Ran across this article about burnout and thought it worth posting. Burnout is not fun to experience and heading it off isn't always easy, especially for those of us in IT. At least take a second and read the symptoms, maybe even if you're fine you'll recognize that someone else… Read more

Brian Kelley posted Giving a Presentation about a week ago and is worth reading, in particular his suggestion about Toastmasters I like (but have not tried) and the link to a post by Scott Hanselman. Today my friend Steve sent me this link to Tips for Public Speaking that you… Read more

Received news today that one of my submitted sessions - Should You Move Into Management - was accepted for the summit. Good news of course, this will be my nineth consecutive year presenting at the summit and it's always fun. Was disappointed to learn that the session I did last… Read more

I get a lot of questions about virtualization and really have few answers. At a high level it's not hard to see some opportunities in an enterprise where it makes sense, perhaps the most obvious being hardware consolidation, followed by virtual PC environments for testing. I'm sure there are other valid… Read more

I'll be doing a presentation for the Steel City SQL Group on June 17 and then on June 18th I'm doing an all day seminar on Performance Tuning at the Embassy Suites in Birmingham. Cost is $129 and that includes a nice lunch. The seminar is really targetted at the… Read more

I read Andrew Binstock occassionally in SD Times and in the most recent issue he posted a list of guidelines (which in turn was excerpted from 'The Thoughtworks Anthology') for learning to write "real" object oriented code. Read Getting the knack of OO Coding and see what you think. Some… Read more

Ran across this strange occurence while doing some testing. To duplicate the results (the actual code was a little more complicated) run this:

select top 1 * from sysdatabases

go 101

And you get:

Batch execution completed 101 times. The query has exceeded the maximum number of result sets that… Read more

I've been working on a rough outline for two new classes that will each be one day long. One on professional development, trying to teach how to build a realistic personal development plan, how to fund books and classes, when and how to blog, when to change jobs, and more… Read more

Recently I signed up for the FlyClear program (www.flyclear.com), a registered traveler program. Over the past year I've been travelling more than usual and security in Orlando can range from a breeze to having a 1000 people queued, makes the timing a little uncertain and waiting in line… Read more

I've grown to like the presenter view in Powerpoint 2007; let's me navigate easily, and more important, lets me easily leverage notes as I often have scripts embedded in the notes. If you haven't tried it it treats the projector as a second monitor, audience sees the slide full screen,… Read more

I get busy and usually forget to post when I'm out and about, but for once I've remembered. I'll be in Boston next week working and doing a vacationing after 5 pm. If you happen to be one of my 17.5 loyal blog readers (or even if you're not) and live… Read more

Our most recent SQLSaturday went well, but there is always room for improvement. Here are my notes from this event:

• The only criticism noted on the event evals was about directions. We only had a couple signs up and that just wasn't enough given the location. Why only a couple?…

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Time moves by and I was surprised to get a coffee mug in the mail from ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) announcing my fifth anniversary as a member, and also received an email with the same message. I joined ACM originally because it was part of a professional development plan… Read more

It would be handy to have a checkbox/SET option/something that would tell SQL not to cache plans run in a Query Analyzer session. Not a huge deal, but would keep from junking up the cache with plans that don't really matter and are unlikely to be reused again. In practice… Read more

How to have more SQLSaturdays? 

Over the past year we've been working on the ambitious goal of building a national franchise for SQL community events, one that is based on local involvement, a repeatable process, and a reusable web site. We've had good success here in Florida (three events… Read more

One of the interesting challenges of mentoring is knowing where the lines are; not trying to counsel about personal problems (other than listening perhaps), letting them grow in their way and not necessarily the way you did, etc, etc. So recently I got into a discussion - what if… Read more

Our 3rd SQLSaturday went amazingly well due to the efforts of Brian Knight and his volunteers. Attendance for the day was a massive 275 people! The day started well with wait time for check in no more than 5 minutes and everyone was patient thanks to our "greeter" Scott. Having… Read more

If you've read my blog much you'll know that I'm deeply involved in trying to figure out how to build a formula for SQLSaturday that others can reuse easily, and I like to watch how things are done - particularly events - to look for ways to do things better. Read more