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In the spirit of sharing, and noticing that Red Gate Software’s SQL Prompt is up to $295 dollars for a single license, I’d like to offer this freeware/beta that Red Gate released to the public right after it acquired the SQL Prompt software from a company (who was giving it away for free).  This application brings intellisense/code completion to Sql Server- Management Studio, Query Analyzer, Editpad (I think), etc.  They realized that they were going to have to make substantial changes to the codebase in order to optimize it to their standards; so in the meantime, the current version of SQL Prompt was offered up for free.  I havent been able to find this anywhere else, so- here it is:  the original freeware version of Red Gate Software’s SQL Prompt.  Its a beta type version, but works very well as far as I’ve used it.  It requires no license because it was released as freeware.  Download it here.

Red Gate Software's SQL Prompt - the freeware edition; Intellisense for SQL Server!!!

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ejnazzdwtwi/SQLPromptSetup.msi

Just found an outstanding program for opening/editing/??? .csv files.  CSVEasy - http://www.tizma.com/csveasy is an AWESOME program for opening csv files, from small to large.

CSVEasy Screenshot

I can’t get over how great this program is.  If CSVed chokes on the file, CSVEasy may be your answer!!  Although lacking some of the features that make CSVed great, CSVEasy pretty much fills in all the gaps.  Between CSVed, CSVEasy, and Excel 2007, you shouldn’t ever have trouble with .csv files again!!  Top notch app.

In my line of work, I deal with a lot of .csv files (we refer to them as .csv – comma seperated value – files, when in actuality they may be tab or pipe seperated, quote delimited, and/or some other random variation or mixture of tabs, quotes, commas, pipes, delimiters, etc.).  They can be a nightmare if they are given to you misformatted (in a pipe, i.e. ‘|’ , seperated file, if the text is not scrubbed for pipes before it is formatted, you end up with an invalid file (aka a file not able to be parsed by DTS, SSIS, ODBC Text drivers, Excel, etc.).  I have found a few tools that are very helpful when you are working with .csv files.

1.  CSVED – (download from) http://csved.sjfrancke.nl/

CSVED is the go-to-guy (next to Excel) in terms of CSV editors.  Although a low-key app, its free (!) and integrates really well into the Windows right-click context menu.  It gives you all sorts of options, from deleting columns from the file, to exporting the .csv in XML.  Absolutely top-notch freeware program.

2.  Excel – (download the trial from Microsoft.com)

Not freeware, but Excel does do a great job at opening .csv files (and fixed length, too!).  The trick is to paste all your data into the first column, then select “Text to Columns” and tell Excel about the file it is opening.  If you are using Excel 2003 or older, you are limited to around 56,000 rows.  Excel 2007 will let you open a .csv file with up to a million rows (very helpful).