Conferences and Classes

Eric Humphrey (Blog – @LotsaHelp) asked if I’d help out the Northwest Arkansas PASS chapter tomorrow and present remotely.  Because I know that you, reader, like to watch, here’s the coordinates: Start Time: Weds Jan 13th 11:45 AM Central (17:45 GMT) Attendee URL Meeting ID: ZRW878 Attendee Entry Code: X/~x]ZNH3 Audio: will be through your…

A survey just went out to SQLPASS members and it focuses some attention on where to hold the PASS Summit each year.  In November 2010, it’ll be held in Seattle for the third year in a row, and some folks think it should stay in Seattle permanently. I just don’t agree. Microsoft Doesn’t Have a…

During the Summit, I had the chance to talk to most of the PASS Board of Directors members in hallways, bars, and other off-the-record places.  I didn’t conduct formal interviews with them, but a few things consistently stood out when talking to each of them. These are smart people. I’ve never had a conversation with…

Next up in my PASS Summit interview series is Microsoft’s Val Fontama. Val focused on the new Parallel Data Warehouse Edition of SQL Server 2008R2, formerly known as Project Madison. I was really excited about the prospects of this new edition, and I had a lot of practical implementation questions. Let’s see whether the answers…

I interviewed Bill Graziano, the VP of Marketing for PASS, at the PASS Summit this year. Bill has a contagious upbeat excitement about him that makes him a good marketing guy. He started the Blogger’s Table at the PASS keynotes last year, and we started by talking about his accomplishments in marketing PASS. Bill’s Recent…

At last week’s PASS Summit in Seattle, I had the privilege to interview Wayne Snyder, the PASS President. Wayne doesn’t blog or use Twitter, so I was excited to get the chance to talk with him, get to know him better, and learn about his roles and goals. When I’m talking to somebody about a…

I missed the first 10 minutes of the keynote today when Kevin Kline (Blog – @KEKline) was recognized for his amazing decade of service to PASS. I was not present for the next 30 minutes of Dell keynote, but I did not miss it. </rimshot> I’m starting this blog entry now, but don’t refresh for…

Howdy, folks! I’m back at it for Day Two of the SQLPASS Summit in Seattle.  Refresh this page in your browser every couple of minutes if you’d like to see the latest additions.  No pictures today – I left my camera at the hotel. 8:42AM – Rushabh Mehta, the next PASS President, is getting things…

By the time you read this, I’ll have given out a bunch of maple bacon lollipops at the PASS Summit. Maple Bacon Lollipops, aka Man Bait I ran across these at Whole Foods and immediately bought the entire box.  Erika thought I was crazy.  (Well, I mean, to some extent she’s thought that for years,…

I’m in Seattle at the annual Professional Association for SQL Server Summit. Today marks the first day of the 3-day summit. Monday was a day of preconference sessions and volunteer sessions capped off with a welcome reception and a Quiz Bowl. You can refresh this page in your browser whenever you’d like to see my…

Last month, I joined forces with Andy Warren (Blog – Twitter) and Jeremiah Peschka (Blog – Twitter) to recognize you, dear blogger, for doing such a great job with your blogs. We wanted to give thanks to the community for churning out so much top-notch material, and there were definitely a lot of great nominations.…

Late-breaking news from the PASS Board this weekend: they’re putting on a live Q&A session at the Summit.  On Wednesday from 4:30PM to 6:15PM in room 6E, you can bring your questions and suggestions.  Attendees are welcome to live-blog it, tweet it, even record it with webcams and Ustream it live. I’m going to be…

Next week at the PASS Summit, I’m presenting a session called “Yes, I’m Actually Using The Cloud.” I’ll be talking about what’s out there, why I use it, and why you might want to use it too. Brendan Cournoyer of SearchSQLServer.com interviewed me recently about the topic and asked questions like: For those who are…

In this session at the PASS Summit in Seattle, I’ll talk about the options for SQL Server in the cloud today and how I’m using them for my projects.  I’ll talk about how to choose the right cloud-based solution for your needs, and I’ll do a live demo of working with SQL Server in the…

I don’t reread blog posts after I’ve read ’em once.  If there weren’t comments when I first read the blog post, I’m not likely to go back to check later to find out what’s going on. However, I published one post recently that you might want to reread.  I interviewed Matt Morollo about why he’s…

The PASS Board of Directors election starts on October 12th, and we’ve got four really well-qualified candidates to choose from: Brian Moran (Twitter) Jeremiah Peschka (Blog – Twitter) Matt Morollo (Twitter) Tom LaRock (Blog – Twitter) You can read their bios at the PASS Candidate List, and they’re good, but I wanted more. I emailed…

If you groan when you read the words “social networking,” you’re in the right place. I’m a practical guy.  If a tool doesn’t help me get my job done better/faster/cheaper, I’m not interested in screwing around with it.  Today, I’m going to explain how some social media tools help me, and why I don’t bother…

The PASS Board of Directors election starts on October 12th, and we’ve got four really well-qualified candidates to choose from: Brian Moran Jeremiah Peschka (Blog – Twitter) Matt Morollo (Twitter) Tom LaRock (Blog – Twitter) You can read their bios at the PASS Candidate List, and they’re good, but I wanted more.  I emailed each…

The PASS Board of Directors election starts on October 12th, and we’ve got four really well-qualified candidates to choose from: Brian Moran (Twitter) Jeremiah Peschka (Blog – Twitter) Matt Morollo (Twitter) Tom LaRock (Blog – Twitter) You can read their bios at the PASS Candidate List, and they’re good, but I wanted more.  I emailed…

The PASS Virtualization Virtual Chapter is working with virtualization vendors to build an FAQ, and we’re going to hand it out at the PASS Summit in November.  We’re also working on a unique Q&A panel event talking about SQL Server & virtualization – more on that shortly. We’ve put together a one-page (well, one long…