Fiction review this week. I recently read Patriot Acts by Greg Rucka, the continuation of the story that started in Critical Space (highly recommended). The story picks up with our main man Atticus on the run for a murder he didn't do, and things go downhill from there. He's still… Read more

I'm just finishing up SQL Server 2008 Query Performance Tuning Distilled by Grant Fritchey and Sajal Dam and overall I've been with impressed with the book. I think it covers all the major topics and goes into a reasonable level of detail, the kind you need to know to solve… Read more

A few weeks back I wrote about trying out the LinkedIn Add-in and time has reinforced for me that it's not something I'll use often, whether due to my habits or it's design. About the same time I also loaded the Xobni add-in. Overall it comes across as much more… Read more

As I've mentioned in earlier posts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) I've engaged speaking and networking Don Gabor to help me build my skills. I recently had my second coaching session and wanted to share more of what I've learned so far. The plan was for… Read more

Just had a call with Ken Starnes last week and all is proceeding for a great two track event in Portland. It will be located at Mt. Hood Community College 26000 S.E. Stark Street Gresham, Oregon 97030. It's their first event and Ken is forecasting 70-100 attendees. If you know… Read more

My friend Grant Fritchey recently posted in response to a quiz and at the end of that mentioned that he'd be interested in hearing about my thoughts on the topic. It's an interesting topic, so I'll see what I can come up with. I'll start by saying that I definitely… Read more

I drove up on Friday night for the speaker dinner, getting there after a busy day trying to catch up on things. Had about 14 at dinner, and it was a nice low key event. It was two long tables for dinner, not conducive to moving around, so one of… Read more

I've been trying to feature a blog each month and for April (one day late!) it's Aaron Alton. HOBT stands for 'heap or b-tree' (or Help Order Big Tires?) and I like that Aaron is a fairly consistent poster, averaging 10-12 posts per month that are almost always about SQL,… Read more