Technical Articles

R.H. Sheldon has written a number of articles related to software technologies. He contributes regularly to Windows IT Pro (and related publications at Penton Media), Simple-Talk, and SearchSQLServer. He also has a tech article out there on Suite101. Listed here are a number of his more recent articles.

Windows IT Pro and Penton Media (subscription required to access some articles)

“Protect Your PowerShell Scripts: Three precautions is all it takes” Windows IT Pro, December 2009.

“Save Your PowerShell Code in Profile and Script Files: The final lesson in the PowerShell 201 series explores how to make PowerShell code last for more than just one session” Windows IT Pro, June 2009.

“Create Your Own PowerShell Functions Lesson 5 in the PowerShell 201 series explores how to create, call, and use functions” Windows IT Pro, May 2009.

“Working with PowerShell's Data Types: Lesson 4 in the PowerShell 201 series explores how to work with strings, arrays, and other types of data” Windows IT Pro, March 2009.

“Accessing SQL Server Data from PowerShell, Part 2: Use ADO.NET to insert, update, and delete data” Windows IT Pro online, December 16, 2008.

“Test for Numerous Conditions with PowerShell's switch Statement: Lesson 3 in the PowerShell 201 series explores how and when to use the switch statement and its components” Windows IT Pro, December 2008.

“Accessing SQL Server Data from PowerShell, Part 1: Leverage the .NET object model” Windows IT Pro online, November 13, 2008.

“Integrate MySQL and SQL Server: Use SSIS to retrieve data from a MySQL database and insert it into SQL Server tables” SQL Server Magazine, November 2008.

“Controlling Your Code's Flow with PowerShell's Conditional Statements: Lesson 2 in the PowerShell 201 series explores how to use the if, for, and while statements” Windows IT Pro, November 2008.

“Iterating Through Collections with PowerShell's foreach Loops: Lesson 1 in the PowerShell 201 series explores how to use the foreach statement and ForEach-Object cmdlet” Windows IT Pro, October 2008.

“Access Security Event Logs with PowerShell: Retrieve, sort, and specify details about events”  Windows IT Pro online, September 19, 2008.

“Data Manipulation with ADO” Windows IT Pro online, September 5, 2008.

“PowerShell 101, Lesson 6: How to work with PowerShell's built-in drives and create new drives” Windows IT Pro, July 2008.

“Accessing Database Data with ADO” Windows IT Pro online, June 6, 2008.

“PowerShell 101, Lesson 5: How to access, create, and use variables” Windows IT Pro, June 2008.

“Introduction to ADO Use ADO within VBScript to access various data sources” Windows IT Pro online, May 14, 2008.

“PowerShell 101, Lesson 4: How to properly use quotes when working with strings” Windows IT Pro, May 2008.

“PowerShell Makes Security Log Access Easy: Use the PowerShell command line to retrieve system intrusion, account modification, and policy manipulation information from the Security event log” Windows IT Pro online, April 10, 2008.

“PowerShell 101, Lesson 3: How to use PowerShell's operators and wildcards” Windows IT Pro, April 2008.

“PowerShell 101, Lesson 2: How to create pipelines and manage output” Windows IT Pro, March 2008.

“PowerShell 101, Lesson 1: How to Get what you need to create basic PowerShell commands” Windows IT Pro, February 2008.

“PowerShell One-Liners for Managing Events” Windows IT Pro online, October 2007.

“PowerShell One-Liners for Accessing WMI” Windows IT Pro online, August 2007.

“PowerShell One-Liners for Managing the File System” Windows IT Pro online, August 2007.

“Migrating to PowerShell? Don’t Scrap Your Existing Code Just Yet” Windows IT Pro online, July 2007.

“Dig Out By Digging Into PowerShell” Windows IT Pro, July 2007.

“Scripting Data Flow in SQL Server Integration Services” February 2007.

“Scripting Control Flow in SQL Server Integration Services” January 2007.

Simple-Talk

“Working with the bcp Command-line Utility” November 12, 2009.

“Managing Transaction Logs in SQL Server” November 12, 2009.

“Using Information Schema Views” October 1, 2009.

“Transact-SQL Formatting Standards (Code Styles)” August 25, 2009.

“Defragmenting Indexes in SQL Server 2005 and 2008” July 31, 2009.

“Working with Precedence Constraints in SQL Server Integration Services” July 7, 2009.

“Using the FOR XML Clause to Return Query Results as XML” May 27, 2009.

“XML Data Modification Workbench” April 28, 2009.

“Working with Property Expressions in SQL Server Integration Services” March 16, 2009.

“Full-Text Indexing Workbench” February 2, 2009.

“Understanding Full-Text Indexing in SQL Server” December 29, 2008.

“SQL Server Index Basics” November 25, 2008.

“SQL Server Data Warehouse Cribsheet” November 3, 2008.

“Using PowerShell to Generate Table-Creation Scripts” October 4, 2008.

“SQL Server 2008 - SSIS Data Profiling task” September 10, 2008.

“SQL Server 2008 SSIS Cribsheet” August 5, 2008.

SearchSqlServer (TechTarget)

“Using DELETE and TRUNCATE TABLE statements to delete data in SQL Server” November 10, 2008.

“Working with IntelliSense in SQL Server 2008 Management Studio” September 14, 2009.

“Working with sparse columns in SQL Server 2008” June 2, 2009.

“Implementing SQL Server 2008 FILESTREAM functionality” May 25, 2009.

“Using the OPENROWSET function in SQL Server” April 16, 2009.

“Loading data files with SQL Server's BULK INSERT statement” March 11, 2009.

“Importing and exporting bulk data with SQL Server's bcp utility” February 18, 2009.

“Creating Windows PowerShell scripts to manage SQL Server 2008 instances” January 14, 2009.

“The sqlcmd utility in SQL Server” December 17, 2008.

“How to create a SQL inner join and outer join: Basics to get started” December 3, 2008.

“Implementing security audit in SQL Server 2008” November 11, 2008.

“New datetime data types in SQL Server 2008 offer flexibility” October 21, 2008.

“Using DATEADD and DATEDIFF to calculate SQL Server datetime values” October 7, 2008.

“Using SQL Server datetime functions GETDATE, DATENAME and DATEPART” September 11, 2008.

“SQL Server data conversions from date/time values to character types” August 11, 2008. The most viewed SQL Server tip by SearchSQLServer.com readers in 2008.

“Basics for working with DATETIME and SMALLDATETIME in SQL Server 2005” July 29, 2008.  Number 3 in the list of Top 10 most viewed SQL Server tips by SearchSQLServer.com readers in 2008.

“How to use rank function in SQL Server 2005” July 7, 2008.

“Create a computed column in SQL Server using XML data” June 16, 2008.

“Open SSIS packages without validation using these SQL properties” May 27, 2008.

“Create DDL table in SQL Server 2005 to audit DDL trigger activity” May 5, 2008.

“Retrieve XML data values with XQuery in SQL Server 2005” April 9, 2008.

“Five steps to event handlers in SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)” March 10, 2008.

“Simplify queries with SQL Server 2005 common table expressions (CTEs)” February 13, 2008.

“Custom VB.Net scripting in SQL Server Integration Services” December 18, 2007.

Suite101

“Seven Habits of Highly Effective Tech Writers: Know the Basics, Style, Project, Structure, Audience, Tools, Facts” August 11, 2009.