| Executive Summary:
There’s a new addition the Sqlmag.com and Windowsitpro.com Web site family. ITTV.net is a source for videos on a range of topics of interest to Windows IT and SQL Server professionals and developers. Another good information resource that you might have overlooked is the online reader comments section on Sqlmag.com articles. Often in the comments, you’ll find readers answering each other’s technical questions and providing links to helpful information sources. |
SQL Mag Experts… Now
Appearing on ITTV.net!
There’s a brand-new video Web site that has joined
the Sqlmag.com and Windowsitpro.com family: ITTV
.net. On ITTV.net, you’ll find video interviews with
technical authorities and industry experts on a range
of topics of interest to DBAs, developers, and IT professionals.
For example, at TechEd 2008 in June, SQL
Server Magazine Technical Director Michael Otey and
contributing author Erin Welker had a video chat with
Senior Editor Sheila Molnar about their impressions
of the new business intelligence (BI) and data warehousing
features in SQL Server 2008. Here are some
of the highlights of the conversation.
“They’ve made some improvements on how partitions
are processed during the queries,” Erin said. “And
another thing I’m really excited about… is partitionaligned
indexed views, which will make it a lot easier
to implement aggregation, much like you would in
Analysis Services.”
“On the BI side, there have been some really
interesting improvements for SQL Server Integration
Services… some very nice performance enhancements
there,” Michael said. “The same is true with [SQL
Server] Reporting Services. It’s quite a bit faster. And
the integration of the Office components: I know they’ve
made an agreement with SoftArtisans to bring part of
their OfficeWriter product into Reporting Services, and
I think those are all good moves to help surface out the
information in SQL Server to the end users.”
Check out the rest of the video at ittv.net/VideoPlayer/tabid/57/VideoId/26/SQL-Server-Round-Table-Discussion-With-Mike-Otey--Erin-Welker.aspx. And
keep an eye on the ITTV.net home page for the latest
videos.
Information Gems in Online
Reader Comments
You might like the reader comments section at the
end of Sqlmag.com articles because it lets you give
feedback to an article’s author, or you just might
enjoy reading other people’s comments. But did you
know that reader comments often contain helpful tips,
answers to reader questions in comments, or links to
relevant Web resources? Here are a few examples of
some of the pearls of wisdom that
Sqlmag.com readers have passed along
recently in their comments.
From vidma, on Derek Comingore’s
“SQL Server 2008: Enter the Data
Collector,” June 2008, InstantDoc ID
99420: “I blogged about Management
Data Warehouse and Data Collectors,
and maybe my post will be also helpful
to this article’s readers: www.ssas-info.com/VidasMatelisBlog/55_sql-server-2008-management-data-warehouse.”
From Lee Everest, on Kalen Delaney’s
“Knowledge and Wisdom: Honoring Jim Gray,”
June 2008, InstantDoc ID 99379: “Nice article. I
blogged about Dr. Gray in August 2007 and have a
few other links and tidbits of interest. Great visionary
for our profession, and will be missed. www.texastoo
.com/post/Dr-Jim-Gray—Where-are-you.aspx.”
From kgutlich, on Teo Lachev’s “Protect UDM
with Dimension Data Security, Part 2,” October 2007,
InstantDoc ID 96763: “I’ve tried to use the factless fact
table as a security method…. When I insert my MDX
expression (almost the same as the one in the example),
the syntax is correct but I get an error using the OLAP
cube telling me that the EXIST function does not exist
while trying to use the security role…. Can anybody
help me?” From carleb21, in response to kgutlich: “It
looks like a simple typo. Try Exists instead of Exist.”
MySQL vs. SQL Server
Back in April, Brian Moran wrote about the significance
of Sun Microsystems’ acquisition of MySQL and
its potential effect on SQL Server. Readers chimed in
with thoughtful comments about the strengths and
weaknesses of MySQL and SQL Server, and Brian
responded to update and clarify some of the points in
the original article. In this case, the reader comments are
almost an article in themselves! Read them for yourself
at InstantDoc ID 98951.
—Anne Grubb, Web site strategic editor,
SQL Server Magazine
End of Article
