I sure hope you’re planning on attending the PASS Summit this year. If you’re not, you might want to reconsider. They’ve just released the list of sessions. You should click this link and check them out. There’s going to be some magnificent instruction available in all aspects of SQL Server. You don’t want to miss it. On a personal note, I’m doing an all-day pre-conference seminar on query performance tuning. It’s called “Query Performance Tuning: Start to Finish.†The pre-con’s, as we call them, are an additional cost on top of the cost of the Summit itself. But you’re flying out to Seattle anyway. Why not attend a full day of learning, walk away with a little more knowledge under your belt. I’m going to give you as much information…
I say it all the time because it’s worth repeating, feedback is a gift. Good, bad or indifferent (well, not indifferent), feedback is a wonderful gift. Any time you appreciate a speaker, give them feedback. Any time you think a speaker could improve, give them feedback. Any time you hate a speaker, give them feedback. It’s really the best thing you can do. With that in mind, I have a huge stack of gifts in front of me here, the evaluations from the PASS Summit.Thank you very much to each and every one of the 160 different evaluations I received. I presented three times at the summit, once on a pre-con with Gail Shaw called “All About Execution Plans,†one time in a spotlight session called “DMOs as a Shortcut…
Microsoft is supporting an effort by PragmaticWorks targeted at supporting technical training for returning veterans. I can’t think of a single better cause to throw some support behind. Not one. They’re going to donate money based on posts about #sqlfamily. Well done to Brian Knight (blog|twitter) and all the team at PragmaticWorks. I knew you were great people, I just didn’t know how great. Thanks to Microsoft and the SQL Server Team for their support of Brian. Oh, and for all the work you guys do with SQL Server. I may bitch about you guys more than you’d like, but it’s only because I live inside your software, constantly. I wouldn’t be there all the time if you didn’t do great work. Keep it up. We can talk about this…
In keeping with the past, I’m going to go ahead and post my evals for the two sessions I did at Connections in Vegas back in November. It was a mixed conference for me. The first session I had ~80 people. The second session I had 9. Yeah, weird. But there were great speakers there (as usual) so I’m hardly shocked that I had low attendance, but the funny thing is I expected the sessions to be reversed. The low one was the session I lavished love & attention on. The high one wasn’t given as much of my focus. Figures. Here are the evals. I love how Connections shows the high, mean and low so you get a sense of how you fit. SQL Server Optimization Checklist (36 responses)…
Earlier this year, I wrote a post about my upcoming plans for the year in response to a question asked by Jen McCown (flat out, one of my favorite people, blog|twitter). It was supposed to be about resolutions, but I just don’t make those. I make plans. Here we are, close to a year later (11 months). How did the plans work out? The first one, hinted at the time, was to start a new job. Well, that’s done and it’s going swimmingly, thank you very much. The job has turned out to be harder than I thought it was going to be. I travel more than I thought I was going to travel (although we’re keeping it within the limits we agreed to, I love my new company). Frankly,…
And we’re off. We opened with a video of people saying “Connect, Share, Learn†and “This, is Community†Rob Farley & Buck Woody came out with a song about long running queries. [8:20]Wayne Snyder has been working with the PASS organization since 1999. He spoke at the first PASS Summit and he’s been on the board forever. He has finally hit the point as immediate-past president where he has to leave the board. We’ve got a great little thank you for him from all sorts of people. Wayne is a magnificent guy, seriously. If you see him, thank him for his service. [8:28]We have a new executive committee, Bill Graziano as President, WHOOP, Douglas McDowell is Executive Vice-President and Thomas LaRock is VP of Marketing and finally, Rushabh Mehta is…
Bill Graziano has come out on stage, looking marvelous, in a traditional kilt and stockings. Thanks Bill. For those who don’t know, Day 2 at the Summit every year is Kilt Day. [8:19]Outstanding volunteers being recognized are Tim Radney and Jack Corbett. These are some outstanding people who work their bottoms off for the PASS Community. If you meet them, thank them. The 2011 PASSion Award goes to Lori Edwards. She’s simply amazing. Congratulations Lori and thank you for all the work you’ve done! [8:23]Time to eat our vegetables. We’re looking at the financials. It’s a slightly painful process, but important to understand where the money goes since this is a non-profit organization managed by volunteers. You should understand where the money comes from and where it goes. [8:25]Quentin Clark…
You know I share what feedback I get from conferences. I don’t usually get feedback from users groups (well, I do, but it’s seldom written down and the bruises heal eventually). The St. Louis SQL Server Users Group did collect information. Since I share the other stuff, I may as well share this too. They didn’t have a metric. It was just written down comments. Here are a few, my comments, as usual, will be in parenthesis: Enjoyed the demos; Everything worked (ditto, the enjoying demos working part) Good speaker; just dislike presentations w/ remote speakers.(Me too. I prefer interaction. I like seeing heads nodding or shaking or eyes rolling up so I know if I’m covering things well enough. Remote presentations are hard & can be very boring to…
In keeping with the all my other major speaking engagements, I’m posting the results of my pre-con and session evals at the first-ever SQL Rally. I’m posting this really late and I apologize. The good news, I did a fill-in when someone cancelled and I was placed in the Grab Bag category where I had the highest rated session although it was a far cry from the actual highest rated sessions from the whole Rally. There is no bad news. Query Performance Tuning: Start to Finish I was pretty happy with this considering it’s my first, public, all day training class. I’m even happier with the feedback. I received some excellent constructive criticism that I will attempt to take into account when I present in the future (including at…
Welcome once more to the Miskatonic branch of SQL University. I see that most off you survived out last encounter… uh, class. Most of you even appear somewhat sane… somewhat. Today we’re going to talk about PowerShell and it’s use with SQL Azure. Which sounds a something like an eldritch horror breaking in from some outer dimension… hmmm… that could explain certain things… So, back to Powershell and SQL Azure. You can’t run Powershell from SQL Azure. Thank you for attending and enjoy your trip home. Still here? I did try. Let’s clarify. You can’t run PowerShell from SQL Azure, but I didn’t say that you couldn’t use SQL Azure as a target for PowerShell. It is possible to connect to your SQL Azure databases running PowerShell from a local…