Microsoft Indexing Service HOW-TO
This article describes how to provide full text search using Microsoft Indexing Service in .NET applications.
Using Fuzzy Lookups for Record Linkage
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) includes two very interesting transforms, the Fuzzy Grouping and Fuzzy Lookup transformations. Brian Norberg discussed the former in another article and this time examines the Fuzzy Lookup Transformation.
Making SQL Server 2005 Integration Services Packages Portable
SSIS introduced a feature called "Package Configurations". Package configurations allow us to make SSIS packages portable and help us change SQL Server and file connectivity information dynamically.
Transaction Isolation and the New Snapshot Isolation Level
Concurrency and transaction isolation are a prickly subject, difficult to explain with any kind of clarity without boring the reader and leaving their poor brain in a complete muddle. Therefore, it is often ignored in the vain hope it won't affect us and we can forget all about it. Well you can't ignore it any more and with SQL Server 2005 there's a whole new isolation level added to the four that already exist.
Temporarily Changing an Unknown Password of the sa Account
You are asked for the sa password for a SQL Server in order to perform a software upgrade. You, the DBA, don't know the password and it's not documented. Rodney Landrum provides a way out of this dilemma, demonstrating two techniques for temporarily changing the password, and then returning it to its previous unknown value.
Encryption: Not the End-All Fix for Data Privacy
Many state data-breach laws exempt encrypted data from PR-nightmare public-notice requirements, but don't let that fool you into thinking it's an easy answer to the data privacy challenge. Here's the lowdown on loopholes, caveats and options to consider when applying encryption.
SQL Agent - A Job Scheduler Framework
In this article, I'll show you how to create a generic scheduler that runs on a Windows Service. The scheduler will be able to accept pluggable actions that we can develop later implementing a custom interface.
Background
Finding Similar Data Using SQL Server Integration Services
SQL Server 2005 has greatly increased the capabilities of the platform and brought the capabilities for complex ETL packages to many businesses at an affordable cost. One of the very interesting transformations you can use in SSIS is the fuzzy grouping task and new author Brian Nordberg brings us a look at how you can use this.
DDL Replication in SQL Server 2000 and 2005
How schema changes can propogate in SQL Server 2005's Replication Architecture.
Blogs
Learning from Mistakes: T-SQL Tuesday #194
By Steve Jones
We’re a week late, once again my fault. I was still coming out of...
Stupid Things I Did With AI: ASCII Art
By Steve Jones
I ran across this article recently (https://www.gatesnotes.com/meet-bill/source-code/reader/microsoft-original-source-code) and it has a great opening piece...
Simple Talks Podcasting in 2026
By Steve Jones
I’m in the UK today, having arrived this morning in London. Hopefully, by this...
Forums
Learning From Breakage
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Python in Action to Auto-Generate an Optimized PostgreSQL Index Strategy
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Adding and Dropping Columns I
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Adding and Dropping Columns I
Question of the Day
Adding and Dropping Columns I
I have this table in my SQL Server 2022 database:
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[CityList] ( [CityNameID] [int] NOT NULL IDENTITY(1, 1), [CityName] [varchar] (30) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS NULL ) ON [PRIMARY] GOI decide to add two new columns for the StateProvince and Country. What code should I use? See possible answers