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[Features]

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An ADO Data Binding Primer
There are commonalities between the different forms of data binding. This article's focus on simple Windows Forms and ASP.NET examples provides a great introduction to data binding while running through some best practices.
 — William Sheldon


Sharpen Your Skills: Joins, Groupings, and Data Types
Learn the difference between UNION and UNION ALL; INNER JOIN and OUTER JOIN; DISTINCT and GROUP BY; NVARCHAR, VARCHAR, and CHAR; and timestamp and GETDATE().
 — Pinalkumar Dave


SSRS and MOSS 2007: Deploying the Power
Deploy SSRS and MOSS 2007’s information-integration features to help business users find what they need, analyze results, and share their insights for better decision making.
 — Stacia Misner

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[Editorial]

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New Training Grounds
Microsoft's new MODL training is where Second Life meets traditional classroom training. The result: an entirely new training environment that provides a fun, life-like training program that you can follow at your own pace.
 — Michael Otey

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[Reader to Reader]

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Enforce Uniqueness Without the Unique Constraint
If you've ever come across the problem of hitting the 900-bytes limitation for unique constraints, you'll want to check out this simple solution.
 — Readers

T-SQL UDF Quickly Determines How Often a Substring Appears
To determine the number of occurrences of a substring within a string, a user-defined function (UDF) performs a simple arithmetic calculation.
 — Eli Leiba

Take Advantage of Osql and Bcp Without Having to Remember All Their Command-Line Options
Here's a stored procedure that consolidates the basic functions of osql and bcp. Switching between these utilities' output is simply a matter of changing the value of an input parameter.
 — Bill McEvoy

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[Solutions by Design]

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The Data Warehouse Bus Architecture
Find out how conformed dimensions and facts make up an enterprise data warehouse.
 — Michelle A. Poolet

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[T-SQL Black Belt]

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Grouping Sets, Part 2
As you dive deeper into SQL Server 2008's grouping-sets features and learn about the new CUBE and ROLLUP options and the GROUPING_ID function, you'll experience better performance and need to work with less code.
 — Itzik Ben-Gan

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[SELECT TOP(X)]

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SQL Server Versions
Now that Microsoft has released several different service packs for SQL Server 2005, chances are you're running multiple versions. Here's an easy way to see what you're running.
 — Michael Otey

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[Tool Time with Kevin Kline]

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Reporting Services Scripter
Reporting Services Scripter's three modes of operation let you run scripts that you've created, move scripts between folders and servers, and generate scripts for reports already in SSRS.
 — Kevin Kline

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[Review]

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End-User Reporting Tools
SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) has some built-in features for generating and exporting reports, but these third-party utilities expand those capabilities and target end-user rather than just developer reporting.
 — John Bowen

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[PTO for the Rest of Us]

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Boost Performance with Parallel Processing
Learn when and how to use SQL Server's parallel-processing settings, and you'll be able to achieve the best balance between concurrency and speed for your unique environment.
 — Andrew J. Kelly

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[Sqlmag.com Community Dialog]

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What’s Hot Online: PASS 2007 Roundup, Reader-Inspired Content
If you couldn't attend PASS 2007 in September, the next best thing is reading our online conference highlights. And get a sneak preview of the January "reader solutions" issue, inspired in part by the active SQL Server Magazine online community.
 — Anne Grubb

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[Eye on BI]

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Can’t Wait for SQL Server 2008!
Maybe it’s not too soon for SQL Server 2008, especially when you consider how 2008 offers strong BI enhancements in three key areas: Reporting Services, Database Services, and operational management.
 — Douglas McDowell