Posted by Rhonda Tipton on July 1, 2008
A Join combines records from two (or more) tables to create a new data set. There are several ways to join SQL tables. Below are the most common Joins.
- INNER Join – Result will contain matching records from both tables
- LEFT Join – Result will contain all records from the “left” table even if the join-condition does not find any matching record in the “right” table
- RIGHT Join - Result will contain all records from the “right” table even if the join-condition does not find any matching record in the “left” table
- FULL Join – Result will contain all records from both tables, and fill in NULLs for missing matches on either side
- CROSS Join – Result will contain returns the cartesian product of the sets of records from the two joined tables (Dangerous with large tables)
Instead of including all the normal code snippets illustrating each type of join, I am listing links to others who have done that job very well.
The above articles are ones the I will likely reference over and over again.
Posted in SQL Server | 6 Comments »
Posted by Rhonda Tipton on June 29, 2008
This is is my weekly link post. It is here that I note the web sites and posts that I have run across that interest me - whether it be related to work or play.
Application Development/Design
SQL Server & PowerShell
Houston Area & Regional Technology Events
Internet, Software and General Technology
Blogging and Social Networking
Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career
Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else
–
Great Link Blog Sources
–
Happy Surfing.
Posted in Links | No Comments »
Posted by Rhonda Tipton on June 24, 2008
Derik Whittaker has started a great video tutorial site called Dime Casts. The tutorials are just the right length to fit into a busy day.
There are videos on LINQ2SQL, Extension Methods and Visual Studio just to name a few and more are being added often. The videos are also downloadable in two resolutions or you can just watch them online.
Dime Casts are a great way to learn new technology ten minutes at a time.
If you use Twitter, don’t forget to follow DimeCastsDotNet.
Posted in .NET General, Recommendations, Tutorials | 2 Comments »
Posted by Rhonda Tipton on June 22, 2008
This is is my weekly link post. It is here that I note the web sites and posts that I have run across that interest me - whether it be related to work or play.
Application Development/Design
SQL Server & PowerShell
Houston Area & Regional Technology Events
Internet, Software and General Technology
Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career
Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else
–
Great Link Blog Sources
–
Happy Surfing.
Posted in Links | 1 Comment »
Posted by Rhonda Tipton on June 15, 2008
This is is my weekly link post. It is here that I note the web sites and posts that I have run across that interest me - whether it be related to work or play.
Application Development/Design
SQL Server & PowerShell
Houston Area & Regional Technology Events
Internet, Software and General Technology
Blogging and Social Networking
Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career
Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else
–
Great Link Blog Sources
–
Happy Surfing.
Posted in Links | 1 Comment »
Posted by Rhonda Tipton on June 13, 2008
I am currently working in a large company as a Developer/Analyst. I work primarily with Visual FoxPro (Mid-Senior Level), but am striving to learn .NET (Beginner).
We are migrating our legacy software which is written in DOS FoxPro 2.5, VFP 3.0 and VFP 7.0 to .NET. The new Windows application includes a WPF/C# front end and SQL Server back end. We have a team that maintains the legacy applications (which is the one that I am on) and a team that is building the new application. Sometimes, the lines cross and I do get to work on the new software. Because the lines do not cross as much as I would like, I find myself having to find ways to keep my enthusiasm at a decent level.
Every now and then I run across blogs and podcasts that help me with my enthusiasm and passion for development. Last week’s Hanselminutes on the subject of Finding Passion for Software is a great example of the kind of content that really turns my thinking around - "maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel".
Below are some things that I do to keep myself enthusiastic:
- Attend User Group meetings and Code Camps/Tech Fests - I cannot afford to go to big conventions like TechEd and VSLive, so free local area events are the next best thing.
- Read development books and publications - There is so much content online, but I still feel that a hard copy every now and then is needed. I subscribe to CoDe Magazine, MSDN Magazine and SQL Server Magazine as well as try to keep a book with me at all times. That way even if I don’t have access to the internet, I can keep my learning in motion.
- Listen to Podcasts on Development and general technology - there is a plethora of podcasts out there and new ones starting up constantly.
- Watch online videos - Again, there is a ton of online tutorials. (Dime Casts, How Do I Videos, ASP.NET Tutorials, GridView Guy Video Tutorials)
- Subscribe to blogs (XML)
- Social Networking - There are a lot of Developers on Twitter and FriendFeed. You really pick up a lot of information following other people in the Development Community.
