Create RSS feed from Microsoft Live Calendar and Google Calendar

In Microsoft Calendar:

• Click "Share" on the top menu bar and select the calendar to share
• Under Share, click Get link. If this has already been done, the message "You've already created all possible link types" appears. If both cases, continue with next step

• Under Permissions, click Links to event details and select and copy the URL from the ICS textbox.

The URL from XML only contains a random subset of calendar events and can therefore not be used directly as a complete RSS feed.

That is why Google Calendar is needed:

In Google Calendar:

• On the main page, click on the down arrow next to Other Calendar and click "Add by URL"

• Paste the ICS link from the Microsoft Calendar. Replace the "webcal://" prefix with "http://". Enable "Make calendar publicly available?"
• Wait for the calendar to be added and click on the down arrow next to it
• In the section "Calendar Address", click on Change sharing settings and select "Make this calendar public" and press Save
• Again, click on the down arrow next to the calendar that was just added
• In the section "Calendar Address", click on the XML icon and copy the link
• Test the link in a browser by pasting it. Add "?max-results=99999" at the end of the URL to get all events.

By default only the 25 most recently changed events are shown. To get all events in the RSS feed:
www.google.com/calendar/feeds//private-/basic?max-results=99999

Create script for deploying database roles and rights

The script below returns the create statements for all roles in a database. It also creates the statements that add the role members to the roles and assigns the role rights to the objects.

It can be filtered for one or some specific roles, e.g. the role "db_servicecockpit".

select sql from
(
-- 1) create role
select 1 as ord,
r.name as rolename,
concat('CREATE ROLE [',r.name,']') as sql
from sys.database_principals r
union all
-- 2) add members
select 2 as ord,
r.name as rolename,
concat('EXEC sp_AddRoleMember ''',r.name,''', ''',u.name,'''') as sql
from sys.database_principals u
join sys.database_role_members l on l.member_principal_id = u.principal_id
join sys.database_principals r on r.principal_id = l.role_principal_id
union all
-- 3) apply role rights to objects
select 3 as ord,
r.name as rolename,
'GRANT ' + p.permission_name + ' ON ' +
CASE p.class_desc
WHEN 'SCHEMA' THEN concat('[',schema_name(major_id),']')
WHEN 'OBJECT_OR_COLUMN' THEN
CASE
WHEN minor_id = 0 THEN concat('[',OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(major_id),'].[',object_name(major_id),']') COLLATE Latin1_General_CI_AS_KS_WS
ELSE
(
SELECT concat(object_name(object_id),' (',c.name,')')
FROM sys.columns c
WHERE o.object_id = p.major_id
AND c.column_id = p.minor_id
)
END
ELSE 'other'
END + ' TO [' + r.name + ']'  as sql
from sys.database_permissions p
join sys.database_principals r on p.grantee_principal_id = r.principal_id
left join sys.objects o on o.object_id = p.major_id
where p.major_id > 0
) x
where rolename = 'db_servicecockpit'
order by ord

Reporting Services in SQL Server 2016

Installing SQL Server 2016 CTP2 (Community Technology Preview) to test Reporting Services (SSRS) is a bit of a deception: the installer does not contain the developer tools! They (SSDT-BI or Report Builder) are also not yet available as a separate download as of June 10th 2015.

This fact is not communicated anywhere by Microsoft, although there is a mention by the SQL Server Team on June 1st 2015  in reaction to user Dave's remark concerning this:

Dave, agree completely, the tools upgrade is coming."

Source:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/archive/2015/05/27/sql-server-2016-first-public-preview-now-available.aspx

Or here by another user:
https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/sqlserver/en-US/fa8133bd-5cfa-4add-aa20-4c5442760d65/download-ssdtbi-samples-for-sql-server-2016?forum=ssdt

This prevents users from testing e.g. the new configurable parameter box.

For those still interested, the CTP can be found here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-sql-server-2016