Did you know that the upcoming version release of SQL Server 2008 has some new datatypes that are going to be available? One of the areas with a number of changes are the datatypes available for storing data related to dates and times in a database.

As I began thinking on some of the impact the following application of this functionality came to mind. Imagine creating a database of your favorite movies and favorite clips within those movies. The new TimeOnly datatype in SQL would allow you to pinpoint and store the specific start and end times within the movie …read more

I’m getting my first experience working with the newest version of Microsoft’s SQL Server. We recently installed SQL Server 2008 at a client and we are setting up a web application on their servers now.

In  my experience with SQL when I needed to edit data in a table I would right-click on the table name and select "Open Table" to display all the data in that table. I realize this probably isn’t the preferred or perhaps even "correct" method to use, but for me it worked, was quick and allowed me to immediately edit data in the table.
With SQL Server …read more

Dan Rigsby (@danrigsby) shared some slides of information including his Top 10 Features of SQL Server 2008 at the IndyNDA meeting in Indianapolis, IN.

LINQ
Intellisense for SQL Server
FileStream Datatype
Date & Time Datatype
DateTime2 & DateTimeOffset Datatype
Hierarchical Datatype: i.e. org charts
Spatial Datatype: geography, geometry
T-SQL merge
Table-Valued parameters: pass entire table into a stored procedure 
Data Change Tracking: log all changes to data into a specific tracking table. Potentially use in offline client synchronization

What do you think about each of these features? Are you familiar with them? What are …read more