Sql-Server

TechEd US - Full Text Indexing - SQL Server 2008

Got the email today to say I had a session accepted for TechEd US. I’ll be doing the “Answering the queries your users really want to ask” session on full text indexing in SQL Server 2008. It’s an update of the session that I did at TechEd EMEA in Barcelona recently.

I’m really pleased to get to present again this year, given the vastly reduced number of data track sessions.

2009-01-26

LINQ to SQL: Does it have much of a future?

Kevin Kline recently posted, wondering about the directions for LINQ.

When people refer to LINQ, they’re often referring to “LINQ to SQL” instead.

LINQ as a language enhancement is pretty cool. It provides a way to easy navigate enumerable objects. The only thing that puzzles me is why they picked SQL-like syntax for this instead of something more appropriate for objects.

On the other hand, LINQ to SQL I can’t get excited about. The main issues are that it’s tied to SQL Server and only gives you a one-to-one mapping of tables to objects. That leaves you with either a lousy database design or a lousy object model.

2008-12-24

Rendering HTML in Reporting Services Text Boxes in SQL Server 2008

Some time back, I posted about how to do this. Well by the time we got to RTM, this had changed.

There isn’t a “create placeholder” option when you right-click a cell any more.

When you drag a field into a cell, it creates a placeholder that contains the field. If you right-click the placeholder that was added, you’ll see an option to edit the Placeholder Properties. What threw me for a while was that if you right-click the cell, you won’t see this option. Turns out you have to right-click the field-name within the cell, not the blank area beside the name within the cell. Thanks to my colleague Jessica Moss for helping me find it.

2008-12-19

Iron DBA - New Zealand - 2008

Mai and I got back from New Zealand last night after attending the PASS Community Connection event in Porirua (near Wellington) in New Zealand.

It was a fun weekend as always and congratulations need to go to Nathan Pitcher (PASS Chapter leader from Dunedin) for organising it in conjunction with Adrian, Dave, Amanda, Sue and all the gang from the other local chapters as well as the staff of the local polytechnic where the event was held.

2008-12-08

Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008

I’ve been really busy lately. A big component of that time has been my involvement with the new Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008 program. I was privileged to be chosen to teach six days of the fifteen day program in the recent alpha rotation. In addition, I decided to attend (and pay !) to attend the rotation, do the exams and qualifying lab.

Well it was quite an experience!

2008-11-28