Links Of The Week 20080414

Here are the links for this week

Database

SQL Server 2005 Memory Limits and Related Questions
Microsoft to Increase Use of SQL Server 2005 Best Practices Analyzer (SQLPBA) - So Should You
SqlClient, System.Transactions, SQL Server 2008, and MARS
Visual Linq query builder for Linq to Sql
Converting an EAV design to sparse columns and populating
How It Works: SQL Server Page Allocations
How It Works: File Streams Requires Integrated Security (Windows Authentication)
Troubleshooting xp_cmdshell failures
How It Works: SQL Server Checkpoint (FlushCache) Outstanding I/O Target

Non DB tech

CSS Message Box collection
WCF: Reliable Messaging and Retry Timeouts
Google Starts to Index the Invisible Web
Download YouTube Videos as MP4 Files
New WCF Adapter Code Samples on MSDN!
IUpdatable & ADO.NET Data Services Framework
.NET Rocks! #332 - Ted Neward on the New Language Renaissance

Non tech

Why 24 hours in a Day?
The Publishing Industry Takes Another Hit
What job ads really mean
It's A Dog, Not A Towel (Pics.)
I've got your Highlander right here! [Pic]

Links Of The Week 20080405

Here are the links for this week

Database
Send Table or View as embedded HTML in an email – stored procedure
How It Works: SQL Server 2005 DBCC Shrink* May Take Longer Than SQL Server 2000
How It Works: Non-Yielding Resource Monitor
Overhead of Row Versioning
TempDB:: Table variable vs local temporary table
sp_helpindex2 to show included columns (2005+) and filtered indexes (2008) which are not shown by sp_helpindex
Yet Another Stored Procedure vs. Ad-hoc Query Discussion?
Geek City: How SQL Server Detects the Correct Versioned Rows
SQLIOSim is "NOT" an I/O Performance Tuning Tool
Forensic Analysis of a SQL Server 2005 Database Server

Non DB tech
Microsoft Live Search Gains Market Share
Unit Testing with Silverlight
Using Spring.NET and NHibernate with ASP.NET MVC
Enterprise Library 4.0 Community Technology Preview
Hanselminutes Podcast 107 - Digital Photography Explained (for Geeks) with Aaron Hockley
How do Extension Methods work and why was a new CLR not required?
Core War: Two Programs Enter, One Program Leaves
How to set an IIS Application or AppPool to use ASP.NET 3.5 rather than 2.0
Let That Be a Lesson To You, Son: Never Upgrade.
Silverlight 2 DIGG Sample Part I
Silverlight 2 DIGG Sample Part II
Silverlight 2 DIGG Sample Part III
Google Developer Podcast: Picasa Web and Google Gears for Mobile
Ted Neward: On Java and .NET, Software Academics versus Practioners, General Purpose Programming Languages
Whirlwind 7: What's New in C# 3 - Lambda Expressions
Google To Launch BigTable As Web Service To Compete With Amazon's SimpleDB

Non tech
SMCB: Charles Manson Pulls a Radiohead
Possibly the best name ever.
Thank God for Torrents (Pic)

Links Of The Week 20080330

Who needs SQL links when you have this gem?

Check out (grand)ma in the background, she doesn't miss a beat.

Links Of The Week 20080322

Here are the links for this week

Database
Programming Policy-Based Management with SMO - Part 1 - Intro
Programming Policy-Based Management with SMO - Part 2 - Conditions
Programming Policy-Based Management with SMO - Part 3 - ExpressionNode and Policy
Programming Policy-Based Management with SMO - Part 4 - Introducing ObjectSets
Programming Policy-Based Management with SMO - Part 5 - TargetSets and TargetSetLevels
Programming Policy-Based Management with SMO - Part 6 - Categories, Subscriptions, Wrapup
How It Works: SQL Server 2005 I/O Affinity and NUMA Don't Always Mix
Database Programming: The String Concatenation XML Trick, Sans Entitization
Database Programming: The String Concatenation XML Trick, Finalized
SQL Server 2008: Interesting Full-Text Dynamic Management Function
Minimal Logging changes in SQL Server 2008 (part-1)
More about sparse columns and column_sets
Which to use: "<>" or "!="?
Hanselminutes #105 - Rocky Lhotka on Data Access Mania, LINQ and CSLA.NET
geekSpeak Recording: Extending SQL Server Integration Services with Reza Madani

