Best practice would be to

• Be explicit in your field names
• qualify your object with its owner

If you truly need dynamic SQL look at sp_executesql rather than exec. sp_executesql will...

Hope the article on Symetric Keys and Certificates comes soon!

SELECT C1,C2

FROM dbo.YourTable AS YT

WHERE C1 IN (
    SELECT C1 
    FROM dbo.YourTable 
    GROUP BY C1 
   ...

Try the new SQL2005 table partitioning as a starting point but read up on backing up of the database first.

If your system is web based and .NET based then you...

At one place I worked the difference between the testing and production hardware was that the testing hardware was slightly more beefy than the production environment. The idea was...

You can only use INNER JOIN for an indexed view.

I take it that a MedicRecs record might not have a record in

• Rating?
• Providers?
• Locale?
• MedicProviders?

Where possible I design my databases so that LEFT/RIGHT...

SELECT CONVERT(SMALLDATETIME,(CAST YourBIGINTColumn AS CHAR(8)),112)

FROM dbo.YourTable

This assumes that your BIGINT is always in full YYYYMMDD format that is February 9th this year was 20060209

If you don't need double-byte characters (in SQL2000) use TEXT rather than NTEXT.

Phil, have you tried sp_executeSQL as a possible alternative to EXEC, it might give you a bit more...

CTRL R toggels the results pane off and on just like in QA.

By the way performance is almost acceptable if you stick 2Gb in your development machine.

My dev machine is...

No problems Daryl, there is actually a typo in your data because it has

2,1,8 AND 3,2,8 which is against the rules as 8 would be in the same 1st...

Daryl, as posted earlier there are Sudoko puzzles where there is no automated solution and you have to make a choice at some point. You can make the wrong...

Assuming you don't have SQL2005 and therefore the PIVOT function you could always resort to

DECLARE @display TABLE(ID INT IDENTITY(1,1),Display VARCHAR(50))
DECLARE @lRow TINYINT
SET @lRow = 0

DECLARE @NewRow VARCHAR(50)

INSERT INTO @display (Display)...

My apologies for the missing stored procedure.

When I started building my solution I prototyped it by bouncing values through tables and the procedure was used to remove solved cells from...

Tad William's Otherland series.

Arthur C Clarke was pretty good.

Jules Verne was probably the most prophetic.

SQL2005 is noticeably faster.

SQL Management Studio is a dog.

Security is a whole new ball game.

I suspect a lot of features will only reveal their value as and when people really...