SSMS Tips & Tricks

There are innumerable features in SQL Server Management Studio. In my years of working with SQL Server 2005, I've discovered some that I feel are underused. Here are a few that have helped me -Tip #1: Open Object Explorer and new query on start up - If you have used SQL Server 2000 Query Analyzer a...

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Application Architecture Guide 2.0 BETA 1

When setting out on a new project, you risk painting yourself into a corner if you take ill-conceived decisions without knowing the choices you have. The book Application Architecture Guide 2.0 provides design-level guidance for the architecture and design of applications built on the .NET Framework....

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Software industry inspires cartoonists & vice versa

Nikhil recently posted a Dilbert comic strip on 'featuritis'. He wished the comic strips were available with full text search, something I would love as well. It would be cool if search engines had a feature to return cartoon strip images matching keywords in them.It is interesting how the software...

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Book Review: Agile Project Management with Scrum

Many large companies have taken advantage of Scrum to undertake complex projects in an incremental fashion. Without doubt it is a promising methodology if understood & implemented properly.If you haven't heard of Scrum or know little about it, Ken Schwaber's nearly 200 paged book 'Agile Project...

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Thrilled to be a MVP

I'm thrilled to receive the MVP award from Microsoft for a fourth time.Wish to know what the award is about and how to become a MVP? Check out this video in which MVP Lead Abhishek Kant talks to MTV VJ Nikhil Chinnapa at the recently concluded Virtual TechDa...

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HOW TO view YouTube videos offline

Sarah on Channel 10 has this tip -The Zamzar web browser button is a bookmarklet you can add to your bookmarks toolbar folder in your web browser. With the bookmarklet installed, you’re then able to convert any files you find on the web and download them to your computer. To use the web browser button,...

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Tools to monitor your website

Monitoring & maintaining your website is as important as building it.Try out these nifty tools that make the job easy -POPURI.US is an online tool to check the ranking (Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, Technorati etc.) and popularity of your website (based on social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us,...

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IE Developer Tools Tips & Tricks - #1

IE Developer Tools formerly called Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar and available as a separately installable browser add on is now integrated in IE 8 (Beta 2). It is accessible from the Tools option in the IE menu or by using the F12 shortcut. Although there are differences between Firebug and IE...

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HOW TO speed up your Windows Vista PC

I have found these tips from the Windows Vista online documentation practical & useful -Disable services you don’t need - see possible list of Services to disableTurn off visual effects - over 20 of them; if you want speed over looksDelete programs you never useLimit how many programs load at startup...

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Free SQL Server 2008 Learning Resources

Microsoft Press is offering a free 258 paged e-book - Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008Microsoft Learning has a free e-Learning course - Collection 6187: What’s New in Microsoft SQL Server 2008Red Gate has two free offerings - Dissecting SQL Server Execution Plans and How to Become an Exceptional...

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HOW TO find distance between 2 places using Virtual Earth Map Control

In the time that you search online to find a source to find the distance between two places, you can adapt one of the example scripts from Virtual Earth Map Control SDK 6.2 online documentation.All you need to play with the Virtual Earth Map Control (version 6.2 has recently been released) is a fair...

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