SQL Server - Express
Watch the Elephant dance.
"order has shipped."
My copy of Bob and Dan's "A Developer's Guide to SQL Server 2005 has finally departed from whatever cave Amazon loaded them into. Can't wait to see how different it is. Its going to be a lot of reading too, its accompanied by Johnson's ADO.NET Advanced Topics book that I'm also looking forward too.
Is it time for me to take up the writing effort again? Maybe. I've got ideas, but what would you be interested in?
Doh! Sorry to be late getting this on the wire but the Heartland Developers' Conference for 2006 is has been announced. This year its in Omaha and runs from 26 October and 27 October. Hopefully I won't find myself in China again...
In its 3rd year, HDC06 is the largest independent annual professional Microsoft development conference in the nation, organized by user groups, and focused on .NET development and other emerging Microsoft technologies. HDC provides regional developers the opportunity to experience sessions usually reserved for Tech-Ed and PDC at a much lower cost while retaining the same nationally known presenters. Over 2 days, 23 sessions, 2 tracks, and several networking opportunities, HDC06 is where you’re find top knowledge experts that can prepare you for next level development.
For only $125 Early Bird/$175 standard, each Attendee Pass includes:
1 Conference pass to 2 keynotes and all 23 ninety minute sessions
- Meals including breakfast, lunch, snacks, and coffee breaks
- Access to the “Developer Lounge” expo and activity center
- Wireless internet access throughout conference area
- Pre conference networking party including drinks and food
- Thursday night “Developer Jam” including food, drink, and a casino for prizes!
- Attendee Kit and a chance to win a monster 64 Bit Alienware computer
The speaker list is looking awesome too: Microsoft's own Jeff Brand, Don Bryner and Jacob Cynamon. MVPs Dave Donaldson, Robert Hurlbut, Rocky Lhotka, Javier Lozano and Andrew Troelsen and community rockstars Craig Utley, Phil Wolfe, Robert Boedigheimer, Tim Gifford, Matt Milner and Nick Parker. I'm planning of giving a couple of talks on SQL Server 2005 for Developers.
Register here. And remember, we're talking a mere $125 one of the best Microsoft-focused technical conferences in the Midwest.
LAMP: Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP. A pretty nice combination of technologies for easily building interactive and Database-backed Websites. I love the concept, its one that Microsoft didn't really captialize on with .NET 1.x. Sure, you had Windows as the OS, not free, but affordable for businesses. You also have IIS which is easy enough to configure and has improved considerable with the introduction of IIS6. And, yes, ASP.NET 1.x was most certainly a great web applicaiton platform. But where was the bit that that competed with MySQL? Well, that was MSDE. Enough said. Little wonder why there's been a lot of interest in SQL Server 2005 Express Edition.
But something about that offering just didn't make out the gate in time. Namely:
- Like the MSDE story, there wasn't a free GUI for working with yet. For better or worse, XM didn't make it, and SSMSEE wasn't ready at RTM. I'm glad they didn't hold up for it, but its still somewhat holding the ASP.NET 2.0 platform for going head-to-head with LAMP, IMHO.
- Towards the end of the development cycle of SQL Server 2005, the SQL Team decided that Express Edition really should support Reporting Services and Full-Text search. However, that decision was really made too late in the cycle to include them in the RTM. Microsoft said these features would be available with SP1.
And so they are. Mission almost accomplished. It turns out that a CTP version of SSMSEE is now available at [0], so you can start getting a feel for how tool will help you write great applications. Books On-Line has also been updated to reflect the changes in it. You can download that from [1]. You also download the first CTP for Express Edition with Advanced Services from [2].
I believe the March 2006 CTP version of SQL Server 2005 will show as 9.0.2040.0. Don't worry, it still runs with .NET FX 2.0.50727.42.
[0]: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=82afbd59-57a4-455e-a2d6-1d4c98d40f6e&displaylang=en
[1]: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/thankyou.aspx?familyId=19db0b42-a5b2-456f-9c5c-f295cdd58d7a&displayLang=en&oRef=http%3a%2f%2fwww.microsoft.com%2fsql%2fctp_sp1.mspx
[2]: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=57856cdd-da9b-4ad0-9a8a-f193ae8410ad&displaylang=en
Oh, did I mention that if you want to win yourself $10,000 in the Made In Express contest, you can? Sounds like a heck of an opportunity for somebody not only write some really cool code but also put some green in bank.
