Introduction to English Query and Speech Recognition
The first part of this series provides a road map for a very cool application using an under-utilized companion of the SQL Server 2000 database platform.
Analyzing and Optimizing T-SQL Query Performance Part 1
In this series by Quest Software's Kevin Kline, he shows you some tips to performance tuning T-SQL. This was contributed by Quest from their recent webcast. This white paper discusses various T-SQL discovery, optimization and tuning techniques using the SET and DBCC commands.
Who Owns That Database?
How many databases do you manage that have a NULL owner? Hopefully none, but if you have one, want to know how to fix it, or just need a few minutes break from work, dig in and read how I solved this annoying issue.
SQL Server Upgrade Recommendations and Best Practices - Part 1
This article is the first of a multi-part series detailing the SQL Server Upgrade process from the technical, logistical and business perspective.
Ways to Determine the Version and SP of SQL Server
There may be more ways than you realize to determine the version and service pack of SQL Server. This quick article by Dinesh Priyankara will show you 3 of those methods.
Freeware : DDL Source Safe Archive Utility
If your shop is even close to the typical Micosoft SQL Server environment there are several people that can (and do!) make changes to the production environment, a change management system is in place, that change management system uses Source Safe to store database scripts, and what's in Source Safe does not match what's on the SQL Server. This utility by Bill Wunder will archive your SQL scripts and DDL into Source Safe easily and efficiently. All for the price of $0 (yes, free!).
Pro Developer : This is Business
In his travels, Christopher Duncan has come to recognize a great many similarities between programmers and musicians. Both have the fire, passion and soul of the artist. And all too often, both are aweful when it comes to the business end of things. Business - you know, that aspect of your work where they actually pay you at the end of the day?
Auditing Your SQL Server - Part 1
A new series that examines how you audit activity in SQL Server. The first part looks at simple data auditing in a table.
Saving Space To Increase Performance
Disk space is getting cheaper everyday. Why should you worry about the amount of space your data is consuming? This article by Neil Boyle presents some great reasons why you should be concerned.
A Lookup Strategy Defined
Most databases designs nowadays seem to have at least a few if not many lookup or reference tables. This article helps you define a strategy in how to design, approve, and deploy them.
Blogs
Delta Lake over Spark Connect
By Ed Elliott
All Spark Connect Posts I have just finished an update for the spark connect dotnet...
Generating Random Strings with GenAI
By Steve Jones
One of the things I’ve been experimenting with in AI is taking things other...
Heading to SQL Bits 2025
By Steve Jones
I’ll be at SQL Bits tomorrow, Saturday Jun 20, 2025 for the final day...
Forums
Merge techniques
In Azure SQL DB, i want to merge records from the staging table to...
SSRS error: The Value for the image 'Image1' has a constant value...
Full error message: SSRS error: The Value for the image 'Image1' has a constant...
XML_COMPRESSION for existing tables
We are in the process of upgrading to SQL Server 2022 and would like...
Question of the Day
Adding Defaults
I have a table, called dbo.logger, in SQL Server 2022. I decide to add two new columns to this table with this code.
ALTER TABLE dbo.logger ADD CreateDate DATETIME CONSTRAINT dfGetDate DEFAULT GETDATE() GO ALTER TABLE dbo.logger ADD ModifyDate DATETIME DEFAULT dfGetDate GOWhat happens when I run these two batches? See possible answers