In closing, my current work situation sometimes makes it difficult to stay interested in my chosen profession, but thanks to the abundant amount of resources, I seem to stay interested and enthused.
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Related Content
Posted in .NET General, Development, Personal, Self-Improvement | 2 Comments »
Posted by Rhonda Tipton on June 12, 2008
I attended the June Houston .NET User Group meeting tonight. There were about 55 people in attendance which is a pretty good turnout. Still enough people to keep me from winning any door prizes. 
The sponsor was Pariveda Solutions, an information services technology company.
Michael Steinberg , the HDNUG President, gave a high-level talk on the new features SQL Sever 2008. His talk was followed by an overview of Windows Server 2008 and IIS 7, given by John Hellman, the HDNUG Vice President.
Other information provided
- In July, Marcus Egger will be speaking on the subject of Silverlight
- The 2008 Houston TechFest will be held September 13th at University of Houston
All in all, it was an evening of great information.
Posted in .NET General, Community | No Comments »
Posted by Rhonda Tipton on June 10, 2008
C# In Depth
Author: Jon Skeet
Publisher: Manning
No. Pages: 392
Jon Skeet does a great job of demonstrating the differences between the features of C# 1, 2 and 3. An abundant amount of detail is provided on the history of the features and how they evolved into C# 3. There are also some great analogies used throughout the book.
In my opinion this book is a perfect size. It is 392 pages, but really seems like more due to the amount of detail.
Some of the major items this book covers -
- Generics
- Delegates
- Anonymous Methods
- Partial Types
- Expression Trees
In closing, this is a great book for intermediate to advanced developers. I believe even beginners will pick up some great concepts.
Happy reading…
Posted in Books | No Comments »
Posted by Rhonda Tipton on June 8, 2008
This is is my weekly link post. It is here that I note the web sites and posts that I have run across that interest me - whether it be related to work or play.
Application Development/Design
SQL Server & PowerShell
Houston Area & Regional Technology Events
Internet, Software and General Technology
Blogging and Social Networking
Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career
Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else
–
Great Link Blog Sources
–
Happy Surfing.
Posted in Links | 2 Comments »
Posted by Rhonda Tipton on June 7, 2008
The GZipStream class is a part of the System.IO.Compression namespace. This class is used for the compression of data. Before the .NET 2.0 Framework, the only choice we had for compression were third party tools.
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Common Methods (Full List)
- BeginRead - Begins an asynchronous read operation.
- BeginWrite - Begins an asynchronous write operation.
- Close - Closes the current stream and releases any resources (such as sockets and file handles) associated with the current stream.
- EndRead - Waits for the pending asynchronous read to complete.
- EndWrite - Handles the end of an asynchronous write operation.
- Read - Reads a number of decompressed bytes into the specified byte array.
- Write - Writes compressed bytes to the underlying stream from the specified byte array.
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Below is a simple C# console application that takes an input file, compresses it and creates a compressed zip file.
C# Listing
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.IO.Compression;
public class GZipTest
{
private static void usage()
{
Console.WriteLine(“My test GZip program”);
Console.WriteLine(“gziptest [filename to be compressed]“);
}
static void Main(string[] args)
{
if (args.Length < 1)
{
usage();
return;
}
else
{
string inputFile = args[0];
string outputFile = inputFile + “.gz”;
try
{
// Get bytes from input stream
FileStream inFileStream = new FileStream(Path.Combine(Environment.CurrentDirectory, inputFile), FileMode.Open);
byte[] buffer = new byte[inFileStream.Length];
inFileStream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
inFileStream.Close();
// Create GZip file stream and compress input bytes
FileStream outFileStream = new FileStream(Path.Combine(Environment.CurrentDirectory, outputFile), FileMode.Create);
GZipStream compressedStream = new GZipStream(outFileStream, CompressionMode.Compress);
compressedStream.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
compressedStream.Close();
outFileStream.Close();
Console.WriteLine(“The file has been compressed. UR Da Bomb!!!”);
}
catch(FileNotFoundException)
{
Console.WriteLine(“Error: Specified file cannot be found.”);
}
}
}
}
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The command-line illustration below shows the application at work.
- If no argument is provided, the usage syntax is echoed to the screen
- If the argument provided cannot be located, error is echoed to the screen
- If correct argument is provided, the file is compressed and a new file is created
The result (compressed) file created.
View the compressed file in a Zip application.
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The GZipStream class is not as feature-rich as the third-party tools, but it is a convenient way to compress data.
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Related Content
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Happy programming…
Posted in C# | 2 Comments »
