Usually on my Monday posts, I include a pretty bland cookie cutter header. Nothing to extravagant, just an introduction.  It’s time to make the most of this opportunity to make a mark on the week.

As part of this opportunity, it probably makes sense to start a conversation round personal productivity.  I’ve been looking into this area a lot over the last few months.  Really looking at how to be a better person and employee.

Without digging too deep, an easy way to make the most of the day and the week is to start with the right attitude.  So let’s kick this off pretty simple this week and I hope you have a great week.  Do this by planning to have an awesome Monday and letting the week follow from there.

It's Monday! Don't forget to be Awesome #winning
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If you haven’t already, follow me on twitter (@StrateSQL). This is a good chance to catch up on data platform technology and career related information I’ve shared in the last week and activity on this blog.

Most Popular Article Shared

Last weeks most popular link is an article from Thomas LaRock (Blog | @SQLRockstar) on how SQL Server 2016 runs… faster. Ok, the purpose is in blog post title.  In the post, Thomas summarizes the twenty plus articles from Microsoft detailing performance improvements in SQL Server 2016.  If you haven’t read all of these posts, check out Tom’s post and get reading.

Last Week’s Popular Posts

The most popular posts on this blog in the week are:

1. 31 Days of SSIS – The Introduction (617)
2. 31 Days of SSIS – Raw Files Are Awesome (1/31) (334)
3. 31 Days of SSIS as a Book (268)
4. Get Just The Tools: SSMS Download (215)
5. XQuery for the Non-Expert – Value (149)
6. Looking to SQL Server 2014 High Availability In Standard Edition (139)
7. 31 Days of SSIS – Using Breakpoints (2/31) (135)
8. How To Get A Free SQL Server Indexing Book – Week 1 (130)
9. 31 Days of SSIS – Generating Row Numbers (23/31) (107)
10. Security Questions: What permissions are required to create temporary tables? (97)

Last Week’s Top 20 “Reading” Links

Along with the most popular 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. SQL Server 2016: It Just Runs Faster [27 clicks]
2. Clarifications on KB 3120595 [22 clicks]
3. NO_PLAN and NO_INDEX: Breaking a Forced Query Store Plan [17 clicks]
4. Migrate from on-prem SQL server to Azure VM IaaS [17 clicks]
5. SSMS 2016: It Just Runs More Awesomely [17 clicks]
6. Improved Support for Parallel Statistics Rebuilds [16 clicks]
7. New TPC-H Benchmarks Comparing SQL Server 2016 to SQL Server 2014 [16 clicks]
8. It’s Not About the Nail [16 clicks]
9. SQL 2016 – It Just Runs Faster: AlwaysOn Parallel Compression / Improved Algorithms [15 clicks]
10. PASS Town Hall Announced [15 clicks]
11. Breaking News: Query Store in All Editions of SQL Server 2016 [14 clicks]
12. sp_whoisactive for Azure SQL Database – Attempt #2 [14 clicks]
13. SQL Server 2016—Standard Edition Doesn’t Suck! [14 clicks]
14. T-SQL Tuesday #079: It’s 2016! [14 clicks]
15. Why Table Partitioning Doesn’t Speed Up Query Performance (video) [13 clicks]
16. How to identify contention in TempDb [12 clicks]
17. SQL Server 2016 and the Internet: Forced Updates, Phoning Home [11 clicks]
18. Query Optimizer Additions in SQL Server 2016 [11 clicks]
19. SQL 2016 – It Just Runs Faster: Instant File Initialization [11 clicks]
20. SQL 2016 – It Just Runs Faster: Multiple Log Writer Workers [11 clicks]

Last Week’s Posts From Previous Years

Sometimes the most useful content on a blog wasn’t written in the past week, it’s often other articles shared in the past that resonate with readers. Check out the following links that I published in past years over the past week:

1. Book Review: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2016-06-08)
2. Transfer Logins Between SQL Server 2005 Instances (2008-06-11)
3. T-SQL Tuesday – Evil Plan Operators – #TSQL2sDay (2013-06-11)
4. Security Questions: SQL Agent Permissions (2013-06-12)
5. Security Questions: Migrate Logins Between Servers (2013-06-13)
6. The Side Effect of NOLOCK (video) (2013-06-13)

Other Items 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. Neil DeGrasse Tyson Tells Bill Maher That Anti-Science Liberals Are Full of Shit Too [37 clicks]
2. Mark Zuckerberg’s social-media accounts got hacked, and his password is terrible [30 clicks]
3. Ignore the critics! 10 ‘rotten’ movies you should totally watch anyway [21 clicks]
4. “Yoga Hosers” trailer [15 clicks]
5. Vin Diesel and David Twohy Reveal Plans for New Riddick Movie Furia [12 clicks]
6. Do Calories Even Matter? [12 clicks]
7. This is awesome. [12 clicks]
8. CHARGE!!! epic driving FAIL! [11 clicks]
9. How and Why to Hold a Weekly Marriage Meeting [8 clicks]
10. The Hidden Ways Sleep Deprivation Can Lead to Weight Gain [7 clicks]
11. How Larry Beat Rheumatoid Arthritis, and Got Strong as Hell [6 clicks]
12. Scientists Turn Carbon Dioxide Emissions into Stone [6 clicks]
13. Some Days, You Just Have Nothing [4 clicks]
14. Ghostbusters: Twin Cities – A Charity Fan Film [3 clicks]

Upcoming PASS Cloud Virtual Chapter Meetings

As co-leader of the PASS Cloud Virtual Chapter, and an advocate of cloud technologies, check out these upcoming presentations:

• Best Practices for SQL Server on an Azure VM with John Milner – Jun 15, 7 PM CDT
• Use Cases and Application Development for Cloud Based Azure Machine Learning with Ginger Grant – Jun 23, 7 PM CDT
• Powering your application reports with Azure Power BI Embedded with Thurupathan Vijayakumar – Jun 28, 7 PM CDT
• Successfully Migrating Existing Databases to Azure SQL Database with John Sterrett – Jul 7, 7 PM CDT
• Azure SQL Database for the Production DBA with Tim Radney – Jul 13, 7 PM CDT
• Azure Active Directory – Hybrid Architecture Identity Management and Much More with Jared Zagelbaum – July 28, 7 PM CST

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?