Thanks for the input folks. Like I said, I've always used method 2 (OBJECT_ID), basically because that's what's shown throughout BOL, and though I've seen the other syntaxes in...

I've used PasswordSafe, which is excellent, but changed over to KeePass about a year ago. The only thing about KeePass is it doesn't have the auto-lock feature like PasswordSafe...

This could eventually turn from "you should share your data" to "you MUST share your data". Some of the comments in the data philanthropy link are downright scary. ...

Oddly enough, there's a lot out there on the web about preventing SQL injection attacks, but to be honest, I see a lot of pages either giving very generic guidelines...

I'm kind of curious why you're converting to a character string. The error message seems to indicate the ih.year_for_period field is numeric.

CTEs come in particularly handy for hierarchical views (or table-valued functions if you prefer). I've been working on one app lately part of which allows supervisors to review data...

Neat trick.

There is one additional thing I would like to be able to do though: select a block of text and then use a keyboard shortcut (like CTRL-K/CTRL-C) to automatically...

The exact string you use depends upon how you connect to the SQL server back end (the Provider) and how the security/authentication is set up on SQL server. Below...

On the flip side, many of us do not take the time to "manage our boss". Simply put, it means letting your boss know how you work well and...

Way back in my desktop support days, I worked for a major multi-national, multi-industry company. There was a huge refresh project that necessitated the hiring of additional contractors. ...

It seems that every five or ten years some wag starts prognosticating that IT departments will be dead in another five or ten years. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

I would only...

We all make mistakes, and may never catch all our errors in testing, but we damn sure better catch our stupidity. Not checking the input data before processing it...

The emerging data science field is already making this a reality. There are very well-known statistical principles and methods that can be employed to analyze just about anything.

These can...

Building on opc.three's earlier answer about using a script task (and steering us away from the xp_cmdshell debate), I've used similar logic to pick up the most recent filename in...

Considering the ludicrous wagers Watson made on Jeopardy for the Daily Doubles (and the fact that it considered Toronto a US city), I'm not too worried. Basically Watson won...