In SQL Server Management Studio 2008, whenever you have a "block" of code (BEGIN....END, etc) SSMS will put a little plus-sign in the margin and allow you to "collapse" that block of code so you only see the BEGIN, not stuff underneath...

You should always add descriptive comments to any code that will live longer than a single event. It's useful not only for the other unfortunate souls blessed with your code, but for yourself, years later, when you say "what was I thinking here?"...

SQL Server is one of the easiest databases to maintain because of all of the automatic settings it has, but as I mentioned with Auto-Close, some of them should be left off. The Auto-Shrink setting is another. That might surprise a few people. You might...

A "Catch-22" is a term coined from a book about World War Two, and it involves what DBA's would call a "Deadlock" - one thing depends on another, and both must be complete before either will let go. In the case of a job as a DBA, it...

Some time back, the Books Online team at Microsoft made a very cool macro on Live.com that would search within the on-the-web version of Books Online – a very handy feature indeed, since the search for the installed version of Books Online is, well...

Although this one might seem obvious, I've come into quite a few shops lately that don't have the latest service packs. No software goes out the door flawless - regardless of what a vendor tells you!  Microsoft comes out with three or four kinds...

This is a script that I found/put together/re-arranged that will script out all of the tables from a database - in this case, Adventureworks2008. You need to change the BWOODY1 part to the name of your server, and the SQL2K8 part to your Instance name...

I admire people who have overcome difficulties to achieve. I find so few people today that can stand any adversity - people whine and complain at the slightest inconvenience. In the past character seemed to matter more, and Helen Keller was one such person...

I try not to post things that others have already discussed, but I make a few exceptions. I'll (re)tell you about security issues and service packs, and I'll also mention when Books Online is updated. I run into so many issues that are already covered...

One of the first exposures I had to an ODBC driver was NOT a good one - the particular behavior for ANSI NULLS ended up causing some issues in a database application that I had inherited, so I tend to keep my eye on these things. Mind you, it was back...

We made a tremendous amount of improvements in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) for SQL Server 2008. Some of them you can see, such as being able to add different columns in Object Explorer Details, and others you can't, such as the speed improvements...

Isn't it a shame that we see this play out every day in politics: "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." Abraham Lincoln

I am in Atlanta, Georgia today, which is normally around a 7-hour flight from Seattle. I won't go into all the details, but after almost every issue you can face on an airplane, it took my 21 hours to get here. Needless to say, I'm a little sleepy as...

Life is not always fair - sometimes things don't go the "right" way, even when it's supposed to. I love this quote about expectations of fairness: "Expecting the world to treat your fairly because you are good is like expecting a bull not...

If you've worked in the IT industry for any length of time, you've probably had someone that is unhappy with your (or your team or company's) services or products. Begin at Microsoft, my audience is pretty wide, so I hear back from a lot of folks that...

I'm writing this post on a bus headed towards the Seattle Convention Center, where the technical folks in the field meet once a year to hear from the product teams about all the new features coming in the future. I used to present at this conference ...

There are two new updates that I need to pass along. Hopefully, you have another source for learning about updates, but it never hurts to point out new updates. The first is a Cumulative Update for SQL server 2008 if you have SP1 installed: http://blogs...

Are you getting everything out of your SQL Server tools that you can? I’ve given you lots of tricks and tips here on my blog, but nothing beats an on-screen demonstration. My good friend and former teammate Bill Ramos did a session on SQL Server...

Everyone needs a motivator - some folks wait until the evening of the test to study, just to provide a little extra urgency: "To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time." -Leonard Bernstein

I once heard that "sort of" is the worst thing you could possibly hear: "you're going to live....sort of". Anyway, many of us struggle with licensing, so I wanted to point you to a resource that has really helped me out - it's a new...

I presented at the Pacific Northwest SQL Server User Group here in the Seattle area last night, and I was asked at the break about reading a web page in PowerShell, and being able to do something with the data it has. There are actually a few ways to...

I don't watch a lot of TV - I catch some of the financial news in the morning, a cooking show at night, and occasionally I'll watch something on the History Channel. But it does have its uses. A wise man once pointed out how it can make you smarter: "I...

Many shops are considering consolidating their SQL Server Instances onto fewer boxes, as I've blogged about before. There are lots of ways to think about consolidation, from placing more databases on one Instance (Database Stacking), putting multiple...