Great topic Brad! Funny because there are often times in the office where Scott (Gleason) will say something then immediately turns to me and says "don't tweet that", as he...

Graham, glad you're diving into the wonderful world of SQL Server! You can go a few routes:

1. Install it directly on your laptop OS (XP or higher)

Pros: Don't need to...

Haha no problem. I didn't realize the sheer number of forums here until I went searching for the suggestions one. Maybe a spring cleaning wouldn't be too bad of an...

You may want to create this thread over in the Suggestions forum instead: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Forum4-1.aspx

Check out this thread from MSDN forum: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sqltools/thread/06c80a78-a877-4a48-a032-b0aef78a598c

Maintenance plans are good...to a point. I highly suggest checking out Brad McGehee's book on Maintenance Plans (free download): http://www.bradmcgehee.com/2010/01/free-ebook-on-sql-server-maintenance-plans-now-available/%5B/url%5D

While the GUI is nice, you can still do what you...

I'd imagine the downsides would really depend on your needs. Here's a nice post I came across detailing some potential issues with SB usage: http://datageekgal.blogspot.com/2008/07/sql-server-service-broker-archival.html

Might as well link the existing article here on SSC on the topic: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/scripts/Maintenance+and+Management/31605/%5B/url%5D

All good advice regarding test environments. Here's a couple of good articles on handling change control management on your database systems:

http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2006/01/automating-sql-server-version-control-with-visual-sourcesafe/%5B/url%5D

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000743.html

Ah cool you're absolutely correct, thanks for that reminder Gail!

I just came from an environment where I administrated over 100 instances by myself. Like Gail mentioned it really just depends on the level of automation you put into place....

You can't restore to lower version of SQL Server but you can restore UP (i.e. restore 2000-->2005, 2005-->2008).

The problem in your case is 10.50.1600 is SQL 2008 R2 RTM...

DBCC MEMORYSTATUS http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907877

While I don't have the code for it, I'm pretty sure you could perform this task using PowerShell. Lots of good resources out there such as Chad Miller, Max Trinidad,...

USE [demodb]

GO

CREATE USER [testme] FOR LOGIN [testme]

GO

USE [demodb]

GO

EXEC sp_addrolemember N'db_accessadmin', N'testme'

GO

USE [demodb]

GO

EXEC sp_addrolemember N'db_backupoperator', N'testme'

GO

USE [demodb]

GO

EXEC sp_addrolemember N'db_datareader', N'testme'

GO