Non DB tech
Unit Testing for Silverlight...
IronPython and the DLR march on
The Weekly Source Code 21 - ASP.NET MVC Preview 2 Source Code
Hanselminutes Podcast 104 - Dave Laribee on ALT.NET
The First Rule of Programming: It's Always Your Fault
The Weekly Source Code 20 - A Web Framework for Every Language
It’s common sense, stupid: How Not to Evangelize Unit Testing
Getting LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entities to use NOLOCK
Google's Design Guidelines
Microsoft give an awesome response to the guy whose XBox was cleaned
Joe Duffy and Igor Ostrovsky: Parallel LINQ under the hood
FLOSS Weekly 27: Ward Cunningham

Non tech
TheGoogle.com - a Google offering for older adults
Open Letter to Comcast: STAY OUT OF MY COMPUTER!
The Laptop Cat [Pic]
Questions on Bear Stearns buyout - shareholders want answers on how the deal was arranged, and gained government approval and financing, all in a few hours, and seemingly without alternative bidders.

Links Of The Week 20080317

Here are the links for this week

Database
TechNet Radio: SQL 2008 Part 2 of 2: Management, Troubleshooting and Throttling
SQL Server: XQuery/XPath, Retrieval Functions
sp_send_dbmail in a transaction with @query causes unresolvable deadlock
New Features Announced In SQL Server 2008
SQL Down Under show 35 - Roger Doherty - SQL Server 2008 for Database Developers
Applying SQL Server Service Packs and HotFixes
Database Programming: The String Concatenation XML Trick Revisited (Or, Adam Is Right, But We Can Fix It)
Geek City: Nonclustered Index Keys
Sybase iAnywhere Unveils Advantage Database Server 9.0
SQL Server Integration Services and Clustering - confguration gotcha to ensure SSIS works with failover of cluster!

Non DB tech
How the BBC rendered a spinning globe in 1985
I wrote Super Pac-Man: More confessions of an ex-Atari employee
From BFS to ZFS: past, present, and future of file systems
LINQPad.net - So Great! So Great!
.NET Rocks! #324 - Emre Kiciman on AjaxView
Mashups with SyndicationFeed and LINQ
Microsoft Research Offers Behind-the-Scenes Look at Future of Computing
IBM Researchers Develop World’s Tiniest Nanophotonic Switch to route optical data between cores in future computer chips
Getting up to speed with ASP.NET and the 3.5 Extensions
Using Unity and the ASP.NET MVC Preview 2
PowerShell Plus is now official!
List Of .NET Dependency Injection Containers (IOC).
The Weekly Source Code 19 - LINQ and More What, Less How
You Know, There's a Much Easier Way...

Non tech
Man had $12,000 in debts, repaid $15,000 over 8 yrs, still owes $12,200. Credit card industry stopped him from testifying to congressional panel
XKCD on mythbusters...
JP Morgan "buys" Bear Stearns for $2 a share, Fed flips the actual bill
2008-03-11, Jim Cramer: "No! No! No! Bear Stearns is not in trouble. If anything, they’re more likely to be taken over. Don’t move your money from Bear."
English is our language [PIC]

Links Of The Week 20080309

Here are the links for this week

Database
Podcast: SQL Down Under show 34 - Geoff Hiten - SQL Server Clustering and SANs
Feature synergy in SQL Server 2008
How It Works: SQLIOSim - Checksums
Change collation in tempdb
Query Optimization DMV du jour - sys.dm_exec_query_optimizer_info
Data Warehouse Scalability Features in SQL Server 2008
SQL Server 2008: Changes to enabling FILESTREAM from CTP-6 onwards
Appending Data Using SQL 2008 Filestream
SSDS is Microsoft's Amazon S3 competitor
Manageability Presentation from the SQL2K8 Launch

