Luke Hayler - SQL Server developer

Got a great place to work? A beautiful setting in the countryside, an amazing office, a tricked out cubicle, awesome colleagues? What makes where you work so special?
I work projects, so have moved around a bit over the last few years when it comes to offices. I also make use of a small nook (think [...]

 
There have been a few blog posts lately about telecommuting, with some advocating it, others not and some even going to lengths to tell why you’re not.
I’m a big fan of telecommuting. Sometimes.

Brent Ozar (Blog | @Brento) wrote a great post on Why You’re Not Telecommuting (as well as several others which are [...]

Today I made a commitment, a commitment to the community. And it starts with SQLServerPedia Syndication. That commitment means that I’ll be writing more, interacting more, sharing more, and if at all possible, entertaining more. (OK, so I’m not sure about the last one, but I sure am gonna try).
I have to say, it’s [...]

There may be times when you need to get the top 10 (or n) rows from each group of your dataset to satisfy a business requirement. There are a few ways this can be done, but none so elegant as when you use RANK().
RANK() effectively applies a ranking to each rows in your dataset, based [...]

It’s almost time for another SQLBits, and in my [humble] opinion, it’s not soon enough. These free conferences are fantastic and if you do have the opportunity to attend I suggest you do so. Whilst I have only a small idea as to what goes into organising a conference, I am pretty sure that it [...]

The recruitment industry is a cut-throat and ruthless arena. Or so I’ve been told. It’s fast paced, with no time to spare on ifs, buts and maybes. Recruiters have a race against time to find the right candidate and get their details over to their prospective client. This race against time is not necessarily to [...]

 
OLE DB Source Adapter
The OLE DB source connection has several Access Modes:

Openrowset
Openrowset From Variable
SQL Command
SQL Command From Variable

For now, I am going to focus on the SQL Command options. Using the SQL Command Access Mode requires you to set the SqlCommand property (typing in your SQL query directly), effectively ‘hard coding’ [...]

That’s right folks. Another SQLBits is almost upon us. And this time it’s in London! This SQLbits is to be held at the Church House Conference Center on the 16th April 2010. Details will be updated over at www.sqlbits.com. Simon is on lookout for volunteers, so if you are interested in helping out in anyway [...]

That’s right folks. If you missed out on some (or indeed all) of the awesome presentations at SQLBits V, you can now view them online or download them for viewing at your leisure. Simon Sabin has done a great job once again, so a big thanks to him and the rest of the SQLBits team.
Here’s [...]

If you ever happen to be in a situation were you do not have access to or have ‘misplaced’ the SSRS report files (.rdl) and you need to edit one (or more) of the reports on your server, there is an easy way to download the .rdl files.
Follow these easy steps:

Open SQL Server Management [...]