As Greg and Wally have reported, I've been thinking about bringing back Take Outs as a PodCast. I'm pleased to announce with the the hosting support offered by Steve Wynkoop of SSWUG, its now a reality. The need-to-knows:
The RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/sswugorgradio
iTunes friendly feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SswugorgRadio?format=pcast
Episode one show notes and download file.
Let's roll!
The start of the new year always makes me think I want to do new things. This year I'm trying to eat more healthily, drink less and blog more. While you probably don't care so much about the first two of those, you're probably interested in the third. Afterall, consider what your doing right now...
Effective today, I'm shifting my blog focus from SQLJunkies (what you're reading right now) over to GeeksWithBlogs. Here's the new feeds and their RSS URLs.
I'll keep posting references to stuff about .NET and SQL Server on this site for some time to come, of course.
Sorry, I couldn't resist. And if you're a Perl Monger like me, you shouldn't either. SQL Server MVP Erland Sommarskog has just spun out MSSQL::OlleDB, a mod for working with MSSQL Server using OLE-DB (thus the name). There's a ton of documentation provided too, with examples.
Enjoy!
Yep, you can do that. Angel Saenz-Badillos has the details over here.
Spiffy!
How cool is that!
Want to learn more about SQL Server 2005 Express Edition? You can now download my SQL Summit presentation directly from Microsoft at:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=f07fd0b0-ef37-47d2-83a0-6415e63048cb&displaylang=en
Of course, its also available from:
http://www.gosqlserver.org/ssx20050331.zip
Feeling a bit of Deja Vu? Well, yes, this is about the third time I've run a very similar post but I just noticed that the April CTP for SQL Server 2005 Express Edition is available, so here we go again! New with the April CTP, you can self-nominate in the TAP program. Complete this survey and if you are selected to participate, you'll be able to get SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition CTPs directly from Microsoft.
Please be sure to read the release notes for this version since a lot has changed over time.
Finally, if you've been waiting saying “oh, I'll wait for Beta 3,“ don't! This is the version to begin your testing and playing with.
A frequent question I see on the various news groups goes something like this one: "Is it possible to download SQL Server 2005 for practice? Is there like student edition available for nominal fee? Subscribing to MSDN is very expensive for an individual."
Actually you can get all you need for "free.*" I'll point you at the most current stuff. As a reminder, this is unsupported beta software. Do not install it on a machine that you care much about being able to not uninstall it cleanly from (think FDISK, ok). It is best to install it to a virtual host (like VirtualPC), or make a really good backup first. Why? Uninstalling this software -- while not hard -- is order of component removal sensitive as talked about here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=97383299-E74B-4AF8-90C7-FA0CA20A10C4&displaylang=en
First, make sure you are running on an OS and hardware configuration that meets the minimum requirements:
- Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Windows 2000 Professional Edition , Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP Professional Edition with Service Pack 2. Note that Windows XP Home, Windows NT, Windows Me and Windows 9x are not supported at this time.
- Intel Pentium III or compatible 550-megahertz (MHz) or higher processor (1 gigahertz or more recommended). Certain non-Intel processors like the Transmeta and some odd-ball AMD chips have been problematic in the past.
- 256 megabytes (MB) of RAM (512 MB or more recommended for sure.)
- 1.3 GB of available hard disk space.
With that said, I normally recommend installing these bits in this order:
- The .NET framework version 2.0.50215.44 from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=44381
- The SQL Server 2005 Express Edition (SSX) bits, version 9.0.1116 from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=46&p=3&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=97383299-e74b-4af8-90c7-fa0ca20a10c4&genscs=&u=http%3a%2f%2fdownload.microsoft.com%2fdownload%2fe%2f1%2f1%2fe1196b19-de92-4ab2-bafd-5b5ad26e67b4%2fSQLEXPR.EXE
- Express Manager (XM) from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3212A9A2-B658-4710-B04E-8A28355F836D&displaylang=en
- The SQL Server 2005 Books online from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=40&p=1&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=97383299-e74b-4af8-90c7-fa0ca20a10c4&genscs=&u=http%3a%2f%2fgo.microsoft.com%2ffwlink%2f%3fLinkId%3d31046.
