If you are doing local backups you can even kick start the tape backup after the database dump is complete using a cmdexec

If backing up over the network use the Client Agent to improve backup times, use the OPen File Agent to ensure you back up all the files (doesn't always get...

master..xp_servicecontrol 'START', 'SQLSERVERAGENT' --starts

master..xp_servicecontrol 'STOP', 'SQLSERVERAGENT' -- stops

master..xp_servicecontrol 'querystate', 'SQLSERVERAGENT'

Makes sense to me....

You are basically setting the @f to the value of Freight which is basically a sum of the rows.

Are you using an account for the MSSQL Server service that has permissions to log on to the mailbox that you are trying to send the email through? SQL Server Agent will...

select name, command from sysjobsteps where name = 'JOB_DTS_Account'

the command will either give you a package name or a guid string, I would suspect a package name however

The backup itself will not truncate the log it will checkpoint it however so that SQL knows that it can recover from that point forward. The log backups will continue...

Look in enterprise manager at the execution command for the step and see the name it uses or match up the guid with the guid of the dts package.

Always back up your databases daily no matter what else you do. Say for example Monday morning you notice the log ship server had a problem with log shipping over...

How come you're using blat instead of xp_sendmail (or mail equivalent)?

You can just use a data pump to bring the data in from whatever source it's coming from, be it a text file or spreadsheet or whatever else. I would...

run your select and hit CTRL-P once done

You don't mention if it is the SA password or the service account password.

Check for the possibility of a virus, or any running jobs that you may have.

Otherwise a copy of visio lying around would do the task nicely as well....my preferred tool of use for that sort of thing (not used Erwin, too many pennies)