I’m just like you, except I’m from your future. Lemme rewind a few years and explain. My Job Search Five Years Ago In 2005, I was working from home doing database administration, coding, and Classic ASP. I absolutely loved my coworkers, but I was burned out, and the company was in rough financial shape. They’d…
Yesterday I blogged about how to get readers to pay attention, but not everybody wants that. Some people yearn to be forgotten, to be ignored, and disappear into the ether. Don’t offer an RSS feed or email subscriptions. If someone happens to stumble upon your content, don’t give them an easy way to find out…
Whether you’re submitting a session abstract or writing a blog post, you gotta get your readers to stay focused. Write an awesome, straightforward title. Like it or not, people judge books by the cover. When you’re writing a presentation abstract or a blog post, the title is your cover. Sweat it. Hit hard with the…
The good news is that the people have spoken. The bad news is there were less than 200 people involved. I’m hesitant to read too much into a survey with such a small sampling of a big audience, but hey, it’s what we’ve got. The PASS 2010 Summit survey results are out, and a few…
When I lose my MVP status, we’ll all look back on this blog post and understand why. I just can’t help myself though – Microsoft has made some real head-shaking decisions over the last couple of weeks. Sorta-Kinda-Announced-But-Not-Really – At UK Tech Days, Microsoft staff announced a release date of May 21st. No press releases…
Last week I posted a picture on Twitter of the two books I’m reviewing right now: Tom LaRock’s DBA Survivor and Bert Scalzo’s Introduction to Oracle. They’re both 100-level books. People didn’t seem to question the former (perhaps because Tom’s a friend of mine) but I got a lot of comments about the latter. Why…
My flight to the PASS European Summit and the PASS London chapter just got cancelled due to the volcanic ash mess. We talked about trying to find more ways around it, like flying into other parts of Europe and then hoping to catch a train to Dusseldorf. Ultimately the alternate routes were too expensive (both…
The SQL Server 2008 R2 release date was April 21, 2010. You can download SQL Server free as an evaluation version. I’ve written a lot about the new features: SQL Server 2008 R2 Pricing and Feature Changes – the pricing is going up, but you get new features in Standard Edition. SQL Server 2008 R2:…
The Microsoft Certified Masters program doesn’t run itself. David Ikeda and Joe Sack manage the monster, and I’d like to take a minute to thank them for everything they do. Someone’s gotta review the applicants. Not everybody gets accepted into the program. Some candidates don’t have the necessary experience, and some are just looking for…
I need a backup presentation device when I travel. During my epic European trip failure, my laptop failed in Copenhagen, and all kinds of hell broke loose. I decided I’d always travel with a second device that could do PowerPoint presentations. For a while, I used a netbook, but I hated carrying fifteen pounds of…
When I got done writing just two chapters in Professional SQL Server 2008 Internals and Troubleshooting, I swore I’d never write another book again. No way. I tweeted that the authoring process was like punching yourself in the junk as hard as you could while editors stood behind you asking you to punch harder and…
On Twitter, several SAN pros were saying their snapshots can pull off some nifty stuff. Well, it’s time to find out just how true that is. Let’s say we have a data warehouse with: One 2TB database, using SQL Server partitioning – needs 8 data files and 1 log file One 200GB database for reporting…
If the DBA answer is always, “It depends,” how can Microsoft test DBAs? Every week of the MCM program, attendees take a multiple-choice test. Afterwards, we gathered in the hallways and vigorously debated our answers. We agreed about most of the questions, but we had loud discussions about the pros and cons of a dozen…
The MCM isn’t perfect. The instructors and David Ikeda (the lead for this rotation) are trying hard to make the experience great, but there’s some areas for improvement. I’ve been holding back from discussing them until I’d seen all of the instructors; I didn’t want to post a complaint and have people connect that complaint…
NoSQL is a good idea with a bad name. You wouldn’t put on your NoJeans to drive to work in your NoFord. But put away the crappy label for a minute and check out what the NoSQL movement has going for it, because they’ve got some good points. In the Microsoft Certified Master training, I’ve…
