Using Built in Functions in User Defined Functions

• by Nagabhushanam Ponnapalli

• SQLServerCentral.com

• Miscellaneous

This short article shows an interesting technique for using the SQL built in functions inside a user defined function (UDF).

Review of Murachs SQL for SQL Server

• by Andy Warren

• SQLServerCentral.com

• Miscellaneous

Andy rates this one 4.5 out of 5 stars and likes it enough to recommend it's use at work. This is a book that should teach a developer how to use the key abilities of SQL. If you're looking for a book to guide your beginning/intermediate developers, this might be it.

What Your SP Can Return

• by Robert Marda

• SQLServerCentral.com

• Stored Procedures

Return values from stored procedures (not output params, true return values) probably aren't used as often as they should be. Robert gives you some good examples of how to use them.

DBMS vs File Management System

• by Dale Elizabeth Corey

• SQLServerCentral.com

• Miscellaneous

This is a high level article that compares the use of a DBMS with file management systems. Interesting to think about products that use the file system successfully - not everything needs SQL...or does it?

Worst Practice - Bad Connection Strings and Bad Info in Sysprocesses

• by Andy Warren

• SQLServerCentral.com

• Administration

Andy returns to the Worst Practice series this week with a short article looking at how connection strings in applications affect what you see in sysprocesses. Perhaps less controversial (in our opinion) that some of the other worst practices, this is something easy to fix and definitely worth fixing! Read the article and post a comment - explore other points of view! Readers posting a comment will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the SQL Server 2000 Resource Kit.

SQLCentric

• by Additional Articles

• Other

• Monitoring

This is an update to v1.2 of the product which does monitoring of your SQL servers. Looks like it checks service status, jobs, disk space, some other things. (Not Reviewed)

SQL Server Security: Why Security Is Important

• by Brian Kelley

• SQLServerCentral.com

• Security

Regular columnist Brian Kelley reviews the real world impact that inadequate security can have by reviewing some recent incidents in the sql/security world. Very much worth reading, especially if you have credit card data.

Lots of Tables and a Little DMO

• by Andy Warren

• SQLServerCentral.com

• .Net

Andy discusses a recent thread where a reader has very slow login tables with 2000 tables. After writing some DMO code (very handy by the way) and creating some objects, he can't track it down. Have any ideas?

MZTools - Addin for VB6

• by Additional Articles

• Other

• Miscellaneous

Freeware! This add-in gives you some great extra features when working in VB6. It has a tab index setter, options to add a chunk of error handling code, a simple code analyzer that gives you some metrics, and my favorite - an option to identify unused code and variables. If you're still using VB6 it's worth trying.

Automated Trace File Collection

• by Lowell Smith

• SQLServerCentral.com

• Monitoring

This article shows how to create a trace and capture it into a table using a combination of SQL and VBScript. Direct and to the point, you can read this and try it easily.