Lately I have seen a number of questions regarding incremental update of some sort of counter placed in a central table.
The original posters will for some reason not use an IDENTITY column which has a minimum overhead and use of system resources.
And today I saw this type of question again (http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=114970) and I started to think if there actually were an alternative to IDENTITY column for their cases. I found a solution. I can't tell if it's elegant or not, but it work 100%.
If you are using SQL Server 2005 or later, you can stop reading here because Michael Valentine Jones has a working solution using the OUTPUT operator. But if you are using SQL Server 2000 or want to see a similar approach, please keep reading.

This is how you test my solution.
Open two new query windows in either Query Analyzer or Management Studio.

In first query window, copy and paste this code below

CREATE TABLE tSample
              (
                     i INT NOT NULL
              )

INSERT tSample values (0)

CREATE TABLE tLog
              (
                     i INT NOT NULL,
                     src VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL
              )

DECLARE       @i INT

WHILE 1 = 1
       BEGIN
              UPDATE tSample
              SET    @i = i = i + 1

              INSERT tLog
              SELECT @i - 1, 'Taken by code window 1'
       END

SELECT *
FROM   tLog

DROP TABLE    tLog,
              tSample

In the second query window, copy and paste this code below