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

This weeks most popular link last week is a post by Erin Stellato (Blog | @erinstellato) on statistics.  In her post, she demonstrates a method that she’s uncovered for viewing automatic statistic updates.  It’s a great read and there’s no wonder it was the most popular post from last week. 

Reading: "Another Way to View Automatic Updates to Statistics" http://t.co/GIve7EEWq1 #sqlserver

— Jason Strate (@StrateSQL) July 17, 2014

Last week’s top 20 “Reading” Links

Along with the top link, here are the top twenty 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. Another Way to View Automatic Updates to Statistics [29 clicks]
2. Speaker of the Month, July 2014 [18 clicks]
3. Why SQL Server runs best on Microsoft Azure [14 clicks]
4. SSIS Lookup transformation in T-SQL [13 clicks]
5. Don’t Get Slimed By Bad Parameter Sniffing [12 clicks]
6. End of Mainstream support for SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 [11 clicks]
7. Blog Post: How I Earned Credits toward My College Degree with Microsoft Certifications [11 clicks]
8. Driving Ground Breaking BI with APS [10 clicks]
9. SQL Server Data Tools July Update [9 clicks]
10. These resources may help resolve your issue. [6 clicks]
11. Real world use cases of the Microsoft Analytics Platform System [6 clicks]
12. SQLBeat Podcast Episode 12 ‘The Case of the Disappearing SQL’ Rob Volk Talks Unicode Fun [6 clicks]
13. How To Display 0′s Instead of NULL in your SSAS Cube & MDX Query Results [6 clicks]
14. #sqlpass Summit 1st Timers Webcast 2014 Edition [5 clicks]
15. Microsoft named a Leader in Agile Business Intelligence by Forrester [5 clicks]
16. Comparing Estimated and Actual Execution Plans in SQL Server [5 clicks]
17. New: ASP.NET Session State Provider for SQL Server In-Memory OLTP [5 clicks]
18. Performance Tuning SQL Server Transactional Replication: A Checklist [5 clicks]
19. Importing data from text file to specific columns using BULK INSERT [5 clicks]
20. Some Ideas for Meeting Sponsors [5 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. The complete guide to working out before work [30 clicks]
2. Watch this 100-pound gymnast completely demolish ‘American Ninja Warrior’ [22 clicks]
3. Weird Al Yankovic gets ‘˜Tacky’ with Pharrell’s ‘Happy’ [14 clicks]
4. Doctor Who series 8: Rough cut of first episode ‘Deep Breath’ leaked online [12 clicks]
5. Google’s Ingress augmented reality game quietly launches for iOS devices [6 clicks]
6. Ingress on the App Store on iTunes [5 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?