It’s (actually) Monday and time for this week’s weekly blog and twitter round-up for last week. If you haven’t already, follow me on twitter (@StrateSQL). This is a good chance to catch up on data platform technology and career related information I’ve shared in the last week and activity on this blog.

Most Popular Article Shared

Last weeks most popular link is an article Steve Jones (Blog | @way0utwest) on backing up a database into a recovery mode.  This is a little know feature and often something that people refer to as backing up the tail end of the database.  If you’re a DBA that isn’t familiar with this, take a look.

Last Week’s Popular Posts

The most popular posts on this blog in the week are:

1. 31 Days of SSIS – The Introduction (638)
2. Get Just The Tools: SSMS Download (582)
3. 31 Days of SSIS as a Book (370)
4. 31 Days of SSIS – Raw Files Are Awesome (1/31) (358)
5. The Side Effect of NOLOCK (182)
6. Looking to SQL Server 2014 High Availability In Standard Edition (170)
7. XQuery for the Non-Expert – Value (164)
8. Security Questions: Grant Permissions to All Stored Procedures (146)
9. 31 Days of SSIS – Using Breakpoints (2/31) (138)
10. Determining Filegroup for a Table (123)

Last Week’s Top 20 “Reading” Links

Along with the most popular link, here are the top twenty items relating to SQL Server, technology and careers that were shared last week. If you missed them throughout the week, here’s the opportunity to get caught up on some items that other’s read after I linked them out.

1. Accidently Kicking a Database into the Restoring State [15 clicks]
2. SQLCAT.Com – eBook Downloads [14 clicks]
3. How to Troubleshoot SQL Server Connection Timeouts [12 clicks]
4. SQL Server 2005 support ends April 2016 – Here’s why that’s a good thing [12 clicks]
5. Introduction to Graph Databases [10 clicks]
6. Database Engine Tuning Advisor [10 clicks]
7. Internals of the Seven SQL Server Sorts – Part 2 [10 clicks]
8. How Predictive Analytics Reinvents These Six Industries [9 clicks]
9. Learning map for HDInsight [8 clicks]
10. Step-By-Step: Move a VM to a different Vnet on Azure [7 clicks]
11. New VM Images Optimized for Transactional and DW workloads in Azure VM Gallery [7 clicks]
12. Cloud Service Fundamentals [7 clicks]
13. How to Enable Instant File Initialization (IFI) for SQL Server – Video [6 clicks]
14. Azure Desktop Hosting – Reference Architecture and Deployment Guides [5 clicks]
15. Automating Azure Virtual Machine Deployment with Chef [5 clicks]
16. Azure Key Vault – Making the cloud safer [4 clicks]
17. SQL Database Active Geo-Replication [3 clicks]
18. Running vSphere in Amazon or Google Compute [2 clicks]
19. An Introduction to benchmarking in the Cloud [0 clicks]
20. Orchestrating massive parallelisation of Azure WebJobs for fun and profit [0 clicks]

Last Week’s Posts From Previous Years

Sometimes the most useful content on a blog wasn’t written in the past week, it’s often other articles shared in the past that resonate with readers. Check out the following links that I published in past years over the past week:

1. Index Those Foreign Keys (2010-06-18)
2. The Side Effect of NOLOCK (2012-06-18)
3. CLR_AUTO_EVENT Wait Stat (2008-06-19)
4. Is That Your Code? [Copyright Considerations] (2012-06-22)

Other Items Shared

Of course, no week would be complete without a few off-topic links. These have nothing to do with technology or your career, but they are interesting and worth a second look.

1. Tim Hunt: ‘I’ve been hung out to dry. They haven’t even bothered to ask for my side of affairs’ [26 clicks]
2. UFOs Spotted Above Loch Ness [18 clicks]
3. The Most Infamous Incident Of Cannibalism In History [15 clicks]
4. This Is Destiny‘s Next Huge Expansion [12 clicks]
5. Fans fear Foo Fighters may cancel UK shows after Dave Grohl breaks his leg [9 clicks]
6. New Study Claims Eating Bacon May Prolong Your Life [5 clicks]

Got something you think I should read and share, leave a comment below. Also, if you want to see all of the links that were tweeted out last week?