Raw Materials - The Low Bid
When a job is too simple to be done in-house, how far down the phylogenetic tree should you go?
10 Good Things About Reporting Services 2008 R2
The 10 things Microsoft got right about SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 R2 (a sister article shows 10 things which aren't quite so good)
Labor Day 2011
It's a holiday in the US today and Steve Jones provides a little entertainment for those people still at work.
Piracy and Agile
Do Agile IT projects have anything to learn from the organizational structures and laws used by pirates? Phil Factor is not convinced.
TSQL Challenge 64 - A Payroll calculation Challenge
This challenge invites you to solve a payroll challenge which requires special calculation of holidays and absences that are adjacent to holidays
Using a SQL Server Alias for SSIS Package Configuration Database Connection String
In this tip we will walk through setting up the SQL Server Alias and using it with SQL Server package configuration in an SSIS package.
The Growth of Data Types
This week Steve Jones asks you what you think will make up the majority of your future databases? Will it be numerical data or will some other type come to dominate?
Configure SQL Server Database Mirroring Using SSMS
This tip outlines a test environment and then walks through the process of setting up Database Mirroring. This includes the configurations, backups, restores and verification process.
Recovery Models
Learn the basics of recovery models in this short article from SQL Server guru and MVP, Gail Shaw.
Blogs
Advice I Like: Respect
By Steve Jones
“Don’t aim to have others like you; aim to have them respect you.” –...
Blue Sky Programming – The Optimism Trap
Many years ago, before I joined Oracle, I was working on a major modernisation...
Setting Up a Mac for Data Engineering and AI Work
If you work with data pipelines, SQL, notebooks, or machine learning models, a Mac...
Forums
SQL Art, Part 4: Happy 4th of July — A British DBA's Guide to Celebrating a War We Don't Talk About
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Art, Part 4: Happy...
locking down agent for new user on our dev machine
hi , a new user wants to be able to add sql agent jobs...
SQL Server Enum Implementation: A Single-Row View Strategy for Avoiding Magic Values
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server Enum Implementation: A...
Question of the Day
BIT_COUNT I
In SQL Server 2025, I have a table (dbo.UserPermission) that contains this data:
UserID UserPermissions 15 23 37What is returned when I run this code:
select bit_count(UserPermissions) as PermissionCount from dbo.UserPermission where UserID = 3;See possible answers