Reporting Services Beta

You can sign up to participate in the Reporting Services beta here [http://www.microsoft.com/sql/evaluation/betanominations.asp].  I don't know if they take everyone or not but it can't hurt to sign up.…

SQL Server Developer Edition really is under $50

Microsoft announced that as of August 1st, 2003 SQL Server Developer Edition [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000050AVL/sqlteamcom-20] would cost $49.  On that date I couldn't find anyone offering it at that price.  I recently did a quick search and found that at least Amazon…

Testing Triggers

I hate testing triggers.  It's a pain to figure out what's going on inside the code.  Especially when you're dealing with the inserted and deleted tables.  There are two great tricks I always forget.  The first is the SQL Debugger built into Query Analyzer.…

Always use SCOPE_IDENTITY()

As I make changes to an application I'm reminded how ugly @@IDENTITY is.  We're using triggers to add some rudimentary data synchronization to this application.  The application inserts a record, we capture it in the trigger and go put a copy in the new table.  Except…