How to find that job is running?
Have you ever wanted an easy way to determine if a job is running for automated checks? This might not be an easy way, but Leo Peysakhovich provides a way that works and corrects an error in Books Online.
Database Geek of the Week - Gary Mallow
Database geeks are all around us. I met Gary Mallow on the email list of a cycling group run by a local church. After some conversation, I discovered that he is a director of a group of developers who build applications, sometimes using .NET and often using Oracle as a database. Like me, Gary is not entirely comfortable with his ability as a UI developer, and so finds database work a good fit.
How To Mess Up An Interview
We started a trend with our Worst Practices, looking at things you should not do instead of those you should. Sean McCown has taken that to a new level looking at some things that you can do to ensure you don't get your next job. Read about a few things that you might avoid in your next interview.
Use ISO Images Without Burning to Disk
Many downloads - especially from MS - are now coming as ISO images. Usually you burn these to CD or DVD and then use as normal, but there is a way to access the image directly saving the time/cost of burning. Not a SQL article, but you may find it useful anyway.
Controlling Transactions and Locks in SQL 2000 and 2005 - Part 3
In the preceding articles of this series, Lock Granularity, Transactions, and ACID were introduced. Common lock types, such as Shared, Exclusive, and Update were explored, as well as using SP_Lock to obtain current system lock information. In this article, the normal internal SQL locking methods will be manipulated using Lock Hints in order to obtain finer lock control.
SQL Server Spotlight on Christian Kleinerman
The MARS guy. That's where Steve Jones and Andy Warren first met Christian Kleinerman, group program manager with the SQL Server engine team. Learn a little bit about Christian and his views on SQL Server.
Automatically Running a Process When SQL Server or SQL Agent Starts
Have you ever had a need to run a query or a process as soon as SQL Server starts? Or run some set of tasks when SQL Server Agent Starts? Possibly you want to run a cleanup routine, a copy process or have some task started each time SQL server or SQL Agent is started. Well if this is the case then this article will discuss a couple of options you might consider using to accomplish automatically running your process.
Starting Query Analyzer
Next in his series on Query Analyzer, Yakov Shlafman brings us a few ways that we can save more keystrokes working with SQL Server 2000's most popular tool. Learn how to customize your environmenty on startup so you can get to work.
Database Geek of the Week - Itzik Ben-Gan
Itzik Ben-Gan is a writer and mentor in the development community. He writes a monthly column for SQL Server Magazine and co-authored Advanced Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2000 . He is one of the founders of Solid Quality Learning, a global provider of education and solutions for the Microsoft database platform, and serves as its principal mentor.
Reporting a menu structure using a recursive UDF
Selecting a menu structure from a series of tables is pretty easy. If you bound the number of levels in the menu. However if you have potentially variable numbers of levels. Stephen Lasham brings us a new piece on using recursion to select the data.
Blogs
A New Word: los vidados
By Steve Jones
los vidados – n. the half-remembered acquaintances you knew years ago, who you might...
In-Person CISA Training – April 13-16, 2026
By Brian Kelley
I will be leading an in-person Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) exam prep class...
EightKB 2026
EightKB is back again for 2026! The biggest online SQL Server internals conference is...
Forums
query to track time spent on individual tasks in SSIS
Hi everyone I am looking at building a query to determine how much time...
SQL Server Transactional Replication from Always On Availability Groups to Azure SQL Database
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server Transactional Replication from...
Hidden Heroes
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Hidden Heroes
Question of the Day
Identities and Sequences I
When thinking of the Identity property for auto incrementing columns and sequences for the same action, which are explicitly linked to increment a number in a table when a new row is added?
See possible answers