Join me tomorrow for the PASS DBA Virtual Chapter meeting SQL Server Internals & Architecture. It’s the most fun you’ll ever have learning about the inner workings of a relational database – I promise!
You don’t have to register to attend. But if you register today, you’ll be entered into the drawing to win one two copies of my bestselling reference SQL in a Nutshell, covering the ANSI standard plus Oracle 11, SQL Server 2008, MySQL 5.2, and PostgreSQL 8.3.
This is NOT the Chameleon in the Bud-Wise-ER commercials. At least I think it's not.
I’ve put the slide deck up in my Slides area of the website. However, because it contains a lot of big images, I had to publish it as a PDF file to meet my size limits. That means that all of the animations in the slide deck are shot – and this presentation relies heavily on animation.
The Modern Language Association hasn’t made up all the new rules yet to govern how one blogger should reverence, er, reference another in their blog posts. But they should! Let’s get that ball rolling for them.
I’m not exactly sure who started this format, but it’s my favorite. When writing a blog post in which you mention another person’s blog, let’s do it like this:
“blogger name (blog_hyperlink | twitter_hyperlink)”
So, we might read a blog post by my friend Kimberly Tripp (blog | twitter) that might look something like this:
“…the Scottish Terrier was so well known in early American society that as recently as the 1910′s, Manhattanite nannies instructed their young charges to be good else the “Scottish Terrier” would eat them, after a lengthy session of slobbery nuzzling and years of canine devotion. It is for this very reason that I’ve given my Scots/English husband, Paul Randal (blog |twitter), several variations of the nickname “Scottish terrier”, “scotty”, “snotty”, and “scotsnots” until such a time as needed for me to roll up the newspaper, give him a good spanking, and stick his nose in …”
Well, you get the point. And didja notice that I worked in not just one, but TWO entire examples of the blog-reference syntax?!? I can hardly believe my own craftiness. I went to university for four years to learn that y’know – and to learn how to funnel beer – but I digress.
The Call To Action
One thing I love about the SQL Server community is our very community-ness. (I also like the fact that you’ll let me invent stupid words on the fly without too much criticism.) So, let’s make the glob, {ah! damned dyslexia!} , blog reference business even easier by having you (yes, YOU) post your own blog & twitter links as a comment here.
I repeat – post a comment here containing your name, blog (with embedded hyperlink to your blog), and twitter (with embedded hyperlink to my twitter, er, YOUR twitter account).
I’ll then repost a brand new shiny article with a full compendium to everyone’s blog & twitter hyperlinks (except Brent Ozar’s (blog | twitter) ) which you can save to some obscure cranny of Outlook or WordPerfect to call up at a moments notice when the urge to both blog and reference other bloggers strikes you.
Thanks and looking forward to seeing your blog reference soon!
Everybody enjoys a little free training now and then. I’ve got mountains of free training in the works. Some of it is in-person and local while some are in webcast format. Please join me as you’re able!
There are a short list of mistakes that, if you know of them in advance and prepare for them, will make your life much easier. This presentation shows you these mistakes, the “low hanging fruit” of database administration. Once you apply the lessons learned from this session, you’ll find yourself performing at a higher level of efficiency and effectiveness than before. Quest is sponsoring this and raffling off a copy of my book, SQL in a Nutshell, and O-M-G a KINDLE!!! (Free, but registration required.) And if you haven’t already done it, join PASS!
SQL Injection attacks is the most common hacker trick used on the Web and yet, one of the easiest to prevent. Learn what they are and why you need to be concerned about them. In this webcast, I and SQL Server MVP K. Brian Kelley (twitter) will demonstrate different types of SQL injection attacks. You’ll learn how to find and block them to keep your databases safe, preventing disruptions to your organization. Quest is sponsoring this as well and raffling off more goodies. (Free, but registration required.)
