Regular Audit Analysis
This Friday Steve Jones asks about how you handle audit data in your environment. Do you regularly analyze the data? Or do you wait for something to go wrong before you check the data.
Reporting Services: Adding extra columns / rows to a matrix
The functionality of additional columns / rows in a cross table ("matrix") in Reporting Services is limited to totals / subtotals. By using a stored function a solution is described.
Fast and Free; SQL Scripts Manager's Script Generator
When William produced his second article on the free tool 'SQL Scripts Manager', revealing that it worked just as well with PowerShell and Python scripts as it does with TSQL, he thought that would be the end of the series. Oh no; in response to feedback, comes a small add-in called 'Script Generator' that makes a big difference to the speed of developing and producing new scripts.
SSMS: The Query Window Keyboard Shortcuts
Simple-Talk's free wallchart of the most important SSMS keyboard shortcuts aims to help find all those curiously forgettable key combinations within SQL Server Management Studio that unlock the hidden magic that is available for editing and executing queries.
Raw Materials - Transportation Management
Transportation Management is an information technology problem in more ways than one.
The Age of Software
Does the age of software matter? Steve Jones talks about this after there was a decision for the SQL 11 tools not to support Windows XP.
XLSExport: A CLR procedure to export proc results to Excel
A CLR procedure utilizing the NPOI library to export the results of a passed stored procedure to an Excel spreadsheet.
Harnessing PowerShell's String Comparison and List-Filtering Features
When you are first learning PowerShell, it often seems to be an 'Alice through the looking-glass' world. Just the simple process of comparing and selecting strings can seem strangely obtuse. Michael turns the looking-glass into wonderland with his wall-chart of the PowerShell string-comparison operators and syntax
Blogs
Upgrading SQL Server Containers on the Laptop
By Steve Jones
I don’t have SQL Server installed on my laptop. In an effort to keep...
How to Find Expensive Queries in Amazon Redshift
Slow-running queries can degrade your Redshift cluster’s performance and lead to increased costs. Identifying...
The Notification Trap: How Input Fatigue Is Killing Deep Work in Tech
By gbargsley
If you've been here before, you know this blog is usually about SQL Server,...
Forums
SQL 2019 instance with AG, across 2 Windows 2016 OS servers - OSin-place upgrade
Hi all Can I get some perspective from the community please on performing in-place...
How Long is a Long I/O?
Comments posted to this topic are about the item How Long is a Long...
T-SQL Trigonometric Functions in SQL Server
Comments posted to this topic are about the item T-SQL Trigonometric Functions in SQL...
Question of the Day
How Long is a Long I/O?
In SQL Server 2025, a long I/O is recorded in the error log with message 833. How long much an I/O request be outstanding before this message is written to the log?
See possible answers