If you download ASP.NET MVC from Microsoft, install it and create a MVC website you might run into a couple of gotchas in regards to the database. First of all ASP.NET MVC use SQL Server Express by default in the connection string. So if you were to run your ASP.NET MVC website, then clicking on login you would get this error:

A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and...

Good database design is extremely important if you want to have a database that performs well and is easily modifiable.

How many times did you have to go back and change countless lines of code because your database was not normalized and it was not easy to add another payment type to the existing database?

This is where Pro SQL Server 2008 Relational Database Design and Implementation comes in; in the first couple o...

So yesterday I got a new machine at work. I decided to only install SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 on this box. First I installed Visual Studio 2008, after that I installed Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 and then I installed SQL Server 2008. I still remember when I tried to install SQL Server 2008 RTM on my older machine with Visual Studio 2008 and it wouldn’t do it because you needed SP1 for the framework first, this got released 2 days later or so.

So then I noticed that IIS was not installed on this box, of course you need the CD/DVD to add components to the Oper...