The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam ($15 at Amazon) was really the first reading I have done on Korea, and it was a frustrating story to read. The writing was fine, the story of the over done downsizing of the military after WWII, the poor… Read more

We’ve just posted our core guidelines for technical content on sqlpass.org. The short story is there are three main ways to get published; write a Top 10 list, build a PASS Tip video, or write a feature article under the SQL Server Standard brand. The first two are volunteer efforts,… Read more

I currently write the editorial for the PASS Connector which is published every two weeks as part of my role on the Board of Directors. I'm cross posting those editorials here as well as to the main PASS blog.

For those of you that have been PASS members for… Read more

Cross posted on the SQLSaturday blog as well.

We started SQLSaturday back in May 2007 because we wanted a SQL event in Orlando, a chance for SQL people to have as much fun as the developers were having at the Orlando Code Camp. We tried to think one step ahead;… Read more

Ran across this recently, 33 Ways to Use LinkedIn for Business and thought I’d post it since I’ve talked about LI so much over the past few months. I like most of them, and have added an item to my todo list to go back and fully review against what… Read more

Last week I posted about getting a new bluetooth speakerphone, so I thought I’d follow up with some notes about my latest headset. But first – some background! Between work, PASS, oPASS, and all else I spend a good bit of time on the phone. I use ATT mainly due… Read more

I went down to Miramar Fri morning, taking the loooong drive from Sarasota across Alligator Alley on I-75. Miles of saw grass and not much else. Arrived in time to get a little work done Friday afternoon, and then off to the speaker gathering at Longhorn. Had about 20 attend,… Read more

Rick Heiges has put together an interesting event coming up on Sep 2, 2009 called 24 Hours of PASS. As you might expect it’s 24 one hour sessions, featuring a great mix of speakers and topics. It’s free, you can sign up to watch a handful or watch them… Read more

Magnificent Desolation by Buzz Aldrin ($18 @Amazon) is his second autobiography (haven’t read the first one Return To Earth). I happened to notice it while browsing at the local bookstore and noticed that he was coming to town for a book signing. Added to my calendar and waited to… Read more

I was visiting Compusa recently looking for a couple small things and noticed the Samsung Bluetooth Speakerphone for $24.99 (can be ordered via Amazon). I spend quite a bit of time on the phone and my regular bluetooth headset works well enough, often doing calls while driving to make use… Read more

I mentioned last week about closing down sqlgroups.com and trying to decide on a new home for oPASS.org. We did a quick look at alternatives including just using LinkedIn, but ultimately decided we’d dog food it a bit and use the PASS solution. Interesting so far, I don’t know much… Read more

John Dunagan is the “Chief Organizer” of this event on October 3rd in Estero, FL, just south of Ft Myers. I’m still working my calendar, hoping to go down as an attendee as John puts on a pretty good show. If you’re a SQL person close by consider submitting a… Read more

John finally got things caught up and had time to finish the evals, here’s how I did on my presentation with 33 evals submitted:

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We launched this last week, a dedicated sub group for sql bloggers. To be eligible to join you have to be listed in the PASS Blog Directory, which in turn requires you to have a blog and write about SQL on some recurring basis. The intent of the group… Read more

One of the interesting features of LinkedIn is the ability to post a reference about a connection. If you think of LI as your online presence/pseudo resume, having some ‘reference letters’ to go with it makes some sense. In the real world few people have reference letters, and most hiring… Read more