Something for the Weekend – SQL Server Links for the week 23/07/10

I hope you’ve had a great week!

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Here’s your weekly roundup of SQL Server Blog Posts, News and Techie Stuff. Enjoy!

SQL Server Links

• Additional Resource Added! – The results are in! The latest Blogger rankings from Thomas LaRock have been announced. Yeah I know, where’s my Blog listed right? Honestly some people just have no taste. Maybe Thom has a “special” category in mind just for me ;-)
• Instant File Initialization Speeds SQL Server – Is this SQL Server setting enabled in your environment? If not you’re missing a trick! Find out why in this post from Brad McGeehee.
• SQL Server Sizing Resources – A nice list of resources here courtesy of Bart Duncan.
• SQLAuthority News – SolidQ Journal Released – A Must Read for All – I’ll be honest with you, I’ve not read it yet but I have downloaded and printed a copy to read on my commute home this weekend. What I do know is that SolidQ really know their SQL Server stuff and so it should be a good read. Let me know your thoughts.
• SQL University – Indexing Week – The theme for SQL Server university this week, Indexing. Make sure you’ve done your homework kids.
• Presentation Links: SQL Server Performance Tuning (Quest) – This week Quest organised a fantastic live presentation during which a mountain of resources were mentioned. Here are some of them.
• PASS Board Nominations Announced – With the nominations announced it’s time for you to decide who you want to see on the board. I know who I will be voting for. Do you?
• Worst error message ever… – I know that I’ve been blocked by this little beauty a few times. Good to see some progress.
• When you’re asking for help, make sure you explain what you’re trying to accomplish – An important point here from Buck Woody, reminding us how actually quantifying what the end goel is, can encourage more suitable answers to our questions.

SQL Server Upcoming Events

Make sure you vote for the sessions that you want to to see at SQLBits. Simply login to the site, go to the sessions page and click on the ones you want to see for the Saturday lineup.

• SQLCruise – 2nd August
• UK SQL Server Usergroups
  • Leeds – July 20th – AGI Northern Group meeting: Using geospatial data in the Microsoft world.
  • Manchester – 5th August – Introduction to the Service Broker with Anthony Brown and Creating compelling reports with SQL Server 2008.
  • Kent – 18th August – This is a new SQL Server Usergroup.
  • Leeds – 15th September – Using XML data in SQL Server with Anthony Brown, and Martin Bell explores change management in SQL Server 2008 and Iain Kicks from Quest Software.
  • Manchester – 16th September – Agenda to be confirmed
• SQLBits 7 – 30th September – 2nd October – The Seven Wonders of SQL. Pricing
• Keeping up with PASS – Useful links for keeping up with all the PASS community events, collated by BradMcGehee.

Misc Technology News

• Facebook hits 500m user milestone – That’s a lot of users. Why that’s like 499,999,999 million more users than subscribe to this blog.
• The ups and downs of social networking – Some very interesting statistics here. Clearly the Australians are slacking more at the office :-)

That’s it for this week. If I’ve missed anything that you think deserves a mention this week then be sure to let me know! You can leave a comment below, send me an email or message me on Twitter(@JohnSansom).