I hope that you had a great festive season and that you are all refreshed for 2007, as 2007 looks like it is going to be a big year!

2007 is the year of the Australian Surf Lifesaver and WARDY IT Solutions is proud to be sponsoring the Queensland exhibition tour of Reel Heroes - Safe Beaches. Reel Heroes - Safe Beaches is an exhibition of fine art prints celebrating the Year of the Surf Lifesaver and the centenary of Surf Life Saving in Australia.

I am also proud to announce that I have begun authoring the book Pro SQL Server 2005 System Management Objects in VB 2005 for Apress.  At this stage the book is due for publication in the second half of 2007.

WARDY IT Solutions is holding the course Writing Queries for SQL Server in Brisbane on Monday 26th March 2007. There are a limited number of places still available for this course, so make sure you book your spot ASAP to avoid disappointment.

If you are looking for SQL Server news and resources between issues of the WARDY IT Solutions SQL Server newsletter then why not subscribe to the WARDY IT Solutions SQL Server Blog.

Happy Reading

Peter Ward

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WARDY IT Community Dinner

The WARDY IT Community Dinner is a casual event for IT professionals in South East Queensland. It's a fun way to meet some new people and find out how other people are dealing with the challenges that we face every day. The February WARDY IT Community Dinner is on Monday the 12th of February at Sultans Kitchen Paddington. Add this event to your Outlook Calendar.

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February QLD SQL Server User Group

At the February QLD SQL Server User Group, Rob Risetto from DbWerx Database Services will show how to determine the top SQL, Users, Applications and Databases utilising your SQL Server, and how to use the trace analysis data to benchmark and compare SQL Server performance over time. For more details and to register for this free event refer to here.

Don't forget that for every QSSUG meeting that you attend between January 2007 and June 2007 affords you an entry into the draw for free registration to the world's largest SQL Server conference the 2007 PASS Community Summit in Denver, Colorado valued at over AU$2000!

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SQL Prompt 3

If you are looking for Intellisense for SQL Server then you can't go past SQL Prompt 3 from Red-Gate Software. SQL Prompt 3 not only works with Microsoft Query Analyzer and SQL Server 2005 Management Studio to provide intelligent code completion but also provides code formatting to help you write perfectly formatted SQL statements. For more details refer to here.

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Tech-Ed 2006 Video's

If you were unable to attend the Tech-Ed event that was held in your region in 2006 or couldn't decide between sessions to attend then the It's Showtime videos will be an invaluable resource. It's Showtime is a collection of video's of Tech-Ed sessions from around the world that can be watched from here.

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Database Unit Testing

Team Edition for Database Professionals (aka Data Dude) provides a first-class unit testing framework for database professionals. Sachin Rekhi has written a great whitepaper on how to develop an effective database unit testing strategy . The whitepaper can be downloaded from here here.

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Advantages of a 64-bit Environment

If you are thinking of purchasing a new server for SQL Server 2005 then you should read this whitepaper on the comparison of 32-bit and 64-bit environments. This paper address many of the questions regarding 64-bit computing including when and why you should move to a 64-bit computing environment with SQL Server 2005. The whitepaper can be downloaded from here.

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SQL Server Express Resources

If you want to learn all about SQL Server 2005 Express Edition then the SQL Server Express Learning Resources is a great place to start. It contains a collection of videos that range in topics from What is a Database to Enabling Full-Text Search. The videos can be found here.

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Data Mining Add-ins

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Data Mining Add-ins for Office 2007 (aka Data Mining Add-ins) is a new release for SQL Server that allows you take advantage of SQL Server 2005 predictive analytics in Excel and Office Visio 2007. The CTP of the Data Mining Add-ins can be downloaded from here.

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SQL Downunder Code Camp

The dates for SQL Down Under Code Camp for 2007 have been finalised as October 13th and 14th. Once again the event will be held at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga. For more details refer to here.

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SQL Server Virtual DBA

Virtual DBA is a remote database administration service designed by WARDY IT Solutions to assist organisations with the management of Microsoft SQL Server. Our Virtual DBA service provides a cost effective solution to meet the day-to-day challenges of availability, performance and administration of Microsoft SQL Server databases. To find out more about the benefits of a Virtual DBA refer to here.

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