Poor Name Choice
Steve has a few thoughts on the names we choose for tables, columns, files, and more.
T-SQL in SQL Server 2025: Substring Changes
This article takes a look at the changes in SQL Server 2025 to the SUBSTRING function.
SQL Server CROSS APPLY and OUTER APPLY Helpful Examples
Microsoft introduced the APPLY operator in SQL Server 2005. Similar to a JOIN, it allows correlation between two table expressions. The key difference between the JOIN and APPLY operators is when you have a table-valued expression on the right side and want to evaluate it for each row from the left table expression. Since they produce similar results, when do you choose an APPLY versus a JOIN?
Create and Read the Analysis Services Flight Recorder
This article explains how to customize an extended events session in SQL Server Analysis Services for auditing and monitoring
Data > Hype
Most of us believe in the importance of data. Steve has a few thoughts on using data to determine if AI is helpful.
Power BI TMDL View: Benefits, Security Risks & Best Practices
The Tabular Model Definition Language (TMDL) provides a simpler way of defining Power BI Semantic Models. Unlike the JSON-based Tabular Model Scripting Language (TMSL), TMDL uses a more accessible tab-based format for specifying DAX measures, relationships, and Power Query code.
Create an HTML Report on the Status of SQL Server Agent Jobs
Learn how to query your jobs to produce a report that is formatted to make consuming the data easy for DBAs.
Practice Until You Don't Get It Wrong
We will all make mistakes, but practice can help reduce the errors we cause.
Which Should You Use: VARCHAR or NVARCHAR?
You’re building a new table or adding a column, and you wanna know which datatype to use: VARCHAR or NVARCHAR?
Regular Expressions in SQL Server 2025
This article examines the new regular expression functions added to T-SQL in SQL Server 2025.
Blogs
Monday Monitor Tips: AI Query Analysis
By Steve Jones
AI is everywhere. It’s in the news, it’s being added to every product, management...
AI: Blog a Day – Day 8: RAG – Retrieval Augmented Generation
By Vinay Thakur
RAG — Retrieval Augmented Generation. we have covered so far — embeddings, vectors, vector...
AI: Blog a Day – Day 7: Vector and Vector Databases
By Vinay Thakur
Continuing from Day 6 we learned Embeddings, Semantic Search and Checks, on Day 7...
Forums
I'm thinking about submitting some articles
I've written some documentation on using different Markdown types of files on GitHub. It's...
Not Just an Upgrade
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Not Just an Upgrade
Restoring On Top I
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Restoring On Top I
Question of the Day
Restoring On Top I
I am doing development work on a database and want to keep a backup so I can reset my database. I make some changes and want to restore over top of my changes. When I run this code, what happens?
USE Master BACKUP DATABASE DNRTest TO DISK = 'dnrtest.bak' GO USE DNRTest GO CREATE TABLE MyTest(myid INT) GO USE master RESTORE DATABASE DNRTest FROM DISK = 'dnrtest.bak' WITH REPLACESee possible answers