It’s Monday time for this week’s weekly blog and twitter round-up for last week. 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 Gartner on the three big data trends for business intelligence.  It’s a good piece.  My takeaway from it is that the trends they see for 2017 and 2020 are laying their seeds today.  The idea that big data will be used to replace business processes is something companies are already looking to do.  If you haven’t yet, read the article, it’s going to affect your role at some point and maybe sooner than you think.

Last Week’s Popular Posts

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

1. Get Just The Tools: SSMS Download (664)
2. 31 Days of SSIS – The Introduction (663)
3. 31 Days of SSIS as a Book (336)
4. 31 Days of SSIS – Raw Files Are Awesome (1/31) (335)
5. Looking to SQL Server 2014 High Availability In Standard Edition (168)
6. Security Questions: Difference Between db_datawriter and db_ddladmin? (159)
7. The Side Effect of NOLOCK (148)
8. Security Questions: Grant Permissions to All Stored Procedures (137)
9. 10 Monthly Maintenance Tasks for SQL Server (123)
10. XQuery for the Non-Expert – Value (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. Gartner Predicts Three Big Data Trends for Business Intelligence [14 clicks]
2. Azure: Machine Learning Service, Hadoop Storm, Cluster Scaling, Linux Support, Site Recovery and More [11 clicks]
3. Azure Data Lake: Why you might want one [10 clicks]
4. How to Use a GoPro as a Web Camera in Skype [8 clicks]
5. SSAS Multidimensional vs Tabular – Part 2 [8 clicks]
6. SQL Server Diagnostic Information Queries for April 2015 [7 clicks]
7. Tuning slow spatial queries in SQL Server [7 clicks]
8. sp_whoisactive and Azure SQL Database [7 clicks]
9. Performance and Stability Related Fixes in Post-SQL Server 2014 RTM Builds [7 clicks]
10. SSAS Tabular vs. SSAS Multidimensional – Which One Do I Choose? – Part I [6 clicks]
11. SQL Server Agent Alerts [6 clicks]
12. The Appeal Of Lightning Talks [6 clicks]
13. Your Master Data is a Graph: Are You Ready? Whitepaper, Webinar [6 clicks]
14. May Free Training Schedule [5 clicks]
15. Constraints and SELECT Statements [4 clicks]
16. Quick start guide to R for Azure Machine Learning [4 clicks]
17. SHOWPLAN permission denied even if the database isn’t actually used [4 clicks]
18. Build 2015: SQL Data Warehouse [3 clicks]
19. Finding Scalar Aggregate Indexed Views in Your Database [3 clicks]
20. Take Your Time With Azure Site to Site VPN Configurations [2 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. Snapshots of Index Contention (2009-05-04)
2. Can You Dig It? – Determining Index Plan Usage (2012-05-04)
3. Understanding Query Filters and Clauses (2006-05-05)
4. Querying for Parallelism (2009-05-05)
5. Book Review: The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right (2015-05-05)
6. Room with a View (2006-05-06)
7. Finding Objects In Schema (2009-05-06)
8. I Didn’t Receive My Subscription (2009-05-07)
9. Learning More About Parallelism (2009-05-08)
10. “Thou Shall Not Shrink the Database” #TSQL2sDay (2012-05-08)
11. This blog entry brought to you by the procedure “sp_MSForEachDB” (2006-05-09)
12. Disabling Export Options in Reporting Services (2006-05-10)

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. This is how Swiss watchmakers are fighting back against Apple Watch [37 clicks]
2. Watch a Star Trek actor perfectly troll Star Wars fans on May the 4th [29 clicks]
3. All the things Wired got hilariously wrong in its legendary 1997 story on how to ‘save’ Apple [28 clicks]
4. Joss Whedon discusses ‘unpleasantness’ with Marvel, his thwarted hopes for Spider-Man in Age of Ultron [28 clicks]
5. Apple and Microsoft’s visions for the future are delightfully different [17 clicks]
6. Police officers stage fake arrest to help mother with misbehaving son [17 clicks]
7. Quicksilver vs. Quicksilver: How Avengers and X-Men introduced the same character differently [15 clicks]
8. Tesla’s Powerwall shows the coming revolution in energy storage [14 clicks]
9. Finland dropped 6 depth charges on a suspected Russian submarine but says it doesn’t want to ‘create a farce’ [13 clicks]
10. The 4th Was With This Exploding LEGO Super Star Destroyer | Nerdist [13 clicks]
11. Second Star Wars Standalone Film Rumored To Be A Boba Fett Origin Story [8 clicks]
12. Destiny’s Crucible Rewards Will Be Improved Before House Of Wolves’ Launch [4 clicks]
13. Destiny weekly reset for May 5: Heroic and Nightfall strikes detailed [3 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?