Stereotypes abound for different types of people in the IT world. Developers think DBAs are control freaks. DBAs think developers are unruly cowboys. How do we overcome these differences? If you’re a developer, your best strategy is to manage your DBAs’ anxieties and demonstrate your competence and credibility. Attend this session to learn about 10 techniques that developers can apply to their code which will calm your DBAs’ fears and earn their admiration. Techniques include how to analyze a query plan and how to make sure your query is taking advantage of the best available indexes. Attendance is free although registration is encouraged so we can get a good count for the food, plus there’s free pizza and a raffle at the end. Drinks afterwards at Chilis.
Join SQL Server MVPs, Kevin Kline and Brent Ozar (blog | twitter), along with Quest Product Manager Ari Weil —all from Quest Software—as they interactively present tips and tricks to help you monitor your SQL Server environment with ease. You’ll learn how to use Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) to simplify troubleshooting and significantly enhance SQL Server performance. The day consists of eight sessions with live Q&A – a great way to get answers to your questions straight from the source. Chat live with Quest experts. Plus, you can visit the Quest booth to download helpful resources like white papers, watch demos and more. This virtual training day is free and you can attend the sessions that fit your needs – perfect for tight budgets and busy schedules.
The SQL Server Community will experience an event like no other in the Southeast region. Renowned speakers from around the world will gather in Charlotte, NC to share their knowledge on Microsoft SQL Server. This is your opportunity to meet, network with and learn from the SQL Community leading experts such as Andrew Kelly, Rick Heiges, John Welch, Brian Knight, Geoff Hiten, Andy Warren, Jessica M. Moss, Rafael Salas, Sergey Pustovit and Tim Ford. Also scheduled to present are current SQL PASS President Rushabh Mehta and former SQL PASS Presidents Wayne Snyder and Kevin Kline.
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.
"Richard, wasn't that an awesome interview?!?" "Carl, I could've danced, er, talked all night!"
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 running IT podcasting shows – .NETRocks. Unlike a lot of interviews, it seems like we had too little time to cover all the topics. I’d love to hear your feedback!
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 few others top X lists that are in the ballpark of my own personal opinion. I couldn’t resist putting together my own list at the end, which I’d love to hear your thoughts on. In addition, I want to hear about your Top 10 (or 5 or 3) for 2009!
Their Lists
Time Magazine’s list of Top 10 of Everything 2009 was a pretty good recap for the year on big ol’ cultural touch points like movies and music. I found at least one thing to agree with in each of their pop culture lists: movies – The Hurt Locker – check; TV shows – my personal favorite for its brilliant cohesive multiyear storyline and excellent character studies, Lost – check; album – I and Love and You by the Avett Brothers – check; books (sigh – if only I had more time) included the wonderful The Age of Wonders by Richard Holmes.
Lifehacker’s Top 5 Hive Topics of 2009 is a very interesting list covering lots of topics and pointing out a lot of interesting tools that I hadn’t encountered before. My personal favorite among them was the Top 5 Alternative File Copiers, since the Windows Explorer copy feature reminds me of hungrily awaiting my food in the microwave and just as the counter gets to the T-10 countdown, it goes back up to 30, then down to 8, then back up to 42, then down to 14.
I’m not sure if they meant to be funny but Digg’s Top 10 Most Popular Stories of 2009 is hilarious, much in the same way that Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) and I were when we put on an unintentionally hilarious performance at the PASS 2009 Summit Quiz bowl. Go ahead – ask Colin Stasiuk (blog | twitter) what he thought of our performance…
Impressed by Our Quiz Bowl Performance?
Speaking of unintentionally funny, have you seen Yahoo’s Top 10 Searches of 2009? Evidently, the median Internet user (at least from their metrics) is hormone-laden, teenage redneck with a thing for fast cars (Nascar), Hollywood hotties (Megan Fox), and an unassailable but secret love for Mormon-influenced Vampires (Twilight).
