External Article

Creating usable applications

If I had a penny for every person who said "usability is just common sense", I'd have a pretty reasonable stack of pennies – maybe 30 or so. Clearly I'm not going to be able to retire on this, but at least it demonstrates that many people have misconceptions about how usable interfaces are designed.

Technical Article

Working with TempDB

This white paper describes how SQL Server 2005 uses tempdb. Many improvements in SQL Server 2005 optimize tempdb usage and make it easier to manage and to troubleshoot. A case study that uses a workload similar to TPC Benchmark H (TPC-H) shows new ways to manage and troubleshoot tempdb resources. This paper also includes items to consider when upgrading to SQL Server 2005 and configuring tempdb

SQLServerCentral Article

Attach and Detach..Again

Attaching and detaching databases is old hat these days right? Do you know how to reattach a database that has more than 16 files? Or do you know what happens if you try to reattach a database that had two log files but one is missing/deleted? And even if you know the answer to that - do you know how to fix it without restoring from backup? Maybe it's not ALL old hat just yet!

SQLServerCentral Article

SQL Sudoko

The latest puzzle craze seems to be Sudoko with all kinds of online puzzles, books, etc. appearing around the world. Longtime SQL Server guru David Poole decided solving the puzzles was not enough of a challenge and brings us some T-SQL to help solve those difficult ones keeping you from getting back to work.

Blogs

Flyway Tips: AI Deployment Script Descriptions

By

With the AI push being everywhere, Redgate is no exception. We’ve been getting requests,...

A New Word: Fawtle

By

fawtle – n. a weird little flaw built into your partner that somehow only...

Post-quantum key exchange – Insurance policy for your packets

By

AWS recently added support for Post-Quantum Key Exchange for TLS in Application Load Balancer...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

Where Your Value Separates You from Others

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Where Your Value Separates You...

Fixing the Error

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Fixing the Error

T-SQL in SQL Server 2025: Encoding Functions

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item T-SQL in SQL Server 2025:...

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

Fixing the Error

On SQL Server 2025, I have a database that has this collation: SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS. I decide I want to run this code:

SELECT UNISTR('*3041*308A*304C*3068 and good night', '*') AS 'A Classic';
I get this error:Msg 9844, Level 16, State 4, Line 24 The char/varchar input type uses an unsupported collation. Only a UTF8 collation is supported with char/varchar input type in UNISTR function.What is the easiest way to fix this error?

See possible answers