SQL Server 2005 Beta 2 Is Out!!!
The highly anticipated Beta 2 of SQL Server 2005 aka Yukon, was released today (Monday, July 26).
Review: SQLCentric
Monitoring your SQL Servers is something every DBA must do. Checking job status, disk space, etc. is a frequent question seen in our forums. Pearl Knowledge Solutions has developed a product to help you easily setup monitoring on your servers from a web interface. SQLCentric gets 4 stars from author Bruce Szabo; read his detailed review on this fine product.
The Bowling Challenge
Know anything about bowling? Or writing hard core TSQL? Or test driven development? Even if you don't, this might be a good way to build those skills. Write a stored procedure that can score a bowling game and you might win one of our books and a shirt!
Comparison of Oracle Drivers
Oracle is usually a dirty word in the SQL Server community, but like it or not, lots of data resides in Oracle databases. And SQL Server is often used to gather this data together in a warehouse of some sort for spinning cubes, generating reports, etc. Haidong Ji looks at the various methods that you can connect to an Oracle driver and compares the speed of each. If you need to get data from Oracle, or may need to, this is the place you want to start.
Tutorial: Changing the Visibility Objects in Reporting Services
In the last tutorial in this series of Reporting Services tutorials we added conditional formatting to the report. Now that we have created our first report and have added a bit of flare to it, we will go ahead and make it even cleaner. In this very quick demonstration, we will go ahead and change the visibility of rows or columns based on given conditions.
New Beta Search
We've been working on it over the years, trying to get some search engine that works. Well, we're trying a new one from Surfinity. Give it a try and let us know how it works. Read on for a few details about what we're using.
The Best of SQLServerCentral.com - Vol. 2
Once again it's taken longer than expected, but it's out! The second version in print and PDF of the best articles from 2003. Read about it and pick up a copy to support the site.
Freeware: Tablesizer
How many times do you need to estimate space for a new application? Or estimate growth for an existing one? We've had a new contribution to the freeware section of the site. Tablesizer will allow you to guesstimate how much disk space you'll need. Take a peek if you need it, rate the product and give the author any feedback you have.
Books on line update
Books on line has been updated since the release of SQL2000.
If you check the documentation for the sp_addlogin stored procedure and example E says
SELECT CONVERT(VARBINARY(32), password) then you should update your installation.
Seven Showplan Red Flags
SQL Server showplan is a great tool for analyzing queries and determining whether or not more performance tuning needs to be done. However working with showplan can be confusing and it takes some practice to learn the ins and outs of what is occurring. Joseph Sack looks at showplan and seven of the main things that he is aware of when looking at the results. If you've rarely or never used showplan, this is a great article to get started in learning how an experienced DBA views the output.
Blogs
Using Prompt AI for a Travel Data Analysis
By Steve Jones
I was looking back at my year and decided to see if SQL Prompt...
FinOps for Kubernetes: Leveraging OpenCost, KubeGreen, and Kubecost for Cost Efficiency
In the era of cloud-native applications, Kubernetes has become the default standard platform for...
2025 Wrapped for Steve
By Steve Jones
I’ve often done some analysis of my year in different ways. Last year I...
Forums
reaching ftp thru winscp but erroring in ssis ftp task connection
Hi, below i show various results trying to reach our ftp site (a globalscape...
Finding Motivation
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Finding Motivation
The Last Binary Value of the Year
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Last Binary Value of...
Question of the Day
The Last Binary Value of the Year
What does this code return?
SELECT cast(0x2025 AS NVARCHAR(20))Image 1:
Image 2: 
Image 3: 
Image 4: 
See possible answers