Ideally all relevent legacy...

Know the the Standard Model, the six types of quarks, their intrinic properties and interactions. Also know at least the Wizard's First and Second Rule.

Sending out a broadcast email asking if it's OK to retire a database is good, but depending on the size and organization of the IT department, it's entirely possible for...

If this were Oracle, I could do it all with an inline expression using the DECODE() and LEAST(<value>, <value>, ....) functions.

However, after deriving a version of your table that...

I agree that, if your application needs to reference very large entity-attribute-value datasets, then it would perhaps be best to move those specific tables out of SQL Server and into...

It is possible to remove or hash the personally identifying attributes (name, ssn, contact info, etc.) from a flat dataset or...

Steve, this is just a guess, but has Red Gate offered you a lofty executive position?

Several years back, I was working on a government contract to develop the database backend for a web application that would query a large accounting datamart, and then build a...

I consider CLR functions to be one of the least useful features introduced in SQL Server 2005. Although I can see a niche use for it when a developer needs...

mendesm (10/5/2011)

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Don't take this personally, but when a resume comes my way with "MCITP/MCTS" and other MS certifications I pass the resume on to the trash barrel.

These days, the more...

When writing DDL deployment scripts, I try to leverage information schema views rather than system views.

-- If a named constraint exists, then drop it:

if exists (select * from information_schema.table_constraints...

Charles Kincaid (9/29/2011)

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You said; "Aren’t we all destined to have so much uncategorized stuff and as long as we limit it to one drawer, does it matter?"

So, getting back to...

paul.jones (9/29/2011)

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When one colleague left we found, along with the usual selection of pens and stuff, some crackers and a range of individually wrapped cheese portions.

Unfortunately it took us a...

GilaMonster (9/26/2011)

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...

That alone won't do anything other than raise an error that says something untrue. It's not rolling back the transaction. That transaction committed.

...

Probably not sufficient, it...

The most common disaster that I seem to hear about is the "whoops" disaster. A disaster that's human error, a situation where someone makes a mistake in data entry. The...