Non DB tech
Sun: We'll put Java on the iPhone (InfoWorld)
Filters for Google Reader
Hanselminutes Podcast 103 - Quetzal Bradley on Testing after Unit Tests and the Myth of Code Coverage
ASP.NET MVC Session at Mix08, TDD and MvcMockHelpers
Steve Souders asks: "How green is your web page?"
A Question of Programming Ethics
Why I Love Hackers
The Weekly Source Code 18 - Deep Zoom (Seadragon) Silverlight 2 MultiScaleImage Mouse Wheel Zooming and Panning Edition
Google Releases an API for Contacts

Mix08 Sessions
Adding Instant Messaging to Any Site
Keiji Kanazawa, Nikhil Kothari
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T03.wmv

Advanced Cross-Browser Layout with Internet Explorer 8
Scott Dickens
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/CT07.wmv

Advanced Search Engine Optimization: Generating More Site Traffic from Search
Nathan Buggia
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/BT03.wmv

Bringing Hosters and Developers Together with IIS7
Robert Cameron, Tito Leverette
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/BT08.wmv

Building AOL's High Performance, Enterprise Wide Mail Application With Silverlight 2
Eric Hoffman, Marc Katchay, Stefan Gal
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/BT01.wmv

Building Applications and Services with .NET Framework 3.5
Justin Smith
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T26.wmv

Building Great AJAX Applications from Scratch Using ASP.NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008
Brad Adams
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T34.wmv

Building Rich Internet Applications Using Microsoft Silverlight 2, Part 1
Joe Stegman, Mike Harsh
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/CT01.wmv

Building Rich Internet Applications Using Microsoft Silverlight 2, Part 2
Joe Stegman, Mike Harsh
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/CT02.wmv

Creating a RESTful API with Windows Communication Foundation
Haider Sabri, Paul Walker, Viphak Lay
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T01.wmv

Creating Better User Experiences: Design Methods
Dan Harrelson, Kim Lenox
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/UX07.wmv

Creating Better User Experiences: Design Strategy
Dan Harrelson, Kim Lenox
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/UX04.wmv

Creating Better User Experiences: Information Architecture
Dan Harrelson, Kim Lenox
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/UX06.wmv

Creating Better User Experiences: Interaction Design
Dan Harrelson, Kim Lenox
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/UX05.wmv

Creating Rich, Dynamic User Interfaces with Silverlight 2
Karen Corby
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T20.wmv

Design at Speed of Light
Cinthya Urasaki, Daniel Makoski, John Reid, Tim Wood, Zachary Jean Paradis
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/PNL02.wmv

Developing Applications with Microsoft Virtual Earth
Chris Pendleton
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T17.wmv

Developing Applications Using the Model View Controller Pattern
Scott Hanselman
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T22.wmv

Developing Data Driven Applications Using ASP.NET Dynamic Data Controls
David Ebbo
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T24.wmv

Developing with Windows Live
Angus Logan
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T29.wmv

E-commerce Done Right
Gerard Johnson, Matthews Rechs, Nicholas Rockwell, Steve Nelson
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/PNL12.wmv

Encoding Video for Microsoft Silverlight
Ben Waggoner
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/BCT07.wmv

Everything You Need to Know about Diagnostics and Debugging on Microsoft Internet Information Services 7
Mai-lan Tomsen Bukovec
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T06.wmv

Exploring Moonlight: Novell's Implementation of Silverlight on Linux
Miguel de Icaza
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T31.wmv

From Flash to Silverlight: A Rosetta Stone
Rick Barazza
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T30.wmv

From Long Tail to Fuzzy Tale: Why "Fuzzy" Is the New Clear
David Armano
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/UX02.wmv

Getting Clued In to Experience Management
Lou Carbone
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/UX01.wmv

How Design Impacts the Bottom Line
Dave Blakely, David Watson, Jason Brush, Jimmy Kim, Luke Wroblewski, Will Tschumy
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/PNL11.wmv

I Wanna Go Mobile!
Chad Stoller, David-Michael Davies, Derrick Oien, Eric Breitbard, George Linardos, Michael Platt
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/PNL09.wmv

Integrating Media in Silverlight Applications
Ed Maia
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/BCT05.wmv

Integrating Your Site With Internet Explorer 8
Jane Kim
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T21.wmv

Internationalizing XAML Applications in Windows Presentation Foundation and Microsoft Silverlight
Ken Azuma, Laurence Moroney, Ted Kitamura
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T15.wmv