- You may also want to download and install the AdventuresWorks database to work with. There's a long posting in blog covering that. See http://sqljunkies.com/WebLog/ktegels/articles/installawdbssx.aspx
Note that this version is pretty much stand alone. If you want/need a rich "developer's environment," you may want to look at using one of the Visual Studio Express products instead (see http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/.) They ship with and install their own version of the .NET runtime and SSX, so there's no need to download and install them separately.
* Note that SSX isn't the full version of SQL Server 2005 and those differences are covered in the Express White Paper at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnsse/html/sseoverview.asp. That said, SSX is a great way to get started. By free, I mean that there's no charge to download or license to buy.
Last week was fun for me as I got to do the things I like best. If I could have just avoided catching a cold, it would have even better.
Monday was my last day at HDR and we finished the work day off at Old Chicago. It was very hard to go and I really do wish those who stayed behind the best.
Tuesday I drove up to my Brother's place in Black River Falls Wisconsin. They still have standing snow and water in the fields up there. After a long day of driving through Iowa, nothing tasted better than a tall glass of Oscar's Oatmeal Stout. Yum!
One thing about driving through Iowa -- If you can, get an XM radio. Sure, you could play CDs until your ears bleed, but I found myself bouncing between ESPN Radio, XM's version of Public Radio, XM xL Comedy, Lucy and Fred. Really helped the time to pass.
Wednesday I drove up to Eau Claire and spent most of the day in Borders (oh yeah, like I hated that...) since they were a T-Mobile HotSpot. Didn't really see new books of interest, but did find a nice (e.g., cheap) collection of Classic Music CDs.
That evening, I was lucky enough to get to talk to the Chippewa Valley .NET Users' Group about SQL Server 2005 Express Edition. Nice mix of folks in this group and they had some good questions for me. Hopefully I get the chance to visit with them again. Following that, I made the trip up to Minneapolis. Talk about the trip from heck. Pouring rain at about 35-degrees. When I finally did get to the cities, I had to park forever and day away from the Hyatt and walk there in the rain. Despite all that, though, I'm glad I did since Peter DeBetta was their to great and share a beer with me. We talked about the usual stuff: our families, work and beer. We talked about his book too, and since Unisys was nice enough to buy one for every that attended the conference.
Thursday was the SQL Server Summit. Paul Flessner really kicked the show of well by talking frankly about why SQL Server 2005 is going in the right direction and why its features are important to us as customers and to Microsoft as a company. You could tell by his words and actions that he really does care deeply about the server product family and certainly demonstrated the creditability from his years of experience as a IT manager to back that up. I only found myself going to the developer session tracks and found them to be really good. First up was Peter who gave a complete and hasty overview of SQLCLR and SQLXML. He's a fun to watch on stage too as you really see that he loves teaching. Next up was Don Farmer talking about SIS for developers. Don is fun to watch go. Andy Morrison has notes about this talk here. I didn't get to see the motivational speaker over lunch since I had some work to do elsewhere, but did make it back in time to watch Steve Hughes from Magenic give a pretty interesting talk about Reporting Services for 2005. I really enjoyed Craig Neville and Lara Rubbeike's (both from BORN) presentation on Service Broker. Finally it was my turn to get up and talk about SQL Express. You can download that presentation from here (never mind the type-os, please.) Didn't get to catch the closing Keynote.
After the Show, I drove over to see Dawn and James Renner, two friends of my from way back. Jim and I went to High School together, while Dawn and I went to college together. They have a charming Daughter named Carmen. We headed out to Howie G's for dinner and that pretty much ended my day. I'm probably spoiled by Sushi Japan, so I had a their Ribeye Steak (YUM!) and glass of no-name Shiraz instead of the Sushi.
Drove back home on Friday. Needing gas, I stopped for a while at the Cabela's store in Owatonna, MN. Really nice place... could spend way too much money there, espeically shooting at trophy like these that they have on display:
There seems to be some confusion about if there are "CTP" versions of the other Express product SKUs (other than SQL Server Express, that is...) There most certainly are, and here's a list of links for them:
As along as these use version 2.0.050110 of the .NET CLR, you should be able to use the February 2005 CTP of SQL Server 2005 Express and Express Manager with them.
