1) Connect a Flat File Source to OLE DB Source first.  Connecting automatically will pre-fill some settings.

2) To speed processing between a Flat File and an OLE DB source, in the OLE DB Destination Editor, set the Data Access Mode to Table or view - fast load.

3) Methods to remove duplicates in the Flat File source

• Add a sort and check remove duplicates check box.
• In OLEDB Destination, redirect duplicate errors to OLE DB Destination Error Output (use the Advanced Editor).

4) SQL Resources

• http://www.toadsoft.com/get2knowSS/
• http://bidshelper.codeplex.com/

5) Another way to remove duplicate rows through the use of the Partition By clause: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/70807/

• Webcast of Sara Ford's 105 Visual Studio tips in 55 minutes: http://oreillynet.com/pub/e/1730
  
  
• I was working with a SSRS 2008 report, and saw this error message in my Visual Studio 2008 output window when I ran the report: [rsInvalidColor] The value of the BackgroundColor property fot the textbox 'textbox36' is Transparent, which is not a valid Background Color. 
  
  Here is the expression I had for setting the background color property for the textbox:
  
  =IIF(Fields!BatchContractedOpenQuantity.Value < 0, "Yellow", "Transparent"")
  
  The fix was to replace Transparent with "#FFFFFF".  
  
  =IIF(Fields!BatchContractedOpenQuantity.Value < 0, "Yellow", "#FFFFFF")
  
  The link where I found the fix.  
  
  
• I was working with the Enterprise Library Logging Application Block, and I noticed that the time being logged was not local time, but UTC time (Coordinated Universal Time).  The time appeared twice in the log record.  In the Timestamp column, and in the Formatted Message column.  The fix for the Timestamp column was easy: set the LogEntry.TimeStamp property to DateTime.Now.  To fix the formatted message, I changed the token from {timestamp} to {timestamp(local)}.  Here is the link where I found the information for the formatted message.
  
  
• I was trying to run a WPF application located on a server in a remote location and it was having a problem connecting to the SQL server located at company headquarters.  I was getting the following error message: Timeout expired.  The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding.   The fix: Added Connect Timeout=120 to my connection string.  The number 120 is the number of seconds before a timeout occurs.  The default was 15 seconds.