You don't need to pay for a connection to the Net when you're working remotely. Loopback adapters enable a disconnected machine to have a working TCP/IP stack.
The .NET Framework 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005 make it easy to create a basic but extensible database-monitoring solution without a lot of complexity or coding.
SQL Server 2005's out-of-the-box diagrams show only the relationships between tablesuseful, but limited. Learn how to extend SQL Server 2005's database diagramming feature to produce full dependency diagrams.
Automating installations with SQL Server 2000 is easy because it creates a setup.iss file that you can use as input, but Microsoft removed this feature from SQL Server 2005. Learn an undocumented SQL Server 2005 feature that provides similar functionality to setup.iss.
Browsing unknown Web sites puts your system at risk for malware infection. Using a virtual machine as a sandbox for safer browsing provides an additional layer of security for your machine.