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For the term "sqlsaturday".

SQL Server 2006 DBA Street Smarts – Joseph L. Jorden

Welcome to my first book review!  As part of the process of arranging for swag for SQLSaturday, I’ve encountered a number of publishers that have agreed to donate books to our event in exchange for book reviews.  Obviously, they’d like favorable reviews, but I don’t feel obligated to hold back any legitimate criticisms that I may have of their material.  I do think this is a good opportunity to expand my own writing skills, plus encourage me to read more.

I’ve been studing for my MCITP: Database Administrator exams for some time; I picked up Jorden’s Street Smarts a while back, and have slowly been easing my way through it.  other things seem to occupy my time, so I’ve been unable to fully commit to taking the exam.  However, that’s no fault of the author.  He does a great job of simplifying the material that will be covered on the Microsoft exam 70-431, and it really is framed in terms of common “street” scenarios that a typical DBA might encounter. 

The book is laid out in four phases: Installation and Configuration, Implementing High Availability, Maintaining and Automating, and finally, Monitoring and Troubleshooting.  Each phase is comprised of tasks; for every task, there’s a description of a plausible scenario, followed by a step-by-step explanation of how to do the task using SQL Server Management Studio.  There’s lots of pictures (probably because the exam emphasises the use of the GUI), and it’s a very easy read.  Unfortunately, there’s only so much you can do to make this material exciting.  As a development-oriented DBA, I’ve been sitting for months on the second section (mainly because it’s the stuff I don’t do on a day-to-day basis anymore), and even now, I’m dreading cracking it back open again.

The book is well-written, and if I were more enthralled with the material, I think I would actually enjoy using it as a study guide.  It’s better than many other certification books I’ve encountered, because I think the author really tries to use examples that are realistic (rather than simply trying to teach the test).  If you’re looking to upgrade from a SQL Server 2000 MCDBA to the MCTS SQL Server 2005 cert, this is a good place to start.

2009-02-12 by Book Reviews Certification 0

Weekly Link Roundup 2009-02-11

Sitting at Schlotsky’s enjoying free Wifi; Isabel’s in ballet, Grace is in swimming, and my lovely wife is at home slaving away on her doctoral dissertation.  Me?  I’m wishing I had a netbook instead of this big ol’ clunky laptop from work.  I’m hoping that when they replace this thing sometime in the next year, I’ll either get something with more power or less weight.

Anyway, on to the links:

I’m amazed at how much good stuff there is out there in people’s blogs; I just found Joe Webb’s post on adding a column to every table in the database.  I’m a big fan of practical uses for dynamic SQL, and this is another example of it.

Speaking of blogs, SQLServerPedia is now starting to syndicate blog posts.  I plan on doing this, but I’m gonna try to survive SQLSaturday first.  A lot of good stuff is there already.

Just found this one today: Covering Clustered Indexes.  I love this quote: “To assume that the Primary Key will only be used for singleton selects is “strange” –  and to assume that the PK will always be the clustered index is also unhelpful. “

Sigh; Schlotzky’s is starting to fill up with families, and the chatter of children is making it tough to write.  I’ll have another couple of posts tonight (I’m in a writing mood).

2009-02-11 by Weekly Link Roundup 0

Weekly Link Roundup 2009-01-28

Stuff I’ve been reading:

Lots and lots of stuff on the digital tv transition:  This is fascinating to me; it’s a perfect example of the stupidity of federal government.  They sold the bandwidth, so everyone needs to upgrade.  They set a date.  We have a change in exeuctive administration (but not in legislative), and suddenly the date’s no good anymore.  I wonder how many lawsuits will be filed by the companies that will technically own the airwaves past the transition date if it gets delayed?

I’ve gone back to the newsgroups:  I used to post quite frequently in microsoft.public.sqlserver.programming (and a few others), but got tired of the same old questions, and many of the same old responses.  However, since SQL Server 2008 has been released, there’s some fresh meat in there.

Notes from SQLSaturday #10 in Tampa:  I’ll admit it; I’m starting to get nervous about our own upcoming SQLSaturday.  Andy Warren’s writeup of the recent SQLSaturday just goes to remind me of how much we’ve got left to do.  Speaking of Andy, he’s also posted his PASS Updates: 1, 2, 3

Happy coding.

