Why leave out the props for Brian Knight's and Andy Warren's presentations? I was able to attend Brian's "Protecting SQL Server Against Hackers" but missed Andy's "Develop on Your Machine" so I downloaded the slides from the PASS site. Brian's session was one of the best at the conference because he did a lot of demos with his co-presenter, Bayer White. It gave me some great ideas for a presentation I am giving next month.

Some positives about the conference - the sessions were very good and the conference seemed well run. The PASS leadership and volunteers looked in control of things. Microsoft was there in full force, which is something I was concerned about since this was the first conference outside of Seattle.

Some negatives - due to the weather I suppose, there were a lot of cancelled sessions. When I registered on Wednesday, they weren't handing out updated schedule grids but instead emailed updates. (email...WTF?) By Thursday, they had paper updates to distribute at the morning keynote. By Friday, there were new updated schedules with the full information (title, presenter name, etc.) at the keynote.

The layout of the Gaylord Palms sucked as well because some of the sessions were in rooms that were hard to find like Orange Blossom or St. George. I don't know how many times I went up and down the different floors trying to find the next session. Why couldn't they keep the PASS conference all on the same floor and move the concrete or other smaller conferences someplace else?

In summary, the educational value in the conference was great. The Gaylord Palms is not my favorite hotel. DFW Gaylord Palms next year? Maybe.