And of course, remember: These downloads contain a more recent version of the product than the Beta, however, CTP builds do not go through the same rigourous testing that Beta builds undergo. Therefore, do not install these builds on machines you depend on. The new Community Technology Preview releases of the Express products now require registration and activation within 30 days of first use. This process is simple, free, and it allows us to personalize your experience on MSDN. If the products are not registered and activated within 30 days of first use, they will cease operating.
Concise, complete and to the point. Somebody give this man a raise!
Thank you yet again, Mr. Desai.
A frequent question I see on the various news groups goes something like this one: "Is it possible to download SQL Server 2005 for practice? Is there like student edition available for nominal fee? Subscribing to MSDN is very expensive for an individual."
Actually you can get all you need for "free.*" I'll point you at the most current stuff. As a reminder, this is unsupported beta software. Do not install it on a machine that you care much about being able to not uninstall it cleanly from (think FDISK, ok). It is best to install it to a virtual host (like VirtualPC), or make a really good backup first. Why? Uninstalling this software -- while not hard -- is order of component removal sensitive as talked about here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=08215D3F-9A1D-483F-8E21-A2EE19936899&displaylang=en
First, make sure you are running on an OS and hardware configuration that meets the minimum requirements:
- Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Windows 2000 Professional Edition , Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP Professional Edition , Windows XP Service Pack 1. Note that Windows XP Home, Windows NT, Windows Me and Windows 9x are not supported at this time.
- Intel Pentium III or compatible 550-megahertz (MHz) or higher processor (1 gigahertz or more recommended). Certain non-Intel processors like the Transmeta and some odd-ball AMD chips have been problematic in the past.
- 256 megabytes (MB) of RAM (512 MB or more recommended for sure.)
- 405 MB of available hard disk space.
With that said, I normally recommend installing these bits in this order:
- The .NET framework version 2.0.50110.27 from http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/a/7/ea749a11-f09f-4e9b-8d04-36763a71de58/dotnetfx.exe
- The SQL Server 2005 Express Edition (SSX) bits, version 9.0.1090 from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=08215D3F-9A1D-483F-8E21-A2EE19936899&displaylang=en
- Express Manager (XM) from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=67079BB3-4FD4-4638-B923-A13741179B98&displaylang=en
- The SQL Server 2005 Books online from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2adbc1a8-ae5c-497d-b584-eab6719300cd&DisplayLang=en The downloads are at the bottom of that page.
- You may also want to download and install the AdventuresWorks database to work with. There's a long posting in blog covering that. See http://sqljunkies.com/WebLog/ktegels/articles/installawdbssx.aspx
While I think using the February CTP is "the way" to go for most folks, you may and to use the less current but more stable Beta two bits. Those are at:
Note that this version is pretty much stand alone. If you want/need a rich "developer's environment," you may want to look at using one of the Visual Studio Express products instead (see http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/.) They ship with and install their own version of the .NET runtime and SSX, so there's no need to download and install them separately.
* Note that SSX isn't the full version of SQL Server 2005 and those differences are covered in the Express White Paper at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnsse/html/sseoverview.asp. That said, SSX is a great way to get started. By free, I mean that there's no charge to download or license to buy.
Not Kirk Haselden's article so much, which is interesting in and of its own right, but the title...
February CTP : Variable mappings in the ForEachLoop...
Hummm... might be time to start watching for another bit drop me thinks.
But I could be completely wrong. Wouldn't be the first time I've misguessed a date.
A frequent question I see on the various news groups goes something like this one: "Is it possible to download SQL Server 2005 for practice? Is there like student edition available for nominal fee? Subscribing to MSDN is very expensive for an individual."
Actually you can get all you need for "free.*" I'll point you at the most current stuff. As a reminder, this is unsupported beta software. Do not install it on a machine that you care much about being able to not uninstall it cleanly from (think FDISK, ok). It is best to install it to a virtual host (like VirtualPC), or make a really good backup first. Why? Uninstalling this software -- while not hard -- is order of component removal sensitive as talked about here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=66120BE8-826A-482A-8264-B1836F28FD79&displaylang=en
First, make sure you are running on an OS and hardware configuration that meets the minimum requirements:
- Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Windows 2000 Professional Edition , Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP Professional Edition , Windows XP Service Pack 1. Note that Windows XP Home, Windows NT, Windows Me and Windows 9x are not