Brent Ozar's Six Scary SQL Surprises
In lesson 3 of the Top 5 Hard-earned Lessons of a DBA series, Brent Ozar exposes six common but scary surprises that can lurk behind the façade of SSMS. Read it now, and learn hard lessons the easy way.
Using the SQL Server MERGE Statement to Process Type 2 Slowly Changing Dimensions
The MERGE statement is powerful and multifunctional, yet it can be hard to master. SOmetimes the MERGE statement that just doesn't do what it's needed to do, like process a Type 2 slowly-changing dimension. Check out this tip to learn more.
Data Insecurity: A Perspective on Data Encryption
The focus of this paper is on the protection of PII data stored within a database using encryption technologies.
Productivity and Accountability
The recent decision by Yahoo to end telecommuting elicits some comments from Steve Jones on the topic of remote work.
Securing SQL Server: Vulnerabilities You Might Not Have Considered
A short look at the vulnerabilities your data may be susceptible to outside of the database tables.
A SQL-Based Universal Currency Formatter
SQL Server isn't usually the best place to format dates or currency as strings. It can be a complex task to conform correctly with national and cultural conventions. Just occasionally, though, you need to do it. This is easy in SQL Server 2012, but if you aren't using that, what do you do?
Two Plugs Away
The culture and practices at Valve are interesting to Steve Jones, but the desks really caught his eye.
SQL Saturday #194 - Exeter
A day of SQL Server training in the UK on Mar 9, 2013. Sign up if you can come.
Using Temp Tables in SSIS
emporary tables are created in the Temporary tables are created in the TempDB database, which persists for a particular session. The objective is to maintain that session, until the temp table information is used and dump the data into a physical table.
Blogs
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...
SSMS 22 still inserting tabs instead of spaces
I’m not trying to start up a debate whether you should use tabs or...
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