Anything Remotely Useful
Phi Factor on how to combine PowerShell Remoting with slick Windows tools such as SQLPSX, Boxstarter and Chocolatey, to automate the development process right through to delivery.
Getting the Most out of Statistics
Statistics keep track of our data and will tell SQL Server how to make the best optimization decisions. Knowing how they work can make understanding query and performance problems much easier!
Quick Guide to Installing SQL Server 2014
In this tip, we will demonstrate the installation of SQL Server 2014 on a notebook. While processing large amounts of data on a system like this might not be feasible, one can still learn how to configure and use the features of SQL Server 2014.
Find Customers Who Bought "A" and "B" But Not "C" (SQL Spackle)
A simple problem that can become complex in T-SQL. How do you find the rows that match 2 conditions, but not a third, in an efficient manner. MVP Jeff Moden gives us a solution.
Motivating the Team
It's easy to get excited if you work at a startup, or a software company. But for corporate workers that toil in IT departments all around the world, how do you keep them motivated? Steve Jones has a few thoughts about simple things that make workers feel better about their jobs.
On Adopting the Mindset of an Enterprise DBA
Although many of the important tasks a DBA has to perform should be done 'by hand', keying in commands or using SSMS, the canny DBA with a heavy workload will always have an eye to automating routine tasks wherever possible, or using a tool.
Wandering Towards The Lonely Cloud?
Are all RDBMS heading towards "The Cloud"? Is this something we DBAs and consultants should be doing for our client?
SQL Server Hardware Configuration Best Practices
You have been asked to deploy a brand new SQL Server instance. Your management asks you to come up with the best balance of availability, performance and cost for SQL Server. Richard Vantrease has some recommendations.
DBA is too large a concept
Tthe term DBA is too broad and we should strive to institute more granular terms.
Blogs
Learning from Mistakes: T-SQL Tuesday #194
By Steve Jones
We’re a week late, once again my fault. I was still coming out of...
Stupid Things I Did With AI: ASCII Art
By Steve Jones
I ran across this article recently (https://www.gatesnotes.com/meet-bill/source-code/reader/microsoft-original-source-code) and it has a great opening piece...
Simple Talks Podcasting in 2026
By Steve Jones
I’m in the UK today, having arrived this morning in London. Hopefully, by this...
Forums
Cumulative Update 23 - KB5074819 - Database Mail - No longer working.
Hi there, Has anyone else had any trouble with Database Mail in Cumulative Update...
Script Task execution error with HTTP request
I have a script task that tries to execute a HTTP request, which seems...
SQL Server 2025 Standard Developer Edition
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server 2025 Standard Developer...
Question of the Day
URL Safe or Not?
If I use BASE4_ENCODE() in SQL Server 2025, is the output URL Safe by default?
See possible answers