It’s that time of year where we get to vote for the three best candidates to serve a two year term on the PASS Board of Directors. It’s going to be a tough choice, there are five good candidates – all good, but certainly not interchangeable! Ballots will go out… Read more

I”m working with a client in Orlando that needs a manager for their data team, seems like a prime opportunity to reach out to my network! I’ve posted the job description below with the company information removed since I’m posting it to my blog. I can tell you that it’s… Read more

I bet most of us don’t think about installing software that we need/want to try. We’re either running as local admin or we can elevate to local admin as needed. It’s nice to be able to install a piece of freeware or open source that will elegantly solve a problem.… Read more

This coming Saturday (September 29th) we’ll be having our sixth annual SQLSaturday at Seminole State College (our site partner since the beginning) with 7 great tracks of free learning. Pay the lunch fee of $10 and you’ll get a knock your socks off BBQ lunch plated up by the speakers,… Read more

I drove down Saturday morning to do a beginner presentation on SQL Security. Event was hosted at Rasmussen College, great venue. Good rooms, good parking, easy access, I think the two challenges with the site are the hallways aren’t big enough to put the sponsors there, so they had to… Read more

In my Three Strikes post I wrapped up the sorry tale of trying to get an X1 Carbon delivered from Lenovo. The day after I cancelled I did get an email indicating it was going to be delayed another 30 days. I’m hoping that is just due to two separate… Read more

Quick notes:

• Because it was scheduled for 7 am local I decided to do it from home. Good plan, except it meant the kids had to be out the door on time so I’d have quiet. Just barely got that done with more than the usual ruckus. Not the best…

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Imagine that you use a piece of software as part of your work, but it’s not what you consider the core of what you do. You consider yourself competent with the software and you don’t see a lot of gain from learning any more. What do you do?

I like… Read more

Last Friday Lenovo told me my new laptop would ship this Monday, or “much much sooner”. Monday I called to check the status – seeing as how the online status page still was not updated – to be told that due to constraints it would not ship until the 27th.… Read more

More stuff you may find interesting.

• Prepare for your first security breach. Sobering. As data professionals we’re going to get pulled into these incidents at some point when they happen. Read now and hope it’s never on your watch or even during your tenure.
• Conways Law says that organizations…

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My current client has a five story building, two break rooms and two sets of bathroom per floor, with I’m guessing 200+ people per floor – a lot of traffic. One cleaning guy cleans them all and he seems to hit them all at least twice a day. I’m guessing… Read more

For the third year Steve Jones and I are coordinating a very informal networking dinner on Monday night the week of the 2012 PASS Summit. Our formula isn’t complex – find a place where people can come for dinner and drinks, greet them at the door and guide them… Read more

Most managers and employers distinguish between attending a conference and training. We (the royal SQL community we) offer quite a few one day seminars during the year that clearly fit that simple definition of training, but I don’t think we’re closing the loop. We should be giving them/sending them a… Read more

Order status on the web site still shows an estimated ship date of the 4th (of September) for my X1 Carbon. Called again today and the story is that it’s supposed to ship on the 17th, but the Ethernet dongle – which previously was forever tied to the laptop –… Read more

Sharing some stuff I’ve read recently that I found interesting – and that you may find interesting!

• Help More, Judge Less. I’ll write more on this at some point, it’s an essential idea to learn.
• Graph Database. I need to find time to dig into stuff like this.…

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Last year I wrote about stuff I carry in my laptop bag. Nothing original, definitely a tendency to carry things just in case I need it. The bag was a Maxpedition, solid, not small. For the past few months I’ve been using a backpack and its worked out ok, the… Read more

Recently I needed to help a colleague with a small inventory true up task. We needed to know items that were in List A and not in List B, and vice versa. It was a universe of about 1000 items with a good sized delta, 15 to 20 percent.

For… Read more

A recent article in the PASS Connector called out some interesting stats about SQLSaturday for 2011 and 2012. I’m including the chart here, I encourage you to read the full post.

I see two good stories in those numbers. First is continued and steady growth in the US, going from… Read more

Since earlier this year I’ve been thinking to replace my aging but still useful laptop, mostly to get something lighter, but driven by wanting something that has better battery life and a smidge of needing a new toy. I don’t buy often so it’s fun to catch up on the… Read more