What You Don't Know
A very short article that discusses how nulls can ruin your day if you don't understand how they behave when you concatenate.
Review of ApexSQL Report v4.3
We had Mike take a look at this product recently and he found a lot to like. He also had some suggestions about ways the product could be improved - interesting since you get free upgrades for life with this product. This is a very good walk through of the product.
Yukon Delayed Again and Named
Microsoft confirmed today that it has delayed Yukon yet again. It also announced that Yukon has an official name and will have another beta added to the development cycle. Get all the info here and share with Microsoft your thoughts about what features are important to you.
Worst Practice - Not Qualifying Objects With The Owner
Regular columnist Chris Hedgate follow up on Andy's recent article about Worst Practices with one of his own. This is worth passing on to your development team.
Reporting Services!
Mike takes a good first look at Reporting Services. We're trying to add some coverage of this interesting new product. This gives a good overview from a real user perspective.
Generate Next Numbers with SQL Server
Dinesh ran into a situation where a client had very specific requirements for generating keys. Take a look at the solution, can you better alternatives? Sometimes you just can't talk the client into changing!
How to Make Sure You Have Good Passwords
As Robin points out there is no built in way to make sure users have strong passwords when using SQL authentication. There are a couple changes you can make (with appropriate warnings!) that will allow you to do this. Read on to find out why and how.
Monitoring Failed Job Steps
New Author! We've run a couple articles on similar topics, this one takes a slightly different approach. It's a short article and has two scripts included.
Microsoft Action Pack Subscription
One of the biggest hurdles people new to the IT field face is getting access to all the software they need so they can learn. This new program from Microsoft offers a TON of software for under $400. Caveats apply (don't they always?) but it's worth the 5 minutes to read what it takes.
Blogs
TRY_PARSE Limitations: #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
I got a notification from a question I’d posted at SQL Server Central: Getting...
SQL Server sa Account Security: Rename, Disable & Best Practices
By SQLPals
SQL Server sa Account Security: Rename, Disable & Best Practices In...
Stanford Emerging Technology Review 2026 Report is out
By Brian Kelley
Artificial Intelligence and quantum computing are two areas of emerging technology that receive most...
Forums
Are You Working More Hours?
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Are You Working More Hours?
Stairway to Reliable Database Deployments Level 6 – Managing Changesets Over Time
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Stairway to Reliable Database Deployments...
A Limited Startup
Comments posted to this topic are about the item A Limited Startup
Question of the Day
A Limited Startup
I add this parameter to SQL Server 2025 in the Configuration Manager:
-mDynamicsWhat does this do? See possible answers