My List
I usually try to blog at least once per week and, when I can, even more. I still have this deep down urge to post lots of small blog posts of just a couple paragraphs. But for some reason, I always seem to come out with these big ol’ epistles. Despite my verbosity, y’all still read what I write and for that I’m very thankful. Over the last year, these were my top ten blog posts according to your interest:
Looking for Good DMV Database Admin Queries, where you can find just about every good DMV query ever written except those other really good ones that are posted here in the comments.
Things You Know Now, a semi-successful meme I started where I asked participants to tells us about stuff they’d do differently if they knew it way back in the day.
I excluded a few posts that were numerically in the top ten because, well, they’re my blog posts and I didn’t want them in the top ten. So there! But those that I excluded were things like reposting an interview done by another blogger or maybe a product or book that I plugged for some reason or an other.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my blogging and found it valuable. Tomorrow, I’m jumping on the themeword and goals meme. In fact, I’m crashin’ the party because none of my peeps called on me. [pout]
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 pretty sight, in my case). Also, they some scrolling shots of other things I’m involved with such as Quest Software, my blog here, my Tool Time column on SQL Server Magazine, and the SQL Server MVP Deep Dives book, and my personal website.
I encourage you to add this podcasting site to your list of favorites. There’s lots of great information waiting for you there.
Enjoy!
-Kevin
P.S. I just got the word that I have been re-granted MVP status for the upcoming year. Thanks to Microsoft and all my fellow MVP colleagues for making the MVP program such an awesome credential!
Traditionally, the time between Christmas and New Years is a bit slow. Many people take time off from work and, for those of us still working, it’s a good time to catch up on all of those low priority projects that have been on the back burner for the last several months.
If you find yourself with a few extra hours, why not engage in some first-hand learning with the new features of SQL Server 2008 R2? Here are two great resources to get you started.
First, take a look at betaforsqlserver.com, a partnership between MaximumASP, Dell, PASS, and Microsoft. When you register, you get your own sandbox SQL Server 2008 R2 including support for .NET and PHP, along with Reporting Services, Analysis Services, and Integration Services. It almost makes me believe that there is such a thing as a free lunch!
Second, why not try your hand at one of the most exciting new features in SQL Server 2008 R2, PowerPivot for Excel? You can play with it to your heart’s content at the new Microsoft Virtual Labs, another great service for learning in real albiet sandbox VM Hyper-V labs.
I know in my own case, it’s often tough to find a free server somewhere where I can set up and install the sandbox environment. On top of that, even during a slow week, I rarely enjoy spending my time configuring an entire environment. Why not solve both problems at once with this fast and easy method of learning the news features?
In the Sequels for SQL series, I point you to sites where you can go beyond the nose-to-the-grindstone resources that we see every day as SQL Server professionals. (My favorite resource for pan-SQL Server pointers is Steve Jone’s Database Weekly email newsletter.) These are the story that comes after and outside (the sequels) of our daily working lives (the other SQL). Let’s broaden our horizons together. If you hit on an interesting but overlooked topic, I’d like to hear from you.
SQL Server: We live it. We love it.
When Jimmy May talks, I listen. Not just because he’s a personal friend, but also because he knows what’s what, if you’ll pardon the expression. So when Jimmy says “I believe xPerf will fundamentally change the way I do my job”, then I want to know what the heck this free xPerf management tool is and how I can best leverage it. Check out Jimmy’s blog entry on xPerf here.
Devices & Gadgets: Usually making our lives better, sometimes not so much.
Ever wonder what’s inside one of those tiny USB hard drives? No? Not even a little bit?!? When I started in IT, hard drives where as big as washing machines and cost $60,000 running at speeds in the 100′s of RPMs. My how times have changed. Here’s a fun hack of a USB hard drive – http://www.dansworkshop.com/electricity-and-electronics/usb-hard-drive-hack.htm.
Futurewatch: Important issues just over the horizon.
