Converting VARBINARY to VARCHAR using FOR XML

http://beyondrelational.com/blogs/jacob/archive/2009/06/13/converting-varbinary-to-varchar-using-for-xml.aspx

Tech-ED Ahmedabad 2009 Announced – 20 June 2009 (Saturday), Hotel Rock Regency

Read the post http://beyondrelational.com/blogs/jacob/archive/2009/06/10/beyond-relational-news-tech-ed-ahmedabad-2009-announced-20-june-2009-saturday-hotel-rock-regency.aspx

New home for my blog

I have been trying to setup a new home for my blog and I am almost done with it. I am moving my blog to http://beyondrelational.com/blogs/jacob/default.aspx

Those of you who are subscribed to the RSS feeds of this blog, please take note of the new RSS feed URL: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ExploringBeyondRelational

Hope to meet you at http://beyondrelational.com/blogs/jacob/default.aspx

TSQL Challenges are moving to a new website

I am moving the TSQL challenges to a new ‘exclusive’ blog that is dedicated only for TSQL challenges. The new site will function in a little more organized and structured manner. We will come up with a new challenge every week(friday) and make sure that the we will announce the winners on the monday after the closing date of the challenge.

The new home page of ‘TSQL Challenges’ is http://beyondrelational.com/blogs/tc/default.aspx

TSQL Challenge 5 is live and can be found at http://beyondrelational.com/blogs/tc/archive/2009/04/24/tsql-challenge-5.aspx

TSQL Challenge 4

Moved to http://beyondrelational.com/tc/challenge4

Ahmedabad SQL Server User Group – April Meeting (18 April 2009)

I would like to invite everyone to the April Meeting of Ahmedabad SQL Server UG. We will meet tomorrow (Saturday, 18 April 2009) at our new office, 302 OLIVE ARCADE, OPP Samudra Anexe, OFF CG Road, Ahmedabad at 6 PM.

This month, we will discuss the XML features of SQL Server 2008 and as usual will have a QA session to discuss general SQL Server Topics. We will also discuss the community plans for the upcoming Tech-ED India 2009 and the discount options for the UG members. There will be some give-away items in addition to the usual ice-cream and snacks :-)

Hope to see many of you tomorrow!

TSQL Challenge 3 – Winners

Moved to http://beyondrelational.com/tc/challenge3

TSQL Challenge 3 – Results by next week

Hi All,

I could not review and announce the winners of TSQL Challenge 3 yet. I am currently travelling and I will do this early next week.

Get ready for the next challenge!

cheers!

TSQL Challenge 3

Moved to http://beyondrelational.com/tc/challenge3

TSQL Challenge 2 – Winners

moved to http://beyondrelational.com/tc/challenge2

SQL Server 2008 – New Whitepapers Published

There are a couple of new SQL Server 2008 white papers published this week. The first one is on “Service Broker Performance Scalability Techniques” and the second is on “Partitioned Tables and Index Strategies”

SQL Server 2008 White Paper - Service Broker: Performance and Scalability Techniques

SQL Server 2008 White Paper - Partitioned Table and Index Strategies Using SQL Server 2008

Practical SQL Server XML: Part Three

Moved to http://beyondrelational.com/blogs/jacob/archive/2009/03/17/practical-sql-server-xml-part-three.aspx

TSQL Challenge 2

Moved to http://beyondrelational.com/tc/challenge2

TSQL Challenge 1 Answer and Winners!

Moved to http://beyondrelational.com/tc/challenge2

SQL Server IDENTITY Columns

Moved to http://beyondrelational.com/blogs/jacob/archive/2009/03/09/sql-server-identity-columns.aspx

SQL Server IDENTITY Columns - A few more interesting facts

Moved to http://beyondrelational.com/blogs/jacob/archive/2009/03/08/sql-server-identity-columns-a-few-more-interesting-facts.aspx

How to convert a number to a comma-formatted string?

Moved to http://beyondrelational.com/blogs/jacob/archive/2009/03/03/how-to-convert-a-number-to-a-comma-formatted-string.aspx

XQuery Lab 43 - Deleting multiple elements

Moved to http://beyondrelational.com/blogs/jacob/archive/2009/03/01/xquery-lab-43-deleting-multiple-elements.aspx

TSQL Challenge 1

Moved to http://beyondrelational.com/tc/challenge1

Ahmedabad SQL Server User Group: February 2009 Meeting

I am a little late to post details of the UG meeting held on 21st February 2009, and I feel bad for keeping you waiting for so long. I was busy finishing some assignments at work. I am flying to Seattle tomorrow to attend the MVP Global Summit. I hope I will have a great time meeting other SQL Server MVPs and many of the SQL Server Team members.

Coming back to the UG meeting, we really had a wonderful time discussing many of the basic SQL Server questions. Pinal Dave has already posted a very detailed blog post covering the activities. He did a wonderful session where he presented some very interesting points related to the way SQL Server Query Optimizer uses indexes.

My session was more of an interactive discussion. While writing my series of posts on SQL Server IDENTITY columns, I came across several interesting questions and I then compiled a long list of 65 questions. We discussed those 65 questions and their answers and the 'why-how' part of each of them. I will create a PDF document with those questions and will make them available for download.

Here are some photographs:

Pinal Dave

Jacob Sebastian

Group Photo