I have came through below wiki article on Microsoft technet, which have a nice collection of eBooks and articles on Microsoft Technologies.

Download content for SharePoint, Lync, MS Office, SQL Server, System Center, Visual Studio, Web Development (asp.net), Windows Server, Window Azure, Windows Phone and other Microsoft technologies in e-book formats (references, guide, and step-by-step).

E-Book Gallery for Microsoft Technologies

Source: social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/11608.e-book-gallery-for-microsoft-technologies.aspx (Monica Rush)
Source: mstechtalk.com/collection-of-e-book-and-articles-on-microsoft-technologies/ (Adnan Amin)

In last days, I was trying to restore SharePoint web application backup using PowerShell, but run into following error (although my sharepoint version was newer then the backup version)

Restore-SPSite : Your backup is from a different version of Microsoft SharePoint Foundation and cannot be restored to a server running the current version. The backup file should be restored to a server with version '14.0.0.5138' or later.

Following is the quick overview / steps which I followed and successfully restored the SharePoint backup. Might be this could be applicable in your case

If you have the source database files (mdf and ldf) not the SharePoint backup file then follow step 2, otherwise step 1 and 2

Step 1.

• Create a virtual machine if you don’t have
  
  
• Install SharePoint on that vm if your don’t have it on that vm
  
  
• Make the environment version same by installing the same cumulative update(s) which source server has. Once the server has the same version as of the backup, in my case it was (14.0.0.5138). (to check SharePoint version central administration -> upgrade and migration -> check product and patch installation)
  
  
• Create new web application and Restore the SharePoint backup.
  
  
• In sql server, detach the restored SharePoint database and physically copy database files (mdf and ldf)

Step 2.

On SharePoint environment where you want to restore the backup (this SharePoint version obviously needs to be later version, in my case it was 14.0.6029.1000)

• Create web application (no need to create site collection) (central administration -> application management -> manage web application-> new)
  
  
• Remove content database of newly created web application (central administration -> application management -> manage content database -> choose web application from the dropdown -> click on database name -> choose offline from database status and check mark Remove content database) (make sure you have selected the newly created web application and its content database)
  
  
• In sql server, detach that content database of newly created web application
  
  
• Physically replace the detached content database files (mdf and ldf) from the SharePoint backup's mdf/ldf file (which were taken from step1 or from the original server / source)
  
  
• Attach Database (while attaching, after selecting mdf file, Change the Database name as of file name in Database to Attach's -> Attach As textbox, then on same screen, select/browse both mdf and ldf file in database details section -> Current File Path)
  
  
• Open SharePoint 2010 Management Shell, and add content database using following command
  stsadm -o addcontentdb -url <URL name> -databasename <database name>
  
  
• Then follow remaining application specific restore steps (for e.g. change site collection administrators, changes in web.config, add or change global resource files etc.)

Then access web application, hope so it would restored successfully

If you want to show records (Parent Child concatenation), then following SQL Server recursive query could help you in achieve. For a clear picture have a look at following snap

Recursive Query showing only child Records

with parentChildResult as

(

       select ItemId,

                     ItemDescription,

                     ItemCategoryId,

                     cast('' as nvarchar(max)) as ParentNames

       from Items

       where ItemCategoryId is null

        union all

        select i2.ItemId,

                     i2.ItemDescription,

                     i2.ItemCategoryId,

                     parentChildResult.ParentNames + ' > ' + parentChildResult.ItemDescription

       from Items as i2

       inner join parentChildResult

              on parentChildResult.ItemId = i2.ItemCategoryId

)     

 select ItemId,

              stuff(ParentNames, 1, 3, '') + ' > ' + ItemDescription as ParentNames

from parentChildResult

 where ItemId in

(

       SELECT i.ItemId FROM Items i

       WHERE NOT EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM Items I2 WHERE i.ItemId = I2.ItemCategoryId)

)

order by ParentNames

Recursive Query showing All parents and Child Records

with parentChildResult as

(

       select ItemId,

                     ItemDescription,

                     ItemCategoryId,

                     cast('' as nvarchar(max)) as ParentNames

       from Items

       where ItemCategoryId is null

        union all

        select i2.ItemId,

                     i2.ItemDescription,

                     i2.ItemCategoryId,

                     parentChildResult.ParentNames + ' > ' + parentChildResult.ItemDescription

       from Items as i2

       inner join parentChildResult

              on parentChildResult.ItemId = i2.ItemCategoryId

)     

 select ItemId,

              stuff(ParentNames, 1, 3, '') + ' > ' + ItemDescription as ParentNames

from parentChildResult

 order by ParentNames

Query to find all the Tables and Index with number of days statistics being old. Then run Update Statistics command to update statictics for optimized query plan.