Introducing SQL Server Data Services
Nigel Ellis
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/BT05.wmv

Is Web 2.0 Sustainable? What business models will work?
Dave McClure, Don Dodge, Kimbal Musck, Robert Scoble, Ryan McIntyre
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/PNL15.wmv

Keynote I
Dean Hachamovitch, Ray Ozzie, Scott Guthrie
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/KYN0801.wmv

Keynote II
Guy Kawasaki, Steve Ballmer
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/KYN0802.wmv

Making it Simple: Designer/Developer Workflow
Christian Schormann, Ken Azuma, Marcelo Marer, Mark Ligameri, Robby Ingebretsen, Robert Tuttle, Ryan Lane
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/PNL01.wmv

Microsoft Expression Web: From Comp, to CSS, to Code!
Nishant Kothary, Tyler Simpson
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/C04.wmv

Mobile Devices and Microsoft Silverlight: A Primer on the New Technology
Amit Chopra, David Kline
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T12.wmv

Monetization 101
Erynn Petersen
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/BT07.wmv

Opportunities and Challenges in Mashing Up the Web
Aaron Fulkerson, Andi Gutmans, Michael Scherotter, Sam Ramji, Shawn Burke
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/PNL13.wmv

Overview of Microsoft Ad Formats
Alam Ali
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/C05.wmv

Partying with PHP on Microsoft Internet Information Services 7
Drew Robbins
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T27.wmv

Real World Design: Working with Silverlight and WPF in the Design Studio
Beau Ambur, Chip Aubry, Chris Bernard, Nathan Dunlap, Rich Weston
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/PNL16.wmv

Real-World AJAX with ASP.NET
Nikhil Kothari
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T16.wmv

RESTful Data Services with the ADO.NET Data Services Framework
Pablo Castro
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T07.wmv

Silverlight and Advertising
Eric Schmidt
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/BT06.wmv

Silverlight as a Gaming Platform
Joel Neubeck, Scott McAndrew
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/CT03.wmv

Social Networks: Where Are They Taking Us?
David Morin, Garrett Camp, Guy Kawasaki, John Richards, Joseph Smarr, Marc Canter
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/PNL08.wmv

The Back of the Napkin: Solving Design Problems (and Selling Your Solutions) with Pictures
Dan Roam
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/UX03.wmv

The Business of Microsoft Silverlight
Danny Riddell
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/B01.wmv

The Human Brain Relationship: Advanced and Adaptive User Interfaces
Ya'akov Greenshpan, Yochay Kiriaty
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/CT04.wmv

The Open Question
Andi Gutmans, Miguel de Icaza, Mike Schroepfer, Sam Ramji
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/PNL04.wmv

Tools and Applications for Publishers
Rishi Bal
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T18.wmv

Touch Me: Where Are Interfaces Going?
Chris Bernard, Dale Herigstad, Daniel Makoski, Dave Wolfe, Doug Cook, Yoshihiro Saito
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/PNL10.wmv

Understanding Microsoft Partner Programs for Designers, Developers, and Agencies
Bill Vlandis, Hakan Soderbom
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/BCT03.wmv

Using Microsoft Silverlight for Creating Rich Mobile User Experiences
Giorgio Sardo
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/C02.wmv

Virgins, Spaceships and Hob-nailed Boots!
Paul Dawson
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/C03.wmv

Web 2.0 and Beyond: What Is the Business Reality?
Bryan Biniak, Chris Saad, Frank Arrigo, Loic Le Meur, Tim Kendall
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/PNL05.wmv

Welcome to Internet Explorer 8
Chris Wilson
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/BCT08.wmv

What Is the face of the next Web?
Anthony Franco, Chris Bernard, Garrick Schmitt, Mark Kurtz, Paul Dain, Tjeerd Hoek
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/PNL07.wmv

What's New in Windows Presentation Foundation 3.5
Rob Relyea
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T11.wmv

What's the Secret Formula?
Dan Harrelson, Daniel Makoski, Jensen Harris, Mike Schroepfer, Nishant Kothary
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/PNL14.wmv

Windows Presentation Foundation Using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
Mark Wilson-Thomas
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T02.wmv

Working with Data and Web Services in Microsoft Silverlight 2
Eugene Osovetsky
http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/T13.wmv