There are a lot of standard elements of society being rebranded as the “2.0″ version of itself. The 2.0 moniker was first put forward by visionary Tim O’Reilly (blog | twitter), of the eponymous media company. Whenever you see the 2.0 moniker added to the end of something, most famously Web 2.0, then you know that it will include the characteristics of collaboration, interoperability, and user-centered designs. So, whereas the first go at the web in the mid- to late-1990′s was about enabling information retrieval such as transforming printed catalogs into on-line catalogs, Web 2.0 enables all of its participants to comment on, review, rate, and otherwise participating with each other in the use of such a catalog. In the last FutureWatch blurb, I pointed out work on Grid 2.0, centered on efforts to update the USA’s electricity grid. I’m going to do a much more detailed post in the near future about emerging 2.0 efforts, but one to point out now is Gov 2.0. Under this broad set of initiatives, governments from the lowest to highest levels of responsibility are opening up their public databases for consumption by the public. An example of Gov 2.0 in action comes with the President’s SAVE Award, in which the public is invited to vote on their pick for the best money saving tip put forward by federal government workers. Read all about this year’s SAVE Award here.
Humor: I haz da funny.
Weird products in Japan have their own name – chindogu. Most of these are crackpot inventions that everyone knows will never see the light of day, such as these these featured here. However, some of these products DO get marketed and, more amazingly, purchased. Check out the product reviews of this totally bizarro chindogu here at Overstock.com.
Professional Development: Because there are two words in “database professional”.
There are mountains of great websites with tips on how to be a better speaker. Some day, I’ll write a long blog post about my favorite sites for learning how to improve your oration. But if you’re in a hurry, and who isn’t these days, then this blog post at TechRepublic succinctly sums up the advice you’ll find from many other web sites, articles, and blogs.
Society: Important issues to discuss with your friends and family.
One of the most remarkable things about the USA, as a rather biased citizen, is our ability to suck up our pride, admit a mistake, and try to prevent it from happening again. One way that the USA tries to prevent future occurrences is to convene a commission of some kind. I found this analysis by David Leinweber, a Haas Fellow in Finance and Founding Director of the Center for Innovative Financial Technology at UC Berkeley, on the commission studying banking market reform in the USA to be quite intriguing and, frankly, upsetting.
WorldView: If James Bond knows that the world is not enough, then so should I.
I’m always on the lookout for issues related to safe and clean water. If you think people can be grumpy when oil is in short supply, imagine what it’s like when there’s not enough drinking water for everyone. See how India is dealing with enormous water issues in this revealing article from the Economist. And I’d be interested to hear what our Indian blogger friends thoughts are on this topic, folks like Rushabh Mehta, Jacob Sebastian, and Pinal Dave. (Water issues have remained one of my passions ever since my years working for NASA developing the water recycling systems for the International Space Station, in which we made water of the H20 that passes through the human body re-drinkable. And it tastes good. Incidentally, all of the technology we developed for this project, as with all non-classified government projects, became public domain. ECLSS technology is now used in hundreds of commercial products ranging from household detergents to commercial solvents to filtration systems.)
I’m starting a new series called Sequels for SQL Server. In this series, I point you to sites where you can go beyond the nose-to-the-grindstone resources that we see every day as SQL Server professionals. These are the story that comes after and outside (the sequels) of our daily working lives (the other SQL). Let’s broaden our horizons together. If you hit on an interesting but overlooked topic, I’d like to hear from you.
Professional Development: Because there are two words in “database professional”.
Peter Drucker, one of the greats in management thought-leadership, would’ve turned 100 last week were he alive today. Check out these top 20 quotes from the man who revolutionized management theory.
Society: Important issues to discuss with your friends and family.
Quoting the Motley Fool, “We spent the latter half of 2008 feeling the wrath of “too big to fail.” Today, banks are bigger than ever. We need to end that. Now.” It’s Time to End “Too Big to Fail”. Read this thought-provoking article soon.
WorldView: If James Bond knows that the world is not enough, then so should I.
The smartest analyst on international issues out there, Fareed Zakari, discusses US and Indian relations in this insightful article from Newsweek.
