Have you ever wondered if your skills are in demand? With so many different possibilities available for web development, it is tough to know if you should keep mastering a specific technology or start learning a new one. After reading an article about how PHP programming jobs are in high demand, I asked myself the follow-up question: what other skills do I have that are in high demand, and which skills do I have that are not?

The article linked to a great resource from oDesk that lists the current (monthly) trends for many of the development and design skills used for web development. There are 84 different trends with a wealth of useful information about the skill's demand including graphs, stats, and recent job postings. Although these stats are pulled from information specifically on oDesk, it represents demand from all around the world. I have listed links to some of the most in-demand skills right now.

• CSS
• Drupal
• FreeBSD
• Flash
• PHP
• Photoshop
• MySQL
• XML
• JavaScript
• Ajax

As a side note, this site is a fantastic example of how great the Google Chart API is.

As a developer I have often wanted to be able to test query speeds among other things. The problem is I didn't always have a usable data set sitting around that could meet the requirements of my test cases. To make a long story short, I wish I had GenerateData.com a long time ago. This is a great tool and has a lot of potential. It can save a lot of time when you are trying to create your own test data set to work with.

GenerateData.com is currently in version 2.1 (released July 25, 2008) and offers a nice set of features. You can generate data in many different data types like addresses, numbers, lorem ipsum text, email addresses, phone numbers, and more. Once you have chosen what kind of data you would like to generate, you can choose from five different export options. You are able to export the data in XML, Excel, HTML, CSV and SQL formats. The SQL export options gives you the choice of MySQL or Oracle syntax. You can generate up to 200 records at a time, unless you donate $20 or more, which allows you to generate up to 5000 records at a time.

The generator is written using PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript. You can use the online version or download a copy of the script for use on your own server. The downloadable version is licensed under GNU. The website has requirements and installation instructions to follow if needed.

Prices have been published and are not being increased since the last version of SQL Server (2005). The prices are listed below with the different versions available.

I have listed the notable features below and there are quite a few. There are major improvements as well as minor fixes listed. There is a nice article about what's new in SQL Server 2008 on TechNet. The improvements and new features are within three main categories, trusted, productive, and intelligent.

Notable New Features

• New Date and Time data types
  • DATE
  • TIME
  • DATETIMEOFFSET
  • DATETIME2
• Grouping sets
  • An extension to the GROUP BY clause that lets you specify what to compute as an aggregate.
• MERGE SQL Statement
  • Transaction SQL statement that can be used to synchronize two tables based on their differences.
• Integrated Full Text Search
  • Full Text Searches allow you to compare values in a field based on words or phrases. This is similar to the LIKE comparisons, only comparing words or phrases instead of characters.
• Data Compression
  • Allows for more efficient storage and less storage. It also improves performance on I/O functions, such as data warehousing.
• Transparent Data Encryption
  • This feature will encrypt the database files automatically allowing for better security. This reduces the risk of data being discovered, even if the database files are obtained by an unauthorized user.

Technologies

• Analysis Services
• Data Mining
• High Availability—Always On
• Integration Services
• Manageability
• Performance and Scalability
• Programmability
• Reporting Services
• Security
• Spatial Data

Available Editions

• SQL Server 2008 Enterprise ($24,999)
• SQL Server 2008 Standard ($5,999)
• SQL Server 2008 Workgroup ($3,899)
• SQL Server 2008 Web ($15/proc/month)
• SQL Server 2008 Developer ($50)
• SQL Server 2008 Express (N/A)
• SQL Server Compact 3.5 (N/A)

For more detailed information, you can check out the white papers, or if you are looking to try it out, you can download an evaluation copy.

Additional Resources

• SQL Server 2008 Website
• SQL Server 2008 TechCenter
• SQL Server 2008 Developer Center

Databases are used in so many ways on so many websites. They are used for small tasks and large distributed networks scaled to handle millions of transactions per day. Sometimes we need a little help, a little push in the right direction in order to create a properly designed and normalized database. Thankfully, there are sites like DatabaseAnswers.org that provide help from "getting-started tutorials" to "database models."

There are over 500 free database models at this website. They are all viewable in data model form and can be saved as an image or printed. You are also able to request an access database for any of the data models available by simply emailing and asking for one. The data models span many different categories from customers to bookstores to catalogs, and the list just goes on. I have listed the top 20 data models below.

Top 20 Data Models

1. Libraries and Books
2. Inventory Control for Retail Stores
3. Hotel Reservations
4. Video Rentals
5. School Management
6. Clients and Fees
7. CD Collections
8. Customers and Invoices
9. Payroll
10. Apartment Rentals
11. Customers and Services
12. ERP
13. Car Sales
14. Customers and Addresses
15. Driving Schools
16. Health and Fitness Clubs
17. Hospital Admissions
18. Inventory of Files in Boxes
19. Sports Clubs
20. Airline Reservations

The creator of all of these database models runs multiple database companies; one is in the UK; the other is in the US. He has also created data models that are included in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express. He offers his reason for providing these saying, "I design these Data Models for free to give something back to the Database community that has provided me with a good (and interesting) living for the past 15 years" (DatabaseAnswers.org). Be sure to check these out and show some love for all the hard work that went into creating these and offering them for FREE!