Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane.

2006

This was my very first year of blogging so I was every day learning something new. As I have said many times, that blogging was never an intention. I had really not understood what exactly I am working on or beginning when I was beginning blogging in 2006. I had never knew that my life was going to change forever, once I started blogging. When I look back all of this year, I am happy that we are here together.

2007

IT Outsourcing to India – Top 10 Reasons Companies Outsource
Outsourcing is about trust, collaboration and success. Helping other countries in need has been always the course of mankind, outsourcing is nothing different then that. With information technology and process improvements increasing the complexity, costs and skills required to accomplish routine tasks as well as challenging complex tasks, companies are outsourcing such tasks to providers who have the expertise to perform them at lower costs , with greater value and quality outcome.

UDF – Remove Duplicate Chars From String
This was a very interesting function I wrote in my early career. I am still using this function when I have to remove duplicate chars from strings. I have yet to come across a scenario where it does not work so I keep on using it till today. Please leave a comment if there is any better solution to this problem.

FIX : Error : 3702 Cannot drop database because it is currently in use
This is a very generic error when DROP Database is command is executed and the database is not dropped. The common mistake user is kept the connection open with this database and trying to drop the database. The database cannot be dropped if there is any other connection open along with it. It is always a good idea to take database in single user mode before dropping it. Here is the quick tutorial regarding how to bring the database in single user mode: Using T-SQL | Using SSMS.

2008

Install SQL Server 2008 – How to Upgrade to SQL Server 2008 – Installation Tutorial
This was indeed one of the most popular articles in SQL Server 2008. Lots of people wanted to learn how to install SQL SErver 2008 but they were facing various issues while installation. I build this tutorial which becomes reference points for many.

Default Collation of SQL Server 2008
What is the collation of SQL Server 2008 default installations? I often see this question confusing many experienced developers as well. Well the answer is in following image.

Ahmedabad SQL Server User Group Meeting – November 2008
User group meetings are fun, now a days I am going to User Group meetings every week but there was a case when I have been just a beginner on this subject. The bug of the community was caught on me years ago when I started to present in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar SQ LServer User Groups.

2009

Validate an XML document in TSQL using XSD
My friend Jacob Sebastian wrote an excellent article on the subject XML and XSD. Because of the ‘eXtensible’ nature of XML (eXtensible Markup Language), often there is a requirement to restrict and validate the content of an XML document to a pre-defined structure and values. XSD (XML Schema Definition Language) is the W3C recommended language for describing and validating XML documents. SQL Server implements XSD as XML Schema Collections.

Star Join Query Optimization
At present, when queries are sent to very large databases, millions of rows are returned. Also the users have to go through extended query response times when joining multiple tables are involved with such queries. ‘Star Join Query Optimization’ is a new feature of SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition. This mechanism uses bitmap filtering for improving the performance of some types of queries by the effective retrieval of rows from fact tables.

2010

These puzzles are very interesting and intriguing – there was lots of interest on this subject. If you have free time this weekend. You may want to try them out.

• SQL SERVER – Challenge – Puzzle – Usage of FAST Hint (Solution) 
• SQL SERVER – Puzzle – Challenge – Error While Converting Money to Decimal (Solution) 
• SQL SERVER – Challenge – Puzzle – Why does RIGHT JOIN Exists (Open) 

Additionally, I had great fun presenting SQL Server Performance Tuning seminar at fantastic locations in Hyderabad.

Installing AdventeWorks Database
This has been the most popular request I have received on my blog. Here is the quick video about how one can install AdventureWorks.

2011

Effect of SET NOCOUNT on @@ROWCOUNT
There was an interesting incident once while I was presenting a session. I wrote a code and suddenly 10 hands went up in the air.  This was a bit surprise to me as I do not know why they all got alerted. I assumed that there should be something wrong with either project, screen or my display. However the real reason was very interesting – I suggest you read the complete blog post to understand this interesting scenario.

Error: Deleting Offline Database and Creating the Same Name
This is very interesting because once a user deletes the offline database the MDF and LDF file still exists and if the user attempts to create a new database with the same name it will give error. I found this very interesting and the blog explains the concept very quickly. Have you ever faced a similar situation?

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)