Reed Me : Books Online

Updated Books Online (January 2009)

reedme — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:21:52 GMT

I’m a couple days behind in, well, everything, not just my inbox. What can I say? It finally warmed up enough to get back on the motorcycle...

Updated BOL for January 2009 are out there now!

MSDN

Download Center (MSI)

Get yours while supplies last. Heh.

A cool DP sample that couldn't make it into the out of the box for some reason...

reedme — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:20:44 GMT

Although we've been putting the SQL Server product samples in CodePlex for quite a while, I'm not sure why this one didn't wind up "in the (out of the) box" space. Go figure.

Sending BLOB Data to SQL SERVER Using IROWSETFASTLOAD and ISEQUENTIALSTREAM (Microsoft SQL Server Native Client team blog)

Doesn't make it any less cool, though!!

FILESTREAM, Windows Vista and you.

reedme — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:16:52 GMT

I won't complain about yet-another-configuration-stored-procedure, since I hold out hope that managing FILESTREAM's status at the server level will be rolled into sp_configure or DDL before RTM... but this is me not holding my breath. *sigh*

Anyway, if you want to use FILESTREAM data on your SQL Server 2008 instance (hopefully with the November 2007 CTP (aka CTP5), you should check the readme for some of the little gotchas. Then you've got to turn it on (Books Online for CTP5 makes this pretty obvious if you look):

sp_filestream_configure [ [ @enable_level = ] level ]
[ [ , @share_name = ] 'share_name' ] ;

Seems easy enough... (Hint: you want @enable_level = 3.) Unless you're running Windows Vista and if you don't remember to launch your SQL Server Management Studio 2008 (SSMS) elevated. If you forget (like I do occasionally - until I remember to flip the run-as-administrator bit on the shortcut) then you'll get this error (or one just like it):

(local)(MYDOMAIN\myusername): Msg 5587, Level 14, State 1, Procedure sp_filestream_configure, Line 1
You do not have permissions to configure FILESTREAM feature. You need Windows Administrator and sysadmin rights to configure FILESTREAM feature.

Whoops. I'm an administrator, but UAC forgot to tell SQL Server that (on purpose). Doh. Elevate! Either right-click and Run as administrator or change your shortcut to do the same.

Why am I warning you about this? Because we're planning to ship AdventureWorks2008 with some FILESTREAM data in it and if you want an easy way to demo FILESTREAM, AdventureWorks2008 is it! No promises on exact features to be included in anything, including AdventureWorks2008, so [Insert standard Microsoft pre-RTM disclaimer here]. Caveat downloader.

Simplify your SQL search!

reedme — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 19:43:05 GMT

Want to find SQL Server answers faster? Yeah? The UE team has created a Live Search macro just for you. There are several ways to use it.

The easiest way to use it is to navigate to the macro site and save it to your favorites:

http://search.live.com/macros/sql_server_user_education/booksonline/

The second way is to specify the macro as part of your search terms @ Live.com like so:

I highlighted the search term(s) which can be as simple or complex as you like.

<search_terms> macro:sql_server_user_education.booksonline

I'm not sure exactly how it works under the hood, but it saves me typing to narrow my search just to the authoritative docs!