Non tech
Battle Plans [Pic]
History: From Moses to Hitler, Mike Tyson and Bill Clinton ( amazing pic )
Olympics clean up Chinese style: Inside Beijing's shocking death camp for cats [PICS]
Apple, Google... And then, You. [Pic]
Geek Flow Chart [Pic]
Fruits. Water. Action! (pics)

Links Of The Week 20080303

Here are the links for this week

Database
2008: Rebuilding a Heap
Silly: A day in the life of a DBA
2008: Declaring and instantiating a value
Where is SAC tool?
New Tools Features announced at Launch event
Configuring Filestream in CTP6 (its different)
SQL Down Under show 33 - Allen White - Automating SQL administration with SMO and Powershell
Christian Kleinerman: SQL Server 2008 for Developers
New Podcast for the Real-world DBA
Backup More Than 1GB per Second Using SQL2008 Backup Compression
SSIS – Non-blocking, Semi-blocking and Fully-blocking components


Non DB tech
What Does It Take To Become A Grandmaster Developer?
GNU Info sucks
Power Up your Visual Studio 2008 with the new, free and with source, PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2008
RESTful URIs
A Guide to Web Typography
You Used Ruby to Write WHAT?!
8+ Ways To Train Yourself To Be Creative
A Feed for Unread Gmail Messages


Non tech
Keep your coins, I want change (pic)
Incredible Cougar Photos! [ PICS ]
weener kleener (pic)
AT&T is the T-1000 [pic]
80's 1337ness

Links Of The Week 20080225

Here are the links for this week

Database
SQL Sentences
Are certification exams useful for experienced people?
LINQ Terminology 101 for DBAs and Others Puzzled
How SQL Server short-circuits WHERE condition evaluation
SQL Down Under show 32 - Dr Michael Rys - SQL Server and XML
usp_helpindexusagestats: a helpfull index analysis script
SQL Server 2008 – iFTS New features

Non DB tech
Adobe AIR Released
Writing User Stories for Back-end Systems
Monkeypatching is destroying Ruby
Robert Sedgwick's Left Leaning Red-Black Trees: Self-balancing binary trees with less of the code complexity [PDF]
The Forgiving Tree: A Self-Healing Distributed Data Structure
The worst PHP code in the world

Non tech
You may be cool..but you'll never be 4 popped-collars cool
What is a Teenage Pregnancy Implementation Manager?
xkcd: Fuck Grapefruit
Wow: Hong Kong at night [pic]
What do you see in this Photo?

Wind powered turbine out of control

Weekly Links 20080217

I decided to do a weekly links post with interesting SQL Server stuff, I also include a bunch of funny things at the bottom.

Technical Stuff:
Bob Beauchemin has two post that deal with Spatial Data: Using SQL Server 2008 spatial and the Virtual Earth map control - 1 and Using SQL Server 2008 spatial and the Virtual Earth map control - 2. The Spatial Data posts are more for people who do front end as well as back end development.
Two Interesting articles by the PSS SQL Server Engineers
How it Works: SQL Server Per Query Degree Of Parallelism Worker Count(s) and How It Works: SQL Server 2005 Connection and Task Assignments
Kalen Delany's Geek City: String Statistics post. My own Functions That Are Not Often Used: SIGN from sqlblog. Amdahl’s Law by Linchi Shea

If that is not enough for you there are also a bunch of SQL Server 2008 Webcasts available as well as a bunch of SQL Server 2008 Videos.

The non technical stuff:
Like Father Like Grandson
I had friends...
Pronounce this if you can
Peek into offices at LinkedIn, Flickr & Facebook

Some Links To Blogs By Some Friends Of Mine

Since I have nothing useful to post today I decided to post some links to some of my friends

The first one is from someone in Belgium, his name is Christiaan Baes and he seems to like ORM tools like NHibernate. His blog is mostly about .NET. I'll forgive the fact that he is born 100 miles south by mistake.

The second one is from Mark Smith and he blogs about ASP.NET, SQL Server, HTML, CSS and other random thoughts. Mark's other site is http://aspnetlibrary.com/

The third one is from Denny Cherry, Denny has worked with shops running hundreds of SQL Servers with over half a billion transactions per second through out the farm.

