Indexing Strategies
Ramesh writes about various indexing strategies that you might use to improve performance.
Using Bits to Store Data
David recently worked on a project where it turned out storing the answers to a survey using bitmapping was a good approach. He was good enough to write some of it down and share. As he notes bitmapping isn't used as often as it used to be, but it can still be a useful technique to have around.
Using xp_cmdshell
Haidong continues to point out ideas that might get you thinking about ways you can do more administration with less work. In this article he demonstrates a couple useful tasks you can do with xp_cmdshell.
Introduction to MDX
New Author! This is an introductory level look at MDX geared toward intermediate or higher SQL users. The rate of OLAP usage is lower than it should be - maybe this will be what gets you started using it. Or thinking about it at least!
Top 100 things you don't want the sysadmin to say
Hopefully you never hear any of these from your sysadmin...
Building SQL Server Central
Ever wonder how SQL Server Central.com was built? Ever wonder why the three founders made the decisions they did? Here's a look at some of the choices that were made early on with the discussion forums.
TSQL Virus or Bomb?
Joseph discusses some common and not so common security threats including the possibility of a TSQL virus and bombs planted from within the organization.
Yukon News
This article on CNET has some info about how Yukon affects the MS strategy in other areas.
Review of MySQL/PHP Database Applications
We haven't had a book review in a while and this one may not be of interest to all of you, but we decided to take a chance and post it anyway! As Andy notes in the review, odds are that you'll deal with one or both of these applications sooner or later, might be worth thinking about taking a look at what they can do. (Reviewed)
Automatically Gathering Server Information Part 2
The second part of Steve Jones's series on having SQL Server automatically report information to a DBA.
Blogs
Presenting with Visual Studio Code
A while back I wrote a quick post on setting up key mappings in...
Advice I Like: In 100 Years
By Steve Jones
In 100 years a lot of what we take to be true now will...
dataMinds Saturday 2026 – Slides
At Saturday the 21st of February I’m presenting an introduction to dimensional modelling at...
Forums
AllocationType as ROW_OVERFLOW_DATA
Hello, I inherited a number of tables with like 20-30 column using nvarchar(256) in...
is it true we cant debug c# scripts in ssis anymore under vs
Hi, i'm running vs2022. I'm trying out a c# script that i'd like to...
Question of the Day
Missing the Jaro Winkler Distance
I upgraded a SQL Server 2019 instance to SQL Server 2025. I wanted to test the fuzzy string search functions. I run this code:
SELECT JARO_WINKLER_DISTANCE('tim', 'tom')
I get this error message:Msg 195, Level 15, State 10, Line 1 'JARO_WINKLER_DISTANCE' is not a recognized built-in function name.What is wrong? See possible answers