May 2008 - Posts

• Twitter Woes

  "My name is Andy Leonard. I tweet." "Hi Andy, we love you." It's true, I am a bona fide Twitter -holic. If you use the service you may have noticed disruptions lately. Frank La Vigne (recently married - congratulations Frank!) blogged about it. The Twitter Read More... Posted Friday, May 30, 2008 10:42 AM by andyleonard | 4 Comments Filed under: database design, Database Testing, DBA, quality, scalable, Support

• Still Alive and Kicking

  I haven't fallen off the planet, I am still alive and kicking! I've been on the road the past couple weeks - first in Kansas City, MO and this week in Bellevue, WA. I got to meet a bunch of cool people at the classes in Kansas City and Bellevue, and at Read More... Posted Thursday, May 29, 2008 5:09 PM by andyleonard | 0 Comments Filed under: ETL, SSIS, User Groups

• Speaking at Philly Code Camp 2008.2 Saturday

  I will be presenting Change Data Capture, Incremental ETL, and SSIS 2008 to Philadelphia Code Camp 2008.2 Saturday, 17 May 2008! The good folks in Philadelphia always do a great job with Code Camps and the attendance numbers are growing to reflect that! Read More... Posted Thursday, May 15, 2008 12:31 AM by andyleonard | 0 Comments Filed under: Business Intelligence, Code Camp, ETL, Incremental, SQL Server 2008, SSIS

• Speaking In Kansas City

  I'll be in Kansas City next week doing some SSIS training. I don't think I've ever been to KC so I'm looking forward to the trip! When I found out I would be in town, I dutifully contacted the Kansas City SQL Server Users Group to see if they were having Read More... Posted Thursday, May 15, 2008 12:01 AM by andyleonard | 2 Comments Filed under: database developers, Developer Community, Incremental, software developers

• Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta

  ScottGu has a great post about enhancements in Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1, released today in Beta. Of particular interest to database developers: SQL Server 2008 support, a built-in Entity Data Modeler, and REST support! :{> Andy Read More... Posted Monday, May 12, 2008 3:58 PM by andyleonard | 1 Comments Filed under: Database Edition, Service Packs, Visual Studio 2008

• Cisco VPN Client and Vista x64

  I am disappointed in Cisco. I have Vista Ultimate x64 installed on my snappy new Red laptop but I cannot install Cisco VPN Client software on it because Cisco VPN Client does not run on Vista 64-bit platforms. Digging around for a work-around, I came Read More... Posted Friday, May 9, 2008 1:10 AM by andyleonard | 40 Comments Filed under: Cisco, EMPs (Expensive Management Practices), x64

• Kevin Hazzard on LINQ To SQL

  Kevin Hazzard did an outstanding job presenting to the Richmond SQL Server Users Group this evening on LINQ To SQL! I really like the ORM / code generation aspects of this new feature of the .Net Framework 3.5. Seeing it in action made me yearn (a little) Read More... Posted Friday, May 9, 2008 12:54 AM by andyleonard | 0 Comments Filed under: database design, Developer Community, LINQ, software developers

• On Developer Communities: A Sponsor's Case Study

  Introduction I wrote a series of posts recently about the developer community. I started each post with a linked summary of the previous posts, which I will continue here: On Developer Communities... I hold the following hypotheses about successful, growing, Read More... Posted Thursday, May 8, 2008 12:01 AM by andyleonard | 0 Comments Filed under: Developer Community

• On Technical Leadership: Things Get Easier

  Introduction A long time ago in a place not so far away from Farmville, I learned Motorola 6800 machine code. It wasn't easy but with patient instruction from my neighbor, I was soon making things happen on the computer screen and in memory. I was hooked! Read More... Posted Wednesday, May 7, 2008 3:00 PM by andyleonard | 2 Comments Filed under: Complexity, database developers, Software Business, software developers

• Finishing Up Better

  More Better Last week I read and blogged about Better by Dr. Atul Gawande. In Part III of the book, Dr. Gawande focuses on Ingenuity with three chapters entitled The Score , The Bell Curve , and For Performance . There are lots of good takeaways for software Read More... Posted Monday, May 5, 2008 12:01 AM by andyleonard | 0 Comments Filed under: Books, database developers, Software Business, software developers

• Taking Red To x64

  The New Laptop Is Here! When I returned from Minneapolis, my new Dell XPS 1530 RED laptop was waiting! My lovely bride sent me a text message Thursday to tell me it was in Farmville. I didn't get to play with it until Friday evening, but I've been working Read More... Posted Sunday, May 4, 2008 5:33 AM by andyleonard | 3 Comments Filed under: (PRODUCT) RED, Dell, Laptops, Vista

• Windows XP and 30 June 2008

  Bye Bye, Ms. Windows XP? As of this writing Microsoft plans to stop selling Windows XP 30 June 2008. Steve Ballmer has indicated there may be wiggle room in this decision but (to my knowledge) no postponment has been announced. Back In My Day... I've Read More... Posted Thursday, May 1, 2008 12:01 AM by andyleonard | 4 Comments Filed under: Microsoft