The #SSPDreamTrip contest keeps attracting new members to the community.  You can read more about the contest, and here’s our four newest bloggers:

Jason Crider (Blog – Twitter)

Jason is a DBA/Sysadmin in Little Rock, Arkansas with over 10 years of IT experience. He holds a degree in Management Information Systems, a Masters in Christian Education, and is a certified MCITP Database Administrator for SQL Server 2005.  Some of his recent posts include:

• Upgrading from SQL Server 2000 to 2005 – Jason noticed that we didn’t have much info at SQLServerPedia about this highly requested topic, so he’s building a multi-part blog series and converting that into a wiki article.
• Setting Up Your SQL Server – with links to a lot of resources on best practices.
• Problems with the SQL Server Upgrade Advisor – this is a neat but seldom-used tool that can help you find problems in your code before you upgrade.

John Sterrett (Blog)

John works for Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP a Database Professional and Web Engineering Specialist in Wheeling, WV (Pittsburgh Area).  He focuses on developing data driven applications and database management.  Some of John’s recent posts include:

• Can SQLSaturday Happen in Wheeling, WV? He’s working to bring this popular SQL Server training event to town, and he could use your help if you live nearby.
• Find Tables Containing A Certain Column Name – I love the information_schema views.  Once you learn to script these, they come in so handy for all kinds of things.
• Backup Compression with SQL Server 2008 – 2008′s Enterprise Edition finally brought this long-demanded feature, and John talks about his compression findings.

Lee Anne Pedersen (Blog – Twitter)

Lee Anne is a SQL Server administrator with seven years of experience. She also tinkers in server administration, database development and programming.  When not studying SQL, Lee Anne is learning how to trade on the stock market.  Some of her recent posts include:

• Where in the World is SQL Server 2008? No, it’s not a comment about the low adoption rate, but a tutorial on spatial data.
• Discovering Aliases and Symptoms – Oracle folks use aliases kind of like SQL Server DBAs use linked servers, but different.  SQL Server’s new synonym feature gets even closer.
• Disappointment But Hope – Like many other DBAs I’ve heard, Lee Anne was initially approved to go to the PASS Summit, but the recession knocked out those plans.

Todd McDermid (Blog)

Todd has been developing software for two decades. In recent years, he’s discovered Business Intelligence and the Microsoft platform – turning him into an evangelist for using BI to support performance management in his current organization. He’s currently a moderator of the MSDN SSIS forums, coordinator of several CodePlex open-source projects, a frequent blogger on SSIS topics, and has spoken at a few user group meetings and conferences.  Some of his recent posts include:

• Looking Forward to Win 7′s XP Mode v2 – Todd talks about the challenges he’s had with this new virtualization technology.
• One Year Milestone – he looks back at his most popular posts.  I used to do this on Jan 1 every year, need to get back to doing that.
• Microsoft’s BI Certifications – the weaknesses of the current BI certification roadmap.  This same problem exists on the engine side too – I’d love to see a “Performance Tuner” certification, for example, because the current certs just don’t mean that much.

Two More Bloggers On Deck

We’ve had several requests from bloggers who write in other languages, but I didn’t want to have multiple languages in our RSS feed.  Long-term, we’ll need to create separate RSS feeds per language, but for now, two bloggers have decided to start writing in English to start reaching more readers.  I’m pairing them up with English-savvy editors to help improve the quality of their blogs.  More news on that this week.

Brent Ozar

Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.

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The #SSPDreamTrip contest to win a free trip to the PASS Summit has encouraged another community member to start blogging.

Today’s new blogger is Mike Hillwig (Blog – Twitter), an active member of the Twitter community and foodie.  Here’s his official bio from the site:

Mike Hillwig is a database administrator living and working in the Boston area. He currently works for a high tech company that makes IP telephony technology devices. Mike represents the little guys in database environments. His databases are measured in gigabytes and not terabytes. And he has hundreds of users and not thousands. Mike is also a Crystal Reports Jedi Master. Contrary to the blog name, Mike is very much a fun-loving person. He does get cranky with developers who don’t understand the concept of referential integrity.

