Archives for January 2010

What Three Events Brought You Here?

Whiners and Whingers Get Wedgies There I was, just a couple weeks back, whining that I wasn't getting tagged by friends when a new meme comes out.  Sure enough, when my friend, Paul Randal (blog | twitter), starts a new meme with me as one of the first handful of people tagged, it's taken me a full ten days to get a response out the door.  Yes - I deserve a wedgie. In Paul's initial post, I saw that he'd asked for three events that were pivotal in why I'm where I am today.  To be honest, I've been noodling over my response ever since Paul first tagged me.  So, in a sense, I've been … [Read more...]

[OT] When Does Media Content -Truly- Become Public Domain?

I've always been intrigued by our process for allowing creative content, such as songs or movies, to become public domain. A common usage for public domain might be to create a short family video and, seeking a peppy and familiar piece of background music, you settle on "The Entertainer", by Scott Joplin. (If you've never heard of it, listen here. You'll recognize it.)  Since the music is past the 75 year limit of copyright protection, it is now public domain - meaning that you don't have to pay or seek permission to use it for your family home video. Now, it seems that many old media … [Read more...]

New – Author Page on Amazon.com

I'm happy to report that I have a new Author's Page on Amazon.com.  I look forward to interacting with you there in the future. Best regards, -Kevin Twitter @kekline … [Read more...]

New Interview and SQLMag ToolTime Blog Article on “SQLClue”

A neat new administration and configuration management tool for the SQL Server set.  I especially like the Run Book features, because Run Books are the way us "oldtimers" like to run our IT infrastructure.  My pal, Buck Woody, also likes Run Books (and really big explosions by the guys on MythBusters, but that's another discussion).  Find all the details about the new tool, created by Bill Wunder, here. In addition, I'm honored and amazed that the team at RunAsRadio invited me to participate in interview #143.  These are the same guys who also put together one of the best and longest … [Read more...]

Goals and Theme Word for 2010

NOT A WHINER I've been really intrigued by a meme making the rounds of the blogsphere concerning goals for the coming year and picking a theme word, rather than the usual New Year's resolution. As with all memes, they start with a blogger picking the topic of discussion (in this case, Tara Hunt at HPC) and was picked up by my friend, Tom LaRock ( blog | twitter) in his blog post, Why I Don't Like Kevin Kline and Never Tag Him in Memes. As in all memes, one blogger starts it off and then others are tagged, spreading the chain outward.  So Tom tagged several other good friends of … [Read more...]

The Awesomeness of ROBOCOPY Now at SQLMag

If you're like me, you've used Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V more than a time or two, but you've always felt a little dirty afterwards.  Yeah, you can use the command-line COPY or XCOPY utilities.  But they're decidedly 20th Century, much like some of the laundry still loitering under my office couch. So I spent a little time over the holidays cleaning up my file system by scripting a backup routine using the very cool and very free ROBOCOPY utility.  Now, I've got a regularly scheduled job that, after the first run which captured all my files, only backs up new or changed files (and directories) while … [Read more...]

Kevin Kline Interview – Part 2 SQL Server Evolution

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdsdXclzsEU Heather Eichman interviews Kevin Kline, the former President of PASS and systems specialist for the SQL Server Business Unit at Quest Software. Posted January 28, 2008. … [Read more...]

Michael Pollan and the New Food Rules

I've been a follower of Michael Pollan ever since his book called the Botany of Desire. I was even more amazed by his next book, The Omnivore's Delimma.Now, he's got a new and very small book called Food Rules, which in a way is a completely different way to fix America's health and obesity crisis. One of his quotes struck me as especially prescient "I think we need to recognize that cheap food has a very high cost, in terms of health and the environment. That cost is getting paid by other people, by the public health system. That's part of the problem and the disconnect. I think that's where … [Read more...]

2009: The Year in List Form

Before I jump onto the Goals and Themeword meme started by my buddy, Thomas LaRock (blog | twitter), I decided I'd spend a few minutes looking back on both the year 2009. (From a personal standpoint, the 00's were my most difficult decade yet.  Major problems of every stripe beset me on all sides and with alarming frequency throughout the decade.  I was all "Good Riddance" and "Don't let the door hit y'ass on the way out, 2009!" as the ball dropped in Times Square.) Rather than spend a lot of time cooking up my own top 10 lists, I reckoned (that's Southern for "thought", btw) I'd recap a … [Read more...]

Interview Now Appearing on CSTech.com

I was honored to be recently interviewed by the crew at Consortio Services.  You can find my portion of this particular webcast at http://www.cstechcast.com/podcasts/cs-techcast/episode99/ beginning at 17:24.  In the interview, I discuss a number of thoughts and opinions about the future of cloud computing, where our profession is headed, and more. When I first became aware of the website, they were audio podcasts only.  Since then, they’ve changed up their format a bit, and now have a video portion along with the audio. They now included a visual “slide” with your headshot and title (not a … [Read more...]