The fourth one is from Alex Cuse and I don't think Alex himself knows what he is blogging about :-)

Three New SQL Server Best Practices Articles On TechNet

Predeployment I/O Best Practices

The I/O system is important to the performance of SQL Server. When configuring a new server for SQL Server or when adding or modifying the disk configuration of an existing system, it is good practice to determine the capacity of the I/O subsystem prior to deploying SQL Server. This white paper discusses validating and determining the capacity of an I/O subsystem. A number of tools are available for performing this type of testing. This white paper focuses on the SQLIO.exe tool, but also compares all available tools. It also covers basic I/O configuration best practices for SQL Server 2005.
On This Page

Overview

Determining I/O Capacity

Disk Configuration Best Practices & Common Pitfalls

SQLIO

Monitoring I/O Performance Using System Monitor

Conclusion

Resources



Partial Database Availability

This white paper outlines the fundamental recovery and design patterns involving the use of filegroups in implementing partial database availability in SQL Server 2005. As databases become larger and larger, the infrastructure assets and technology that provide availability become more and more important.

The database filegroups feature introduced in previous versions of SQL Server enables the use of multiple database files in order to host very large databases (VLDB) and minimize backup time. With data spanning multiple filegroups, it is possible to construct a database layout whereby failure of certain data resources do not render the entire solution unavailable. This increases the availability of solutions that use SQL Server and further reduces the surface area of failure that would render the database totally unavailable.



Comparing Tables Organized with Clustered Indexes versus Heaps

In SQL Server 2005, any table can have either clustered indexes or be organized as a heap (without a clustered index.) This white paper summarizes the advantages and disadvantages, the difference in performance characteristics, and other behaviors of tables that are ordered as lists (clustered indexes) or heaps. The performance for six distinct scenarios where DML operations are performed on these tables are measured and detailed observations presented. This white paper provides best practice recommendations on the merits of the two types of table organization, along with examples of when you might want to use one or the other.
On This Page

Introduction

Clustered Indexes and Heaps

Test Objectives

Test Methodology

Test Results and Observations

Recommendations

Appendix: Test Environment

Scribd: The YouTube Of Documents

What is Scribd?
Scribd lets you publish and discover documents online. It is like a big online library where anyone can upload. We make use of a custom Flash document viewer that lets you display documents right in your Web browser. There are all sorts of other features that make it easy and fun to publish, convert, embed, analyze, and read documents.

Part of the idea behind Scribd is that everyone has a lot of documents sitting around on their computers that only they can read. With Scribd we hope to unlock this information by putting it on the web.

What kinds of documents can I publish on Scribd?
Literally, anything you can put in a Word (.doc), PDF (.pdf), text (.txt), PowerPoint (.ppt), Excel (.xls), Postscript (.ps), or LIT (.lit) file.

So go ahead and check it out: http://www.scribd.com/

A Witchbrew Of SQL Server News And Interesting Links

Since I have nothing interesting or fascinating to say I decided to put some links up to some posts of people who do have something interesting to say.
We will start with Hugo Kornelis who has two posts about why clustered index ordering is not guaranteed in SQL Server. The first article can be found here: http://sqlblog.com/blogs/hugo_kornelis/archive/2006/12/31/Beatles-vs-Stones.aspx
And the second article that explains the behaviour can be found here: Beatles vs Stones Explanation

Developer.com has announced their Database Tool or Add-in winner and the winner is......SQL Server 2005. You can read the whole article here http://www.developer.com/db/article.php/10920_3653956_1

Euan Garden has a post telling us that SQL Server Compact Edition launches (finally)

Tim O'Reilly posted his latest State of the Computer Book Market article and SQL server is still going strong. You can fnd that article here: State of the Computer Book Market, Q4 06, Part 1, Overall Market Trend

And we will end with Internet Maverick Marc Cuban who wrote an interesting article titled Why I Don't Wear a Suit and Can't Figure Out Why Anyone Does !
I don't wear a suit either, I actually wear jeans and sneakers most of the time. When i used to work in Silicon Alley (Broadway and 21st street in New York City) I actually came to work in shorts in the summer but then again what do you expect when you have 2 lizards and a cat roaming around the office?