Is the Market Ready for SQL Server 2008?

Today I downloaded and installed the latest SQL Server 2008 Community Technical Preview from connect.microsoft.com. Downloading the preview requires you to sign up for Microsoft Connect which is free of charge. SQL Server 2008 is scheduled for release by early 2008.
We run 26 databases on a SQL Server 2000 machine for customers from every corner of [...]

Testing a Connection from Client to SQL Server

A connection from client to SQL Server can easily be checked with the help of a .udl file. This is also helpful for building a connection string.
Step 1 - Create a .udl file
Create a text file and name it for example test.udl
Double click on test.udl to open the connection dialog.
Step 2 - Choose the type [...]

Reporting Services 2005 - Using Parameters from SQL Query

Parameters can be passed to Reporting Services 2005 to be used in a WHERE clause. Values can also be selected from a dropdown list in Report Viewer.

How can this list of parameters be queried from a database? In our example a report of database server nodes has to show nodes filtered by customers. In the [...]

Removing Duplicate Rows

Oracle
For our example we need to insert a duplicate row into HR.EMPLOYEES first. The new row has to be identical on first_name, last_name, email and department_id columns. To insert such a row, we have to disable the unique constraint on the HR.EMPLOYEES table.
ALTER TABLE employees DISABLE CONSTRAINT emp_email_uk;
INSERT INTO employees (
EMPLOYEE_ID, FIRST_NAME, LAST_NAME, EMAIL, PHONE_NUMBER,
HIRE_DATE, [...]

How to Save Large Objects with ASP.NET 2.0 to SQL Server 2005

Prepare Database for Storage of Large Objects
VARBINARY(MAX) datatype is used for storage of binary large objects (BLOB) in SQL Server 2005. The formerly used IMAGE datatype is still available for compatibility reasons but should not be used for new projects.

Best practice to avoid fragmentation of the PRIMARY-filegroup is to create a text/image-filegroup for storing large [...]