SELECT
OBJECT_NAME(A.object_id) AS Object_Name,
A.name AS index_name,
STATS_DATE(A.OBJECT_ID, index_id) AS StatsUpdated ,
DATEDIFF(d,STATS_DATE(A.OBJECT_ID, index_id),
getdate()) DaysOld
FROM sys.indexes A
INNER JOIN sys.tables B ON A.object_id = B.object_id
WHERE A.name IS NOT NULL
ORDER BY DATEDIFF(d,STATS_DATE(A.OBJECT_ID, index_id),getdate()) DESC

Accessing JD Edwards Data on iSeries or AS/400 from a ASP.NET

Facing problem, while retrieving field data from JD Edwards to SQL (SSRS Reporting), giving Error or Special unicode characters,
because, the returning data was a stream that needs to be converted into ASCII (ebcdic37String) using Cp037 Encoding.

public static String convertEBCDIC37ToUnicode(String ebcdic37String)
{
 String encoding = "Cp037";
 byte[] ebcdic;
 String converted = null;
 try
 {
  ebcdic = ebcdic37String.getBytes();
  converted = new String( ebcdic, encoding );
 }
 catch (Exception e)
 {
  //Handle it
 }
 return converted;
}

Yesterday, after restoring CRM DB backup on other maching and importing Organization using Deployment Manager of CRM 4.0, I received this error.

The SELECT permission was denied on the object 'BuildVersion', database 'MicrosoftCRM_MSCRM', schema 'dbo'
or the variation
The SELECT permission was denied on the object 'SystemUser', database 'MicrosoftCRM_MSCRM', schema 'dbo'

If you have tried changing the owner of new database with admin login making it as dbowner but did not help then following may help solving this problem

Right click the affected object (table/view etc) in my case it was 'BuildVersion' and 'SystemUser' in SQL Server Management Studio,
click on properties
click on "Permissions" on left tab
click on "View schema permission" link on right tab
click on "Add" button,
click on "Browse" 
select "CRMReaderRole" of type Database role.
click ok,
click ok,
now you will be again in object properties.
Place check mark in "Grant" column against "Select" permission
click ok

Now check hope so it has been resolved.

================

To change the dbowner command is (If required)

use <CRMDatabaseThatYouNeedToChangeTheOwner>
exec sp_changedbowner 'DOMAIN\AdministratorMappedWithCrmAdmin'
go


===============

I was getting this error
No authority could be contacted for authentication
   at System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol.ReadResponse(SoapClientMessage message, WebResponse response, Stream responseStream, Boolean asyncCall)
   at System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol.Invoke(String methodName, Object[] parameters)
   at Microsoft.Crm.ReportingServices2005.ReportingService2005.CreateReport(String Report, String Parent, Boolean Overwrite, Byte[] Definition, Property[] Properties)
   at Microsoft.Crm.Reporting.ReportServer.UploadReport(String path, Byte[] reportDefinition, String name, String description)

along with this error
Stack Trace Info: [MissingParameterException: The 'CRM_CalendarType' parameter is missing a value]
   at Microsoft.Reporting.WebForms.ParametersArea.ValidateAllReportInputsSatisfied()
   at Microsoft.Reporting.WebForms.ReportViewer.OnPreRender(EventArgs e)

This error may have many resons. The resoultion which help me in solving this problem was to first unjoin then again join report server machine to/from domain. 

If above did not help in solving then do the following which is "totally not recommended" and "should not do" in production server
Allow annonymous access and select priviliged user / administrator in ReportServer's virtual directory -> properties -> Directory Security