The Average Joe
Most of us, by definition, are average. That's fine most of the time, but when you want a new job, standing apart from the average Joe is a good idea. Steve Jones talks about working on standing apart from the crowd.
President's Day 2010
A holiday in the US has Steve Jones on the slopes. A short reminder of patches released last week is the editorial today.
The Community Has Been Heard
Steve Jones talked about the announcements of Service Pack 4 for SQL Server 2005 and Service Pack 2 for SQL Server 2008 in this editorial.
Webinar Series: SQL Server 101
A partnership with Pragmatic Works brings you some basic SQL Server training through a series of webinars.
Use SSIS to import one cell of an Excel file into SQL Server
Recently I needed to find a method to import one cell of an Excel sheet into SQL Server 2005 using a scheduled job on a 64 bit clustered environment. For example, I have a monthly sales report listing sales per product category, such as Books, Magazines, DVDs, etc. I only want to import the Total Sales amount into SQL Server and this number is located in an Excel file "sales.xls.sheet1.cell.B5". I used to use OPENROWSET to solve the problem, however OPENROWSET requires Microsoft Jet OLE DB Provider which is not available in 64 bit. In this tip I am going to talk about how to use SSIS to accomplish this task easily.
Safety in Numbers
One of the core things a DBA must do is ensure backup and recovery of data. This Friday Steve Jones asks about your tolerance for safety and backup data in a Friday poll.
Tips for New DBAs
New and old DBAs alike can benefit from going back to the roots of the profession. This series of articles highlight the skills needed to move to the next level of Database Administration.
Azure Tutorial - Building a'Hello Word' app in Visual Studio
This article demonstrates how to build a simple Azure app using Visual Studio
SSIS Alpha Splits using the CODEPOINT() Function
A relatively common requirement in ETL processing is to break records into disparate outputs based on an alphabetical split on...
Blogs
Flyway Tips: Object History
By Steve Jones
It’s a small change, but a handy one. Flyway Desktop (FWD) now includes the...
Car Update September 2026
By Steve Jones
Software is hard. While I love our Lucid Gravity, I realize that they are...
Microsoft Tools for Making Data AI-Ready
By James Serra
Making Data AI-Ready, Part 2 (This is the second article in a three-part series...
Forums
Looking for old SQL Server 1.x - 4.21 disks, manuals, boxes, etc.
Hi everyone, I'm hoping some of the longtime SQL Server professionals here might be...
Checking the Error Log II
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Checking the Error Log II
Parameter Sniffing on SQL Server 2025: A Walkthrough with Real Numbers
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Parameter Sniffing on SQL Server...
Question of the Day
Checking the Error Log II
What is the reason I should change my old code that uses xp_readerrorlog?
See possible answers