Who are the people in your SQL neighborhood?

Stuart Ainsworth (Blog, Twitter), Brent Ozar (Blog, Twitter), and some other really bright and creative folks in the SQL Community have gotten together to create what’s sure to be a great networking game at the upcoming…

If you’ve ever been to a PASS Community Summit, you know that each day is packed with a ton of great activities. Sure the sessions are top notch, unparalleled for technical education pertaining to SQL Server. But there is much, much, more. There are fun networking activities and games…

There has been some great discussion about the upcoming PASS Board of Directors election over on Brent Ozar’s blog. If you haven’t been following along, you should go check it out. Great big kudos to Brent for putting together the Meet the PASS Candidates series of blog postings!

Having…

Some people just love to talk. I guess I’m one of those people. I admit it. But there is a time and place for everything. I’m not one of those annoying people that sits next to you one the airplane or on the commuter train that doesn’t know when to…

“Joe Test”

“Joe Test2″

“Joe Test3″

“Arrgh! There has got to be a better way to create some test data!”

Ever had that conversation with yourself? You need to create lots of data to load test an application or to create a demo. But going about it one row at…

I’ve been a regular speaker at the DevTeach/SQLTeach events in Canada for the past several years. Jean-Rene Roy and his team of volunteers do an incredible job of putting on a high quality yet down to earth event that is both educational and fun to attend. I really…

In most Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) implementations, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of reports available for viewing. These reports provide glimpses into the sea of data that the organization collects. From these reports hopefully trends can be discovered and better decisions can be made. At least that’s…

“Should I get an MBA or an MCSE?” What an odd question. At least these days it seems odd. But, my how things have changed. Ten years ago, I regularly fielded that question from students in my technical training classes. I answered it so much in fact that…