Bored with SQL Server? Looking for something new, and/or cheaper? Got a bunch of interesting alternative databases:
I've mentioned REL and VistaDB previously. VistaDB has made some significant improvements since then (including a 60% reduction in engine size, to 400KB!). It's geared towards .Net apps as a replacement for MSDE or light SQL Server duties. Go check it out.
Cloudscape was developed by IBM and they released it under an open source license last year. You can get the download here. It's written in Java and is a relational DB. Looks interesting.
PostGreSQL recently released version 8.0 and now includes...
I've set up a new category on my blog where I plan to post some articles about using command-line utilities to perform various tasks for, or in support of, SQL Server. I'll go over the basics like bcp, osql, DOS commands, and hopefully go more in-depth on some other utilities from the Unix/Linux world that are incredibly useful. I'm hoping to even post a full case study where an existing monolithic, mission-critical VB app is replaced with command-line utilities (depends upon workload and office politics though) I won't post all of them in the main SQL Team blog page, so you...