Certification: Looking for advise

Hi All

I have been working with Ms access Database the last four years and have gained a lot of experience which help me to have extensive knowledge of Jet, Dao and Ado. Since The Begining of this year i hv been migrating to SQL server server and for that i bought two books :Programming Access project file with Microsoft Sql server and Access Developers Guide to Ms sql server : Chipman & Baron ( this oner is simply a great achievement ). They help me out in the very near past to complety migrate a two database approch Jet Application to a reliable (Adp/ SQL Server client server ) where major parts of the code business logic has been transfered to run on the server as stored procedures and all forms re-built as unbound. these merely leads to a great enhancement of the applications.

My goal now is register to MCDBA and get the certification. I am not interested by classroom training from Microsoft Parterns or online training. I am looking for books that can help to get well prepared for the exams.

Have found this two books in Amazon:

1 - MCAD/MCSE/MCDBA Self-Paced Training Kit: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Database Design and Implementation, Exam 70-229, Second Edition

2- MCSA/MCSE/MCDBA Self-Paced Training Kit: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 System Administration, 70-228, Second Edition

However their rating didn't encourage me to place directly my orders.

Does someone have any experience with them ?

Do you think they will considerably help me to add value to my knowledge of SQL Server and get ready for the exam ?

Do you know some others books you woul rather encourage me to buy ?

Any advice in this regards really appreciated.Transcender

www.transcender.com

Regards,

hmscott|||The MS Press books are not the best for learning. Try the Que or Sybex books for learning the material while preparing for certification. Make sure you get hands-on experience with all the examples and labs as you read the books. Use Transcender after reading the books to assess your readiness to take the test. Good luck!

Certificate creation problem

Hello to all

I have two SQL 2005 server and I want to start mirroring a database.
Since there's no windows domain I'm trying to use certificates to grant connection between servers.

At this point I find some difficulties...

I've read on MSDN that 'active FOR begin_dialog = ON' option must be specified; look at the code below, when I execute I get following error:

Msg 156, Level 15, State 1, Line 8

Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'FOR'.

CREATE CERTIFICATE Polx

WITH SUBJECT = 'Mirror certificate',

START_DATE = '10/31/2001',

EXPIRY_DATE = '10/31/2009',

active FOR begin_dialog = ON;

GO

CREATE SYMMETRIC KEY Key1

WITH ALGORITHM = RC4

ENCRYPTION BY CERTIFICATE Polx

GO

Any suggestion will be really appreciated!!!

By the way, do I have to create same certificate on the mirror server after creating it on the master?

Thanks, Carlo

You should try removing the comma before the ACTIVE keyword. From my experience with database mirroring, however, I don't remember this clause being required. The certificate used for mirroring needs to exist on both the principal and the mirror.

Thanks
Laurentiu|||

Here's some additional information about setting up database mirroring. I hope this will help:

http://blogs.msdn.com/lcris/archive/2005/09/14/466268.aspx

Thanks
Laurentiu

categories table

hi to all;

i want to make in my site the possibility for the user to make categories in the site

ex: he can add the category name"computer science" and then can add the category childs " data mining, software engineering,... "

so firstly i want to make a category table in my databasde to be able to save the category data

haw can i make this table? i mean what are the columns that should be in the table?what type of relationship should i make? and how to mahe it

sorry but i need any one to explain to me what should i do. and if anyone one know the solution please reply to me

thanks....

Selfreferencing tables ?

Code Snippet

DROPTABLE Categories

GO

CREATETABLE Categories

(

CategoryId INTNOTNULL,

ParentCategoryID INT,

DescriptionVARCHAR(4000)

)

GO

ALTERTABLE Categories

ADDCONSTRAINT PK_Categories PRIMARYKEY(CategoryId)

GO

ALTERTABLE Categories

ADDCONSTRAINT FK_Categories_Cetegories FOREIGNKEY(ParentCategoryId)

REFERENCES Categories(CategoryId)

GO

Jens K. Suessmeyer.

http://www.sqlserver2008.de