What is TEC? The Expert's Conference (TEC) is a multi-day event featuring five co-located Microsoft educational conferences at the San Diego Marriott Marquis & Marina April 29-May 2. It's pretty - see! The event includes advanced 400-level training on Microsoft Directory & Identity (including Active Directory), Exchange Server, SharePoint, Virtualization (Microsoft Hyper-V) & Workspace Management, and PowerShell Deep Dives. There are lots of great activities for Quest and Microsoft customers and partners. In addition, there's a Quest Software Day, with User Groups … [Read more...]
The Expert’s Conference (TEC) – For AD, SharePoint, Exchange, PowerShell and Other Admins
Filed Under: Administration, Cloud, Conferences, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post, Virtualization Tagged With: Active Directory, PowerShell, Virtualization
Have You Heard About the Microsoft TechNet Wiki?
Here's another one to add to your list of browser bookmarks! The TechNet Wiki covers Microsoft technologies from writers throughout the community for use by the community. As with all wikis, this grassroots effort needs your help. Microsoft is encouraging everyone to contribute the effort - all you have to do is join. So start a whole new article, add your knowledge or draw from your experience to improve an existing article. You can start small or large... Join in at http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/ or simply use the wiki as a new resource to answer your tough technology … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Cool Technologies, On-Line Resources, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post Tagged With: TechNet, Wiki
Want Another Reason to Hate iTunes?
I'm not one to whine. Really. I'm totally not a whiner. However, I'm going to sound like one with this statement... I fricken HATE iTunes. There, I said it. I'm already starting to feel better. Playing on Elisebeth Barrett Browning and her fantastic poem, "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.", I'm going to count some ways that iTunes is filling me with inhuman, Hulk-like rage: Ridiculously frequent updates. Not the "Update Tuesday" sort of thing we get from Microsoft, but the "I'm going to interrupt you all the time, any time sort of upda..." - hold on, iTunes wants me … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Opinion, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post Tagged With: iTunes, Productivity
For Devs – Component Code Challenge and INETA Community Champs
Two quick notes from our friends over at INETA: Component Code Challenge Ever had these two distinct thoughts - "I have a good idea for an application, however what can I get for it?" and "I would love to go to a big conference DevConnections or Tech·Ed, but how would I pay for it?". Haven't we all had thoughts like that at some time or another? Well, you are in luck. The INETA Component Code Challenge for 2012 will send one lucky winner to their choice of those aforementioned conferences for slinging some serious code. All you need to do is create an application using 2 approved … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Coding, Conferences, Contests, INETA, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post Tagged With: Community, Contests, INETA, Programming
The Year that was – 2011
Looking back on 2011, I'm surprised by two occurances. First, I got a lot of work done, despite myself. My biggest obstacles to high-performance are all self-derived; procrastination, disorganization, and plain ol' laziness. Second, I'm surprised I survived my personal travails. I've had my fill of frowns this year, from wayward children to caring for sick loved ones to self-inflicted injuries in 2011. I'm glad to be closing the door on a few of those chapters and look forward to better times in 2012. Here's a run-down on my professional activities over the course of 2011: Articles: … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Conferences, Interviews, Presentations, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post Tagged With: Career, Professional Development
New in 2012 – IT Horror Stories
I do a lot of public speaking over the course of the year at many different conferences and events. I always try to carve out time during and after the presentation to take questions from the audience. While many of these questions are de riguer, I often get questions that can only be described as "How do I handle this ... <insert IT horror story here>?" These stories often turned out to be more interesting than the question or the answer in and of themselves. For example, it's a common public speaking best practice to repeat a question back to the attendee. This helps ensure … [Read more...]
Filed Under: IT Horror Stories, Performance, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post Tagged With: IT Horror Stories
Everybody Needs a Test Harness
When you're developing new Transact-SQL code or modifying some existing code, do you just launch directly into programming? I know that I did just that, for years. It wasn't until I was trying to performance tune some existing code that I realized I hadn't actually taken caching of data and execution plans into account. So all those modified stored procedures that I was so proud of might not actually be faster than the first generation of procedures because I hadn't checked to ensure that I was testing cached programs against uncached programs (and, by extension, the data used by those … [Read more...]
Troubleshooting Repeated Login Failures on SQL Server
I’d recently experienced a situation where I was getting repeated login failures to a SQL Server where I knew that I had the correct user name and password. Each time, I’d get error 18456 in response. "Login failed for user '<user_name>'. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 18456)". The challenge when troubleshooting this error message is that you may have a problem with SQL Server or you may have a problem with Active Directory or Kerberos, if you’re using one of those authentication technologies. A False Trail When times are good, and you’re able to make a connection, you … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Databases, On-Line Resources, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post, Tips & Tricks Tagged With: MVP, SQL Server 2008 R2, Troubleshooting
PASS Summit 2011, Day 3 – A Tribute to Wayne Snyder
First things first, Wayne Snyder is rolling off the board of directors for PASS this year. We'd worked together, shoulder to shoulder along with Joe Webb (blog | @joewebb) and other outstanding members of the SQL Server community, for many years of on the PASS board of directors and I'm certain that my tenure on the board and as president of the organization would've been nothing but trouble had Wayne not been there, covering my blind side(s), at every turn. Here's my tribute to Wayne Snyder: If you were to mention “Wayne Snyder” to me, I’d instantly start to grin and, probably, nod a … [Read more...]
Filed Under: BigData, Conferences, Databases, NoSQL, PASS, Presentations, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post Tagged With: FutureWatch, Hadoop, MapReduce, SQLPASS
PASS Summit 2011, Day 1
I've already had a few good days in Seattle/Redmond this week, meeting with the Microsoft SQL Server program teams and with other Microsoft SQL Server MVPs. I was as excited as a squeeling Justin Beiber fangirl waiting for his new video, wishing I could tell you all of the cool things I learned at Redmond about the future of SQL Server. But as you'd expect, all of that cool stuff is presently NDA. I'm sure there'll be some cool announcements from Microsoft this week. So be on the lookout for the good word from Microsoft. Keynote Rushabh Mehta, the PASS president, spent a few moments … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Cloud, Conferences, Databases, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post Tagged With: BigData, cloud computing, DBA, Hadoop, Quest Software, SQLPASS
