60 Years of American Economic History, Told in 1 Graph

August 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment

A very interesting news story accompanies this graph - CLICK HERE to read it.-Kev … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Secure Your Spot at the Nashville SQL Saturday!

August 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment

PASS SQL Saturdays are free 1-day training events for IT professionals interested in Microsoft SQL Server, providing a variety of high-quality technical sessions, all happen through the efforts of local volunteers.  The leadership team of the local chapter of PASS here in Nashville (Facebook | LinkedIn) have worked hard to make this year's SQL Saturday a day of great training and networking. The local NashSQL leadership team includes yours truly (blog | twitter), Joe Webb (Twitter | Blog), Louis "Dr SQL" Davidson (Twitter | Blog), Christina Leo (blog | twitter), and Shelton Dickson … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Conferences, Cool Technologies, Databases, Nashville SQL Server Users Group, PASS, Presentations, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Resource Center for Microsoft Office

August 23, 2012 by 1 Comment

Every now and then I go off on a tangent away from databases and try to improve some of my other important skills, like maximizing my knowledge of the various Microsoft Office products I use in-and-out everyday.  (Let me tell ya, a good shortcut cheat sheet is worth its weight in gold!  Let me know where I can find some of those for the Office products, if you know of any.) Anyway, I learned about some new(ish) resources on my latest productivity expedition that I thought I'd so that you can take advantage of them too.   (Let me know if any of these links go dead). Microsoft Office Social … [Read more...]

Filed Under: On-Line Resources, Professional Development Tagged With: ,

Two New Slide Decks. Plus, the Week in Colorado.

August 20, 2012 by 3 Comments

I had the honor of traveling the great state of Colorado last week, speaking at the PASS chapters in Boulder, Colorado Springs, and Denver.  At all three events, we had a stellar attendance and, at least in Denver, broke all the records in recent memory both in terms of overall attendance and in first-timers.  Denver, in fact, was standing room only and had nearly 30 first time attendees.  Great news!  I also want to give a special shout-out of thanks and appreciation to Chris Shaw (Twitter | Blog) whose hard work and tenacity ensured that all of Colorado got to see me speak. From left to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Cool Technologies, Databases, IO, On-Line Resources, PASS, Presentations, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tips & Tricks, Video Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Do You Have One of “the Three W’s” to Sit on a Board of Directors?

August 13, 2012 by 5 Comments

Let’s get one thing clear right off the bat – I’m not typing “Board of Directors” repeatedly throughout this blog post.  It’s just too much typing.  BoD will have to do.  Live with it. Perhaps, you’ve been paying attention to the PASS Twitter feed, read the newsletters, or otherwise stay abreast of happenings within PASS.  If you haven’t, here’s a news alert – it’s time for a new round of the PASS leadership cycle.  And since this is the season of PASS nominations, I thought it’d be an appropriate time to share some of my lessons learned about effective BoDs. Having spent over a decade … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ethics, Governance, PASS, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: , , , ,

Come See Me. I’ll Probably Be Just Down the Street Soon!

July 31, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Even though I've recently changed jobs, I'll still be speaking at a lot of SQL events across the country and internationally.  There are still a few trips that I've yet to finalize, in particular with the fine folks in Houston, run by my friend Nancy Hidy (blog | twitter), and my friends in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, run by my friend Mark Ginnebaugh (blog | twitter).  Also, do to some missed deadlines, it looks like I won't be speaking at the Nordic SQL Rally this fall. My bad!  On the other hand, you can see when checking my roster, that I hardly have time to catch my breath with this … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Administration, Conferences, Cool Technologies, Databases, Nashville SQL Server Users Group, PASS, Presentations, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: , , , , ,

High-Availability White Papers and Resources for SQL Server

July 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I was just telling the good people of Charlotte about how they (and how YOU) need to read all things by Paul Randal (blog | twitter), except for all of his cheesy romance novels like Caress and Conquer written under the nom de plum of Connie Mason. There's lots more good stuff from Paul, just not romantic. This is a 'so-last-version' whitepaper describing  five common high-availability and disaster-recovery architectures deployed by customers, along with a case study of each. Although the white paper is specific to SQL Server 2008 R2 and isn't updated for AlwaysOn features, it's still … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Administration, Cool Technologies, Databases, On-Line Resources, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Dylan Turns 21

July 18, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Happy birthday, Dylan. Now, put that bottle down and let's go have an adult beverage!But keep the outfit on - those boots and diaper are the bomb! … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Dylan Kline

Happy Birthday Emily

July 18, 2012 by Leave a Comment

It's hard to believe that Emmy Tay Fwine is nineteen now.  Happy birthday, dear child! … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Emily Kline

Independence Day 2012!

July 18, 2012 by Leave a Comment

It's been a long time since I just kicked-back and enjoyed the summer as anything other than just "the hot as Hades" time for work.So this year marked a dramatic departure from more of the same by actually heading downtown to watch Nashville's awesome (4th biggest in the USA) fireworks display.Another thing that was really great about this year's Independence Day was that we totally dodged all traffic!  Amazing, eh?  The last time I took the family downtown for fireworks, I think that we spent 42 hours trapped in traffic and had to eat the weakest members of the tribe to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Uncategorized
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