A Look Back at Apple
With the resignation of Steve Jobs from Apple this week, Steve Jones looks back at his memories of the tech icon.
CONTEXT_INFO() and the SQL Calling Stack
Nothing new for many developers, but I still like the way you can maintain the stack throughout the call chain.
Specialists or Generalists: Who are best as Developers?
Should we have specialists or generalists working as developers in our companies? A guest editorial today from Mike Angelastro asks the question.
Mimicking Magnetic Tape in SQL
The sequential nature of early data storage devices such as punched card and magnetic tape once forced programmers to devise algorithms that made the best of sequential access. These ways of doing data-processing have become so entrenched that they are still used in modern relational database systems. There is now a better way, as Joe Celko explains.
Would You Rather Work for a Strong or Weak Manager?
Today we have a guest editorial from Andy Warren. Andy asks if you prefer to have a strong manager or weak one, and why.
Optimize a SQL Server Analysis Services Measure Group Partition for Performance
In this tip you will learn how to design aggregations for a partition and optimize it for performance.
Solution
Keep Data Forever
Today Steve Jones talks about some of the issues with keeping data around a long time and a new archival medium.
The OVER Clause enhancements in SQL Server code named “Denali”, CTP3
A look at how the OVER clause is changing in SQL 11, based on the CTP 3 released to the public.
XML Configuration files in SQL Server Integration Services
Package configuration files are a great way of providing the values of SSIS package properties so that packages can be used in a far more versatile way. They make the deployment of SSIS packages easier and can provide parameters that are based on the server configuration, or which change for each runtime. They're easy to understand, especially when explained by Rob Sheldon.
Blogs
Monday Monitor Tips: Intelligent Alert Thresholds
By Steve Jones
At the recent Redgate Summit in Chicago, I demo’d (lightly) the ML based Alert...
A New Word: los vidados
By Steve Jones
los vidados – n. the half-remembered acquaintances you knew years ago, who you might...
In-Person CISA Training – April 13-16, 2026
By Brian Kelley
I will be leading an in-person Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) exam prep class...
Forums
String_agg not working as needed
I'm trying to get this string_agg to put all the 'comments' into one result...
Vectors in SQL Server 2025
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Vectors in SQL Server 2025
Odd Sequences
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Odd Sequences
Question of the Day
Odd Sequences
What values are returned from this code?
CREATE SEQUENCE NumericSequence
AS NUMERIC(5,1)
START WITH 1.0
INCREMENT BY 0.1;
GO
SELECT NEXT VALUE FOR NumericSequence
GO
SELECT NEXT VALUE FOR NumericSequence
GO See possible answers