July 12th was a good day for all SQL Server enthusiasts and professionals as Microsoft announced the release of both Service Pack 1 for SQL Server 2008 R2 as well as Community Technology Preview 3 for the next installment in the series, Codename Denali.

SP1 brings with it a number of stability and security fixes as well as some more advanced configuration options to fine-tune performance.  The most interesting update from my point of view is the updated syntax on the FORCESEEK index hint, which now has extra options to further fine tune queries.

If anything I’m probably a little late in writing this post as everyone and their dog seems to have used Google+, had their fun and either dismissed it as a fad that won’t last or seen something they like and accepted it as the new contender.  I’m definitely the latter.  I was initially disappointed by the “stream” interface and very nearly wrote it off then and there as a straight Facebook rip-off.  This definitely would have been a mistake and I’m glad I persevered.  You see, there are two things that I feel separate Google+ from the other social networks out there: Integration and Flexibility.  Let me elaborate:

I was lucky enough to get hold of an invite for Google+ earlier today thanks to one of the guys at work and some creative invitation methods.  I’ll cover my impressions of the new social media platform in another post but I wanted to cover an initial stumbling block separately first.  Naturally, after playing about with all the features and inviting half the office, we all decided to take a look at the mobile version of Google+.

There’s a fair mix of handsets in the office, covering iPhone, Android, Blackberry and my own, Windows Phone 7.  Google have already launched a native Android application for +, as expected, while other platforms have to settle for accessing the platform via the mobile web app, available at google.com/+.  While others were able to access the web application without any problems, I ran in to a bit of an issue with WP7.

Last night Google launched their own contender for Facebook’s crown.  Google+ is the search giant’s newest concept to tackle “Zuck” and Co. at their own game and even take it further.  The move surprised a large number of people in the search and social media industries, despite a number of glaring (at least in hindsight) indications.  There was a suprising lack of information around the launch, not even the usual industry gossip around such an announcement.  Naturally, the web has since exploded with the news.

So, what is Google+ and what does it mean to you and me?

Vizualize.Me are gearing up to launch their infographic resume (CV to you and me)  over the coming months.  The private beta is due to kick off in July, with a public beta soon to follow at the beginning of August.  This innovative service takes your LinkedIn profile data and turns it into a collage of charts, visualisations and colours encompassing your employment history, qualifications and skills, all in a single click.

There are people out there who struggle to remember the correct order in which to specify T-SQL commands in Microsoft SQL Server.  While I’m not actually one of them, I did like this nice little mnemonic from guest columnist Andy Owl over at SQL Server mega-resource, SQL Server Central.

Self-confessed social “anti-network” site OneTrueFan has recently launched a new API, currently in beta, which provides a staggering level of access to their “Fanalytics” data.

OneTrueFan works via a combination of Facebook/Twitter integration and a custom browser add-on, which tracks your browsing behaviour.  By tracking which pages you visit, what content you share and what you post about, OneTrueFan can compare and rank all their users and offer valuable insight into users’ online behaviour.

A lot of my job as a software developer for a digital marketing company involves investigating new tools and finding out ways of analysing websites and their content, usage and trends.  As such, my team are always discussing new things we can explore and coming up with new ways of looking at the web.

We’ve discussed sentiment analysis many times before, checking keywords or site content to determine whether what’s being said is in a positive of negative tone.  One of our discussions today resulted in one of the guys finding uClassify’s Sentiment Classifier.