Now that I have had the "pleasure" of filtering through numerous resumes looking to hire someone, my thoughts on certifications has evolved a little...  Or it's probably more accurate to say that they have been solidified. Acrimony Anyone who is active in the community is well aware that the topic of whether to pursue your MCDBA or other certification is hotly debated.  Are things a little too quiet in the office or on the discussion boards?  Just throw out the "innocent" question of whether it is worth pursuing certification and things are certain to get lively for a while.  It ranks right...

I knew in my heart that this was true.  I had heard it several times, but darned if all of my personal tests just seemed to support the idea that the result set was always returned in order by the Clustered Index fields.  But now, I have the proof I have been seeking! In a comment to my How to Return Record #n post, Hugo Kornelis posted a link to his own post with the evidence (and later an explanation).  I thought this was such a big deal that it deserved to be highlighted in a primary posting for...

I got this question in email a while ago, and it seems to come up quite a bit, which frankly surprises me.  I guess it's because I almost never* write an application where I need to retrieve the 10th (or whatever number) record.  I am always trying to retrieve the record for Joe Smith, or Order Number 1256487, or the last record entered on 12/31/2007, or... well, you get the point.  I am frequently searching for records based on a data value.  But I rarely, if ever, have had to go looking for the nth record. I see this...

UPDATE:  Removed bad link and added some commentary. OK, Damian, I get it now.  For those of you who weren't in the conversation, Damian (a.k.a. Merkin) was giving me a bad time about being a laggard in regard to Windows Live Writer.  Well, I finally stumbled across more info I probably should have seen before, and now I get it. Oh well, it just goes to show you that there is still nothing nearly as effective as a live personal referral to get someone's attention.  

I know, we're already a few weeks into the new year, but I have been so busy with work and life stuff that I haven't been out here in a while, and it sounded like a good start. I had dinner with Graz last night, and he off-handedly mentioned that I got passed by Mladen in blog post count, as if I might not already be aware of it. ;-)  (Congrats Mladen!  You are doing a great job and a great service to the community!)  OK, seriously, Bill did encourage me to write some more, and suggested that I...