02Oct 2009 by Grant Fritchey 15 Comments

Free Stuff and a SQL Server Standard Update

Misc, PASS
Great news. We've managed to get one article all the way through the process. We'll have our first publication out within a couple of weeks. We might even get a second out at the PASS Summit. We're working through the final details on contracts, author payments and the layout of the magazine, including cover art. That brings up a question. The intent is to publish high quality articles by great authors (and believe me, we've got exactly that coming down the pike). In order to reflect this, instead of just an HTML layout, we're going with Adobe Acrobat so that we can get that magazine feel, but online. My question... We're trying to decide what to do with cover art. Our options are: Some type of stylish picture, say, stamps…
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30Sep 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

SQL Server Standard Update

Misc, PASS
Just to keep people who might be interested up to date on what's happening with the SQL Server Standard relaunch. I've received some fantastic abstracts on a wide range of topics from a diverse group of SQL Server DBA's and Developers. From that, we've got a lot of articles in the hopper going through technical edits and second drafts. Three articles have made it all the way to copy edit. They should be done soon. I'm positive you'll see at least one of them, maybe two, before the PASS Summit. I need even more abstracts so I can publish even more articles. If you meet the qualifications to write for us, please submit an abstract to my PASS email address: grant.fritchey - at - sqlpass -dot- org (unobfuscate the obvious).…
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29Sep 2009 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

Vote for Mr. LaRock

PASS
It is rapidly coming up on election time at the Professional Association of SQL Server users (PASS). Once more, a person I respect and admire is running for office. Tom LaRock has been a volunteer with the organization longer than I have (I'm approaching four years) and for the entire time I've been involved he's been in the thick of things, working for the organization and working with the other volunteers. He does great work. He's presented at the Summit, three times I think, and he's presenting again this year. He's one of the people chiefly responsible for the new Virtual Chapters. He's been serving on the Board as an appointee. I think it's finally time to make it official and elect this great guy to the board. He'll do a good…
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24Sep 2009 by Grant Fritchey 1 Comment

Recap of Cape Cod .NET User’s Group

PASS
I presented last night at the Cape Cod .NET User's Group. What a great bunch of people. About 20 people showed up at the nice facility they're using, Venture Think Together. A little pizza and a little chat and the meeting got started. Marcia McLean, their president, gave me a nice little introduction and I went through my slides. As I did them, I kept thinking about some of the advice offered up by Brent Ozar yesterday. Suddenly my slides seemed so wordy. It started to throw me off, but I just ignored it & plowed on. Overall, I think the presentation went well. I hit a couple of snags on some of the examples that I'm going to tweak before I present this at the PASS Summit in just…
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23Sep 2009 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

PASS Virtual Chapters

PASS
If you're not a member of the Professional Association of SQL Server users, PASS, why not? No, I'm sorry. I meant to say, If you're not a member of PASS, you may not have heard about the change between special interest groups and the new Virtual Chapters. What used to be the SIG's has been repurposed, rebuilt and, let's say it, reborn, as Virtual Chapters. There's a whole new energy and all new web sites with content and presentations and more free training than you can shake a stick at. There are great opportunities to begin networking, and we all know how important that is as a means of career building. It's like having a really vibrant, active, useful user's group available 24/7. Get on over and check out the offerings…
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22Sep 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Cape Cod .NET Users Group

PASS
Tomorrow night, Wednesday, September 23, I'm going to present on "Best Practices for Working with SQL Server Execution Plans" for the Cape Cod .NET User's Group.  It's basically a rehearsal for the presentation that I'll be doing at the 2009 PASS Summit in just 5 weeks. Can you believe it's already almost here? I'm so jazzed. This year is going to be a great summit. I can't wait to see everyone again... I... Where was I, oh yeah, come down to Hyannis if you can make it. It should be a fun evening. Not quite as good as the Summit, but a good time.
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02Sep 2009 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

24 Hours of PASS

PASS, SQL Server, T-SQL
This was a pretty cool event. The advertising leading up to it seemed to really cover the community very well. There was even a link to 24 Hours of PASS in my team's local web site. Unfortunately, I'm not an iron man like Tom LaRock, watching all 24 hours. I only hit a few sessions. The first session I hit was Allen White's PowerShell for SQL Server. I have attended a couple of  his presentations at the PASS Summit. I think he's done a great job of gleaning better and better examples out of his presentations. This one was good. I loved the way he put together the backup processes for automating backups. It looked good, took into account common issues, it just worked. I was really happy I got…
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31Aug 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

24 Hours of PASS

PASS
Or, as you should tell your boss, 24 hours of free training by many of the leaders of the industry presenting original sessions that will teach you about topics from SSIS to Spatial Data to Index Selection to CLR performance to... well, you get the idea. This shouldn't be a hard sell for anyone to their boss. "Hey, remember that problem we had the other day with the database that was in simple recovery mode? Yeah, well, Kalen Delaney is presenting for an hour on just that topic." Your follow-up question to the boss, should then be, not, can I, but "Do you want me to get a meeting room and project this for everyone?" Developers, designers, architects, administrators, and managers are going to be able to find something interesting…
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25Aug 2009 by Grant Fritchey 6 Comments

PASS Board Nominations

PASS
I think the Professional Association of SQL Server users (PASS) is an extremely important organization for SQL Server DBA's. Even if you're not a member, you've never attended the Summit, gone to a local chapter meeting, read the magazine (while it was in print), took part in the special interest groups, or even read the technical articles available on the web site, you know, or work with, someone who has. What's more, the people who get involved with PASS are the ones that are growing and expanding. PASS members are the ones that are becoming leaders in the industry. PASS members influence the direction Microsoft takes with its products. PASS, it's members and volunteers, foster and grow the speakers, teachers, writers and MVP's that are showing you how to perform your craft as a…
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