Gotta love Mondays.  At least the weather here in Minnesota is clearing up, the last two weeks have been cold and overcast.  To get things started for the week, I’ll start again with a recap of the links I’ve shared and activity on my blog.  Also, for this this week, Michael Fal will be presenting to the PASS Cloud Virtual Chapter an Introduction to Azure SQL Database.  As co-leader for the chapter, and a fan of the cloud, I encourage you to check it out.  And as always, 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 a blog post from Jeremiah Peschka (Blog | @peschkaj).  In this post, Jeremiah talks about DATETIME and why you shouldn’t be using it.  If you do still use DATETIME from time to time (hehe, get it).  Then you need to read this post… and stop using DATETIME.

Last Week’s Popular Posts

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

1. 31 Days of SSIS – The Introduction (659)
2. 31 Days of SSIS – Raw Files Are Awesome (1/31) (333)
3. 31 Days of SSIS as a Book (296)
4. Get Just The Tools: SSMS Download (287)
5. Looking to SQL Server 2014 High Availability In Standard Edition (166)
6. XQuery for the Non-Expert – Value (162)
7. Security Questions: What permissions are required to create temporary tables? (158)
8. Security Questions: Removing Logins From Databases (140)
9. The Side Effect of NOLOCK (117)
10. Security Questions: Difference Between db_datawriter and db_ddladmin? (101)

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. Friends Don’t Let Friends Use DATETIME [29 clicks]
2. Create a Database Master Key–#SQLNewBlogger [24 clicks]
3. If you haven’t got a question then Machine Learning is not the answer [22 clicks]
4. Warning Signs That You Have a SQL Server Backup Problem [21 clicks]
5. Redux: Using an SSIS package to monitor and archive the default trace file [20 clicks]
6. SQL 2016 – It Just Runs Faster Announcement [18 clicks]
7. Mapping the Universe with SQL Server [17 clicks]
8. More on Implicit Conversions [16 clicks]
9. Assigning surrogate key to dimension tables in SQL DW and APS [15 clicks]
10. Not every extended event is suited for all situations [15 clicks]
11. Index Usage DMV behavior updated [14 clicks]
12. General Guidance for SQL Server on Virtualisation [14 clicks]
13. What’s new with SSMS Plan Comparison Tool? [13 clicks]
14. Visual Awesomeness Unlocked – Gantt chart [12 clicks]
15. SQL Server 2016: The Database for Mission-Critical Intelligence [11 clicks]
16. SQL Server Resource Governor Monitoring reports [11 clicks]
17. Fundamentals of Storage Systems – RAID, An Introduction [9 clicks]
18. Redux: Using a C# script task in SSIS to download a file over http [9 clicks]
19. SQL Server Diagnostic Information Queries Detailed, Day 26 [8 clicks]
20. T-SQL Tuesday #75: Round Up [8 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. 5 SQL Server White Papers Every DBA Should Read (2013-04-25)
2. Find Query Plans That May Utilize Parallelism (2009-04-27)
3. Analyze This – Analyze Your Indexes – Part 5 (2009-04-28)
4. Analyze This – Analyze Your Indexes – Part 6 (2009-04-28)
5. Changing A Performance Counter Log Format (2010-05-02)

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. They Don’t Teach You to Start a Fire Like THIS in Boy Scouts! [39 clicks]
2. “The FBI faked an entire field of forensic science. [21 clicks]
3. Evolution of Open World Games [14 clicks]
4. This LEGO STAR WARS Imperial Destroyer Couldn’t Be More Impressive | Nerdist [12 clicks]
5. Epic waves crash above cliffs on Lake Superior’s shore [8 clicks]
6. Is Rice Healthy For Me? Does White vs Brown Rice Matter? [7 clicks]
7. SpaceX Falcon 9 Development Supercut [7 clicks]
8. CERN just dropped 300 TB of Large Hadron Collider data free online [6 clicks]
9. As a kid i built underground dens! [6 clicks]
10. Katniss Shows Us That Sometimes Sacrifice Is Necessary [4 clicks]
11. THE WHEEL OF TIME May Be Getting a TV Series | Nerdist [4 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?