2009-01-29 by Weekly Link Roundup 0

catching up…

I’m starting to fall back into a bad habit of not posting regularly; I’ve already missed a couple of weekly updates, and I haven’t shown off much coding lately.  I wish I could blame it on a lack of time, but the truth is that I’m lazy.  Even though I’ve been keeping busy, I still have plenty of free time.  I’ve just been frittering it away on television.  However, I’ve decided I’m going to take some advice from a fellow blogger: if you can’t keep a committment to two posts a week, commit to one.  Henceforth, I’ll be posting at least one post a week on Wednesday nights.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, here’s the breakdown of what’s been up with me since my last post:

  • Judged a speech contest at the local community college,
  • Started our latest sprint in the scrum method at work,
  • Finished the sponsor letter for SQLSaturday,
  • made several appeals for volunteers and speakers for SQLSaturday,
  • finally took down my Christmas lights, and
  • cleaned my home office.

I’m pooped just making the list.  🙂

2009-01-22 by Blogging is FUN! Conferences 0

AtlantaMDF meeting 2009-01-12

Wanted to drop a quick post wrapping up tonight’s usergroup meeting for AtlantaMDF.  Tonight was the first chance I’ve had to pitch SQLSaturday #13 to a larger audience, and I got a lot of positive feedback.  I had several people volunteer to help, and even had two or three people volunteer to present (not including those who were interested in presenting in my two super-short sessions).  I’m hoping this is going to be killer; I’ve got a lot of legwork to do to get sponsors lined up, but we’re on our way!

There were a lot of new faces tonight; the cynical side of me wants to point to the economy.  A lot of people are either looking for work, or want to make sure that they still have work in the next year.  User groups provide both free education, and free contacts, and you can’t fault someone for doing what they can to improve themselves and make sure that their opportunites are lined up.  However, I think a lot of people are finally starting to realize that SQL Server is a great platform for database development, and the best way they can learn about the technology is to participate in the user group.

Tonight, Eric Melcher of Intellinet gave a great presentation on End-To-End BI.  If you weren’t there, you may want to download it from the AtlantaMDF site when he publishes it; I think the title was a little misleading, but the content was great.  Eric really focused on the client tools available for analysis, including everything from Excel to Performance Point, touching on Excel Web Services, Proclarity, and Reporting Services along the way.  If you’re like me, and you feel overwhelmed by what BI is, and what options are available to display data, this was a great presentation to get your feet wet.

2009-01-13 by Conferences User Groups 1

SQL Saturday #13 Call for Speakers NOW OPEN!

We just opened up the call for speakers for the first Atlanta SQL Saturday. This is becoming more real by the minute 🙂

If you’re in the Atlanta Area, and would be willing to help out, please check out our event page for details. Nutshell: it’s being held at the Microsoft offices in Alpharetta on April 25, 2009. All details are subject to change, but that’s where we’re at for now.

2008-12-24 by Conferences 0

Weekly Link Roundup 2008-12-21

I’m going to have to start posting these on Wednesdays; trying to post them at the end of the week just causes too much stress. It seems like time just flies on Fridays, and the weekend is wrapped up with house stuff (I finally got Christmas lights up, BTW). Anyway, here’s the links of interest this week:

SQL Batman’s post on Web Persona: As a budding blogger, I wish that I wrote as eloquently as the Batman. I also wish I had been creative enough to choose a moniker like his, but if I keep building the brand, I think codegumbo will eventually have some of the same power.

The Code Camp Manifesto: I’m trying to put together SQL Saturday #13 in Atlanta, so I’ve been cruising the web looking for interesting reads on code camps around the country. This is a very succinct synopsis of the code camp philosophy. You may also be interested in the following:

Not a lot this week, I know. Been spending a lot of time offline with the wife and kids.

2008-12-22 by Weekly Link Roundup 0

We’re committed now!


Tonight, during the AtlantaMDF planning session, I finally took the bait and committed to planning a SQL Saturday. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but was delaying until I got more information about the other user group experience in the region (Code Camp). I finally got word that they’ve picked a date (mid March), so we can begin moving forward with our plans.

I’m a big proponent of the code camp model, so I’m looking forward to helping set the wheels in motion; however, I’m a little worried that I’m in over my head. I’m probably going to be blogging about this a lot over the next few weeks (months), so be prepared. Here’s my short list of stuff to do:

  • Contact Andy Warren to officially say we’re doing this.
  • Report back with some tentative dates to the rest of the AtlantaMDF leadership team.
  • Start identifying vendors, volunteers, and speakers.

Our local Microsoft rep has suggested that we could use the Microsoft office if we limited the number of attendees, which is reasonable. That’s a big chunk of time time that we can save. Looks like this is really happening; exciting times ahead.

2008-12-09 by Conferences 0