I've become a columnist for MSDN magazine and my first column is available in the online edition, Feb 2009 issue today. I'm doing a column every few months called "Under The Table", about database-centric development. The first column is about one of the most exciting (IMHO) new features in SQL Server 2008, spatial data type […]
Bob Beauchemin
SQL Server Blog
My First MSDN column is live today
Posted on: January 28, 2009 9:02 pm
Added categories to a lot of old blog entries
Posted on: January 20, 2009 12:17 pm
If you seem to be getting tons of my old blog entries, it's because I've gone back through all of them and added categories. All the way to 2004. This doesn't produce updates/duplicates for my blog reader, but it may produce them for yours. Available categories are listed for easy search. I still get questions […]
About comments on this blog
Posted on: January 17, 2009 3:17 pm
For those folks who wrote comments on the blog posts and wondered why they do not appear…. they should appear now. When our new blogging software was installed (about 3 months ago or so), a new requirement appeared….I must personally *approve* (or delete) each comment; freshly posted comments will not appear. So, I'm going back to […]
SQL Server Compliance Portal is now live
Posted on: January 14, 2009 2:39 pm
Today I came across the new SQL Server 2008 Compliance Portal. This portal has information and links to the new Compliance whitepaper and compliance scripts (the "sample files" at the bottom of the main page on the compliance portal). New features for ensuring compliance in SQL Server 2008 include Policy-Based Management, Auditing, and TDE, to […]
Spatial Methods: What’s with the ‘ST’?
Posted on: January 9, 2009 4:31 pm
When SQL Server's spatial data types were introduced, people asked "Why does every standard method begin with ST" (e.g. STIsEmpty). SQL Server docs always cite the OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) specifications, but OGC's methods do not begin with ST. Where did it come from? As far as I can figure the "ST" before every standard […]
SQL Server Spatial: EMPTY vs. NULL
Posted on: January 9, 2009 4:16 pm
Yesterday a friend asked me if it was better to always use a value of GEOMETRYCOLLECTION EMPTY as an alternative to making a geometry/geography column nullable. OGC has its own concept of database NULL, that is [GEOMETRY] EMPTY, where [GEOMETRY] can be any valid geometry subtype (that is 'POINT EMPTY', 'LINESTRING EMPTY', etc). When I asked why […]
