into a suspended state. I dont know what the value of x...

This task is a nightmare! Sure you cant backup/restore or detach/reattach?

Check out all the options for this task I'm sure it will be one of them thats causing this; make...

I think this is what you need:

http://sql-articles.com/articles/high-availability/how-to-move-mirrored-database-files/

The only downtime will be the failover part.

Check this out for using Visual Studio 2008 for database projects (I take it your not using 2010, as they made a few improvements there):

I guess the main reason I...

You can create a management studio database project and associate this with a sourcecontrol platform such as Subversion (free), Team Foundation Server (expensive) - depends on your full requirements.

You can...

The latest version of Idera Diagnostics manager isnt too bad. Now includes historical statistics based on the vital os_wait_stats DMV!

I dont understand your question. Can you rephrase please?

What about using Application Roles?

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/secure-sql-server-application-roles/5068954

Firstly why would you not want to design OLAP cubes using Visual Studio (or Business Intelligence Studio), it's the native tool for creating cubes?!

Querying from the cubes can be done...

...and I would recommend specifying the join type for readability if using the improved ANSI joins:

INNER JOIN (default)

RIGHT OUTER JOIN

LEFT OUTER JOIN etc etc