Jeff Moden (2/21/2010)

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Heh... I just Googled "FIZZBUZZ SOLUTIONS SQL"... I'm amazed and surprised that some of those folks had the nerve to publish some of the solutions they have. ...

A nice question.

It's pretty appalling that 8% of people chose the "error message" answer, though.

I'm much less surprised about the 17% who got it wrong to...

For customer systems we would agree each outage with the customer. Customer contracts provided for down time for security updates and general maintenance monthly, but some customers were very...

A good question.

It took me a while to work out because it relies on the fact that ','+d.Colors doesn't have a column name so that for xml path...

I'm glad it had been edited (twice) by the time I saw it - at least the answer is now right. The explanation is still slighly wrong, though: the...

But it still says SSRS, which surely is the name used from SQLS 2005 onwards, not the one used in...

This is a very good article indeed. Something every new DBA or would-be DBA should read and take to heart.

The only thing that doesn't come across clearly is just...

It varies from databse to database. There are in-house databases and databases at the customer sites, databases that change rapidly and databases that change rarely and databases that are...

Also...

Rune Bivrin (2/12/2010)

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I got it right because I knew it, but I understand why that might not be obvious, and the behaviour is slightly iffy.

If you do

SELECT @var =...

I'll second that - a very nice article indeed.

Of course, there are weird and wonderful techniques for fitting data to nonlinear functions, but it might...

Steve Jones - Editor (2/17/2010)

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I'll have to take your word on that, Tom. Not sure how hard or easy it is to secure things, but keep in mind that there...

It's extremely difficult, probably impossible, on a properly configured modern Windows system - Group Policy settings can be made...

The startling thing in the editorial, for me anyway, is the line

That makes me ask why...

majorbloodnock (2/5/2010)

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I could be missing the point, but it seems to me that a lot of the "toasters" mentioned in this thread aren't toasters so much as wishlist utilities. I...