It’s Tuesday time for this week’s one day late 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 that Jonathan Kehayias (Blog | @SQLPoolboy) wrote back in 2013 on implicit conversions.  In this post, we tests the various iterations in which conversions can take place and which ones will affect the effectiveness of indexes in returning results.

Last Week’s Popular Posts

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

1. 31 Days of SSIS – The Introduction (747)
2. Get Just The Tools: SSMS Download (401)
3. 31 Days of SSIS – Raw Files Are Awesome (1/31) (333)
4. 31 Days of SSIS as a Book (330)
5. Looking to SQL Server 2014 High Availability In Standard Edition (211)
6. The Side Effect of NOLOCK (177)
7. Determining Filegroup for a Table (125)
8. Security Questions: Difference Between db_datawriter and db_ddladmin? (122)
9. XQuery for the Non-Expert – Value (113)
10. Security Questions: Removing Logins From Databases (111)

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. Implicit Conversions that cause Index Scans [22 clicks]
2. Monitoring Performance By Using the Query Store [16 clicks]
3. Optimizer Limitations with Filtered Indexes [16 clicks]
4. Load Data with Azure Data Factory [13 clicks]
5. DROP IF EXISTS – new thing in SQL Server 2016 [13 clicks]
6. Why Having Friends At Work Is So Important [12 clicks]
7. Microsoft unveils new Minecraft coding tutorial for students [11 clicks]
8. OPENJSON – one of best ways to select rows by list of ids [10 clicks]
9. Finding Key Lookups inside the Plan Cache [10 clicks]
10. Returning child rows formatted as JSON in SQL Server queries [9 clicks]
11. Best Practice with the Query Store [9 clicks]
12. Episode 190: Elastic Azure SQL Databases with Torsten Grabs [8 clicks]
13. Early Experts Study Guide for Microsoft Specialist Certification Exam 70-534, Architecting Microsoft Azure Solutions [8 clicks]
14. The case for Query Store in tempdb [8 clicks]
15. Speaker of the Month for November 2015 [7 clicks]
16. DirectQuery in Power BI Desktop [6 clicks]
17. Connect to SQL Data Warehouse with Visual Studio [6 clicks]
18. Load data with PolyBase [6 clicks]
19. Call me anything but a GURU [6 clicks]
20. Querying JSON documents in Sql Server 2016 and DocumentDB [6 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. Lost in Translation – Deprecated System Tables – syslogins (2012-11-16)
2. Lost in Translation – Deprecated System Tables – sysmembers (2012-11-16)
3. I Don’t Want To Use the Object Browser (sp_helptext) (2008-11-18)
4. XQuery for the Non-Expert – Terminology (2010-11-18)
5. XQuery for the Non-Expert – XMLNAMESPACE (2010-11-19)
6. Lost in Translation – Deprecated System Tables – sysmessages (2012-11-19)
7. Lost in Translation – Deprecated System Tables – sysoledbusers (2012-11-19)
8. XQuery for the Non-Expert – Nodes (2010-11-20)
9. Lost in Translation – Deprecated System Tables – sysopentapes (2012-11-20)
10. Lost in Translation – Deprecated System Tables – systypes (2012-11-20)
11. XQuery for the Non-Expert – Query (2010-11-21)
12. Lost in Translation – Deprecated System Tables – syspermissions (2012-11-21)
13. Lost in Translation – Deprecated System Tables – sysusers (2012-11-21)
14. XQuery for the Non-Expert – Value (2010-11-22)
15. Lost in Translation – Deprecated System Tables – sysperfinfo (2012-11-22)
16. Lost in Translation – Deprecated System Tables – sysobjects (2012-11-22)
17. XQuery for the Non-Expert – Exist (2010-11-23)

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. Anonymous declares ‘war’ on ISIS [32 clicks]
2. It’s going to be okay. – The Oatmeal [22 clicks]
3. China Just Flew This Gigantic Airship To the Edge Of Space [19 clicks]
4. Apple Is Not Racist: Tim Cook’s Take On The Incident In Australia [18 clicks]
5. It’s Not Just for Gays Anymore – Neil Patrick Harris [13 clicks]
6. Why It Could Get Harder to Watch Your Favorite Shows on Hulu [9 clicks]
7. Star Wars Chewbacca Can Cooler [7 clicks]
8. FireFly Running & Biking Light Spurs [6 clicks]
9. “First Shot” DL4.4oz Blaster Flask [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?