It’s Monday time for this week’s weekly link round-up.  If you want to catch these links “live” (so exciting), follow me on twitter (@StrateSQL).  And see these throughout the day as I tweet out links of things I find interesting.  While these links aren’t the answer to life, the universe, and everything, they often share a few things about SQL Server and related technology topics that others may find useful.

The links included in this summary are those prefixed with “Reading” and are items I’ve read over the past few days, usually after hours when sharing would be less than useful, and spaced out to avoid spamming.  The content of the links usually pertain to SQL Server, technology, and career topics; which I think others would find useful.

The Most Popular “Reading” Link

Last weeks most popular link was written by T.K. Ranga Rengarajan.  If you aren’t familiar with him, he’s the Corporate Vice President for Data Platform, Cloud & Enterprise.  So pretty much, when talking about the future of SQL Server and Microsoft Azure, he knows what he’s talking about.  The changes coming to Azure SQL Database are pretty awesome, so you should check out the article.

Reading: "Microsoft announces major update to Azure SQL Database, adds free tier to Azure Machine Learning" http://t.co/eF5xVO099V #azure

— Jason Strate (@StrateSQL) November 10, 2014

Last week’s top 15 “Reading” Links

Along with the top link, here are the top fifteen items relating to SQL Server, technology and careers that were shared last week.  If you missed them throughout the week, here’s the opportunity to get caught up on some items that other’s read after I linked them out.

1. Microsoft announces major update to Azure SQL Database, adds free tier to Azure Machine Learning [38 clicks]
2. How I Got Here: 5 Years Later At Pragmatic Works [27 clicks]
3. PASS Keynote–Dr. Rimma Nehme [21 clicks]
4. Another Reason to Avoid sp_updatestats [20 clicks]
5. Dr Rimma Nehme at the PASS Summit [16 clicks]
6. Analyzing I/O Subsystem Performance at PASS 2014 [8 clicks]
7. PASS Summit 2014: WIT Lunch [8 clicks]
8. PASS Summit 2014 Streaming Keynotes [8 clicks]
9. PASS Summit 2014 Day 1 Keynote [8 clicks]
10. Oracle and Teradata connector V3.0 for SQL Server 2014 Integration Service [7 clicks]
11. PASS Summit 2014: Day 1 [7 clicks]
12. PASS Summit 2014: WIT Luncheon [6 clicks]
13. PASS Summit 2014: WIT Luncheon [5 clicks] (yes, so good I shared it twice)
14. Pay It Forward [5 clicks]
15. PASS Summit 2014 Day 2 Keynote [4 clicks]

Other Stuff Shared

Of course, no week would be complete without a few off-topic links.  These have nothing to do with technology or your career, but they are interesting and worth a second look.

1. Pointergate! How a local TV station became a national laughingstock [16 clicks]
2. ‘Chef Arnold,’ 90, Cited Again For Feeding Homeless In Florida [13 clicks]
3. Pro tip: You can’t make sparkling wine with a SodaStream [9 clicks]

Got something you think I should read and share, leave a comment below.  Also, if you want to see all of the links that were tweeted out last week?