Mike’s already making great contributions in his first few blog posts, which include:

• Using Sysjobhistory to Find Out What’s Taking Too Long – SQL Server stores job history data including runtimes, and you can use this data to alert you when a job is taking longer than its historical average.
• An Object By Any Other Name – object naming standards can start religious wars.
• Giving Microsoft Access a seat at the table – but only if you put a whoopie cushion down first. (Ha ha ho ho.)

Mike’s also talked to me about writing a wiki article for SQLServerPedia about using SQL Server as a job scheduler.  I’ve mentioned that I think a job scheduler belongs in the application server, not in SQL Server, but Mike has good points that will make a great article.  I’m looking forward to it!

We’ve got several more wiki articles that have been recently posted and are going through the editing process.  It’s first come first serve, and I’m already seeing multiple people try to write the same article topics.  Make sure to get yours started quickly – start fleshing out the skeleton in the wiki rather than working on it on your own computer.  That way, we’ll be more likely to use your article as the original, and the other person’s article as an enhancement to it.

Want to throw your hat in the ring?  Check out the contest rules, and good luck!

Brent Ozar

Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.

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We’ve got three new syndicated bloggers at SQLServerPedia this week!

Kevin Kline (Blog – Twitter)

How do I even begin to introduce Kevin?  He’s the former President of the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS).  He writes columns in Database Trends & Applications and SQL Server Magazine.  He’s written book after book, including the epic O’Reilly SQL in a Nutshell.  He’s Technical Strategy Manager for SQL Server Solutions at Quest Software, a leading provider of award winning tools for database management and application monitoring.

Kevin’s always blogged at SQLServerPedia, but now he’s got his own blog at KevinEKline.com, and we’re syndicating posts from there instead.  I’m a huge believer in everyone having their own blog where their original content lives, and I’m tickled pink that Kevin’s doing it too.  It’s so important to have your own identifiable web brand, even for SQL Server superstars like Kevin.

Some of Kevin’s recent blog posts include:

• More About Successful Directors versus Successful Technologists – this post is a great example about why you need to have your own blog.  Kevin elaborates on articles he did at other sites and links to other bloggers.  This is the kind of thing you can really only do if you’ve got your own blog presence.
• Great Blogs from Microsoft SQL Server Teams – Kevin points out some of his favorite blogs.
• Upcoming Events – Kevin’s upcoming speaking engagements.

Mladen Prajdic (Blog – Twitter)

Mladen is known for two things: a difficult-to-pronounce Slovenian name and for his SQL Server Management Studio Tools Pack, a free add-in for SSMS.  How many developers do you know that care enough to build free tools for the community in their spare time, plus blog?  That says a lot!  Some of Mladen’s recent blog posts include:

• Fast Running Totals with a Common Table Expression – Mladen shows off his l33t T-SQL skills.
• High Performance Event System with Extended Events – how to track SQL Server performance with this new feature.
• How to Check When SQL Server Was Installed – Mladen saw a question on Twitter, answered it, and then wrote a blog post about it.  Again – that’s dedication!

Ross Mistry (Blog – Twitter)

Ross is a principal consultant & partner for Convergent Computing. He’s a Microsoft SQL Server MVP, and he specializes in upgrades, high availability, security and virtualization.  He’s the author of the excellent book SQL Server 2008 Management and Administration, which I reviewed and highly recommended.  I’m also doing a webcast this week with him and Kevin Kline about SQL Server books.

Ross has been blogging over at NetworkWorld, but like Kevin, he’s also taken the step to create a blog under his own domain name.  I just installed WordPress for him and configured it, so he doesn’t have any blog entries yet.

If you’re a syndicated blogger and, like Ross, you’ve been thinking about building your own SQL Server brand but you haven’t quite been able to find the time to set it up, I’ll make you a deal.  I’m such a big believer in it that I’ll set you up for free.  I’ll buy your domain name, set up WordPress for you, and give you a year of WordPress hosting.  All you need to do is write blog posts, and you own ‘em.

If you’d like to syndicate your SQL Server blog at SQLServerPedia, check out my article on How to Syndicate Your SQL Server Blog.

Brent Ozar

Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.

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