Design A Database Using an Entity-Relationship Diagram

• by Ramesh Gummadi

• SQLServerCentral.com

• Miscellaneous

New Author! Ramesh talks a little about database theory, using the ERD, and how you can put it to work.

Cycling Those Error Logs

• by Steve Jones

• SQLServerCentral.com

Have you ever tried to open the current error log in Enterprise Manager only to have it seize up and hang? Has that annoyed you? It certainly annoyed Steve Jones and he decided to do something about it. A little techinque for helping to manage the size of those logs and prevent the "not responding" message from appearing in Task Manager.

Code Stored in Files Instead of Stored Procedures

• by Narayana Raghavendra

• SQLServerCentral.com

• Miscellaneous

This articles proposes storing the source code for stored procedures on disk rather than in the database itself, the intent to give developers the ability to easily change them or potentially to allow third party encryption of source code. (Note from SSC: If you choose to implement a technique like this, please be sure you understand the implications of exec'ing strings)

Bulk Data Load Using OLEDB Template Libraries

• by Kumar Part

• SQLServerCentral.com

• Miscellaneous

New Author! This is a fairly article that looks at how to do bulk data loading at a very (very) low level. You'll need to be able to read code to make use of this.

For SQL Server, XML Is One Answer

• by Nick Malik

• SQLServerCentral.com

• Miscellaneous

New author! Nick discusses why 'XML is One Answer', outlining some of what he believes are key points about using XML with SQL Server. This is a follow up (and sort of counter point) to another great article we had here on the site a couple weeks ago by Don Peterson. Good stuff!

An Interesting Article on Unicode and Character Sets

• by Additional Articles

• Other

This may well be more than you want to know about Unicode (and no, it's not a SQL article), but it's a pretty useful discussion to have.

Documenting Stored Procedures

• by Robert Marda

• SQLServerCentral.com

• Stored Procedures

Regular columnist Robert Marda discusses a few ideas on stored procedure documentation. How much documentation do you need and is "documentation" different than code comments?

Mapping Database File Objects and Fragmentation

• by Chris Kempster

• SQLServerCentral.com

• Administration

Chris proposes a tool that would allow you to graphically see the space utilized by objects in a SQL database. Good idea?

When Do You Pull Your Hair Out?

• by Steve Jones

• SQLServerCentral.com

Another adventure in the real world. Steve Jones tracks down a problem with locks on a live system. Read along and see how he works through the issues.

Terminal Services - A Couple Tips

• by Andy Warren

• SQLServerCentral.com

• Administration

We agree with Andy that Terminal Services is definitely a tool to have in the DBA toolbox. Like most tools, everyone uses them differently. Andy starts the discussion with some comments on how he uses TS - what about you? Do you use TS at all? Use it differently than Andy does? Prefer a different solution? Read the article and post a comment.