It’s Monday morning (er afternoon) and it’s time for this week’s 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 a post on the Born To Learn blog by Veronica Sopher on Azure certification.  If you are looking to grow your career in the cloud, which I highly recommend, you should check this out for your next steps in certification.

Last Week’s Popular Posts

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

1. 31 Days of SSIS – The Introduction (673)
2. 31 Days of SSIS as a Book (317)
3. 31 Days of SSIS – Raw Files Are Awesome (1/31) (299)
4. Get Just The Tools: SSMS Download (254)
5. Looking to SQL Server 2014 High Availability In Standard Edition (145)
6. XQuery for the Non-Expert – Value (141)
7. Security Questions: Removing Logins From Databases (140)
8. 31 Days of SSIS – Generating Row Numbers (23/31) (131)
9. 31 Days of SSIS – Using Breakpoints (2/31) (107)
10. 31 Days of SSIS – Controlling Your Flow In The Control Flow (21/31) (90)

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. The three exams that can make you a certified Azure specialist [187 clicks]
2. Amazing new SQL Prompt message on UPDATE or DELETE statement without a WHERE clause [33 clicks]
3. SQL Server 2016: The Death of the Trace Flag [27 clicks]
4. Changes to auto update stats thresholds in SQL Server 2016 [24 clicks]
5. SQL Server 2016 Installation Screenshot Tour [22 clicks]
6. VMware CPU Co-Stop and SQL Server Performance [19 clicks]
7. Secret Meeting Minutes for the SQL Server on Linux Decision* [17 clicks]
8. Understanding SQL server memory grant [17 clicks]
9. Bad cardinality estimates from SSMS plans – redux [17 clicks]
10. Scientists Accidentally Create a Battery That Can Outlast Your Device [16 clicks]
11. SQL Code Basics: Reusable Event Logging Utility [16 clicks]
12. Converting SQL Backup Files to MTF [16 clicks]
13. Your Inbox is Killing You [16 clicks]
14. Microsoft SQL Server is Coming to Linux. [15 clicks]
15. Speaker of the Month: February 2016 [15 clicks]
16. SQL Server on Linux?!?!?! [14 clicks]
17. PowerShell–Don’t Use Write-Host [13 clicks]
18. RC of SQL Server Hosting Toolkit released! [13 clicks]
19. Mystery of memory fraction in Showplan XML [13 clicks]
20. Visual Awesomeness Unlocked – Waffle Chart [12 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. Changing A Performance Counter Log Format (2010-05-02)
2. Searching for Plans (2010-05-03)
3. Snapshots of Index Contention (2009-05-04)
4. Can You Dig It? – Determining Index Plan Usage (2012-05-04)
5. Querying for Parallelism (2009-05-05)
6. Book Review: The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right (2015-05-05)
7. Room with a View (2006-05-06)
8. Finding Objects In Schema (2009-05-06)
9. I Didn’t Receive My Subscription (2009-05-07)
10. Learning More About Parallelism (2009-05-08)
11. “Thou Shall Not Shrink the Database” #TSQL2sDay (2012-05-08)
12. This blog entry brought to you by the procedure “sp_MSForEachDB” (2006-05-09)

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. “Docker’s star engineers … death and rape threats” [46 clicks]
2. Thousands In One City Block: What It Was Like To Live In The Densest City On Earth [21 clicks]
3. Magician and comedian Penn Jillette explains why he’s a libertarian [18 clicks]
4. Galactic Empire [11 clicks]
5. Shinto Monks Have Been Recording Climate Data for 600 Years [10 clicks]
6. The Deadliest Weapons in Any Sci-Fi Universe, Ranked [10 clicks]
7. FDA bans sale of e-cigarettes and cigars to people under 18 [10 clicks]
8. Disappointing Prince Vaults Found To Contain 37,000 Hours Of Billy Joel Covers [8 clicks]
9. 10 reasons the ‘Star Wars’ prequels don’t completely suck [6 clicks]
10. It’s Time to Really Start Worrying About a Robot Takeover [6 clicks]
11. New ‘Torchwood’ trailer: Jack and Ianto reunite in ‘Broken’ [6 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?