A new code sample has been released on MSDN that demonstrates how to return search results in an app for SharePoint.

“The SearchApp sample accepts a query using the keyword query language (KQL) syntax as an input. It subsequently makes a call to the search engine using the search Representational State Transfer (REST) service. The results are then displayed in a table, which is built dynamically using JQuery and JavaScript.”

As a best practice, SharePoint should be installed using a SQL alias.

Think of a SQL alias like a DNS record, but also being able to refer to a specific SQL instance name.

If you need to upgrade database servers in the future, you will usually be keeping the existing DB server in place, and creating a separate DB server environment (e.g. SQL 2005 vs SQL 2008). If you had your SharePoint installation configured with the server name details of the SQL 2005 environment, then now you have to undertake a long and arduous process to move to 2008.