Search results matching tags 'Developer Community' and 'SQL Server'

SQL in the City Event Dates Announced!

andyleonard — Sat, 18 May 2013 06:00:00 GMT

If you didn’t know that already, you know it now. The latest evidence to support this claim is the publication of the schedule for US SQL in the City events. They are:

9 Oct – Pasadena
11 Oct – Atlanta
14 Oct – Charlotte

Registration for these events opens 24 May.

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SSIS Design Patterns, the Book

andyleonard — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 16:37:43 GMT

For the past two years, I have had the honor and privilege or authoring SSIS Design Patterns alongside Jessica Moss, Michelle Ufford, Tim Mitchell, and Matt Masson. Publication of the book – like many projects of this scope – has been delayed. The current publication date is 27 Aug 2012 and I have high confidence in this date.

I take responsibility for publication delays and apologize to those who pre-ordered the book. The reasons for the delays are not important. I have built a career as a software developer and architect based on the following maxim:

Deliver quality late, no one remembers.
Deliver junk on time, no one forgets.

The shared goal of everyone working on this project has been to deliver quality. Proofing the manuscripts, I believe we have achieved that goal.

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I Am Here To Help™

andyleonard — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 13:30:00 GMT

Introduction

This isn’t a trick. It’s not a gimmick. It’s not bait-and-switch. It is selfish; please allow me to explain:

I Am Here To Help™

This has been my motto for the past few years. How can I serve you today? Are you thinking about starting a User Group and don’t know where to begin? I can help. Are you planning an event and encountering obstacles? I can help. Having trouble getting an SSIS package to do what you want? I can help. Trying to troubleshoot a SQL Server issue? I can help. Have a question about raising chickens or guinea fowl? I can help.

For things with which I cannot personally help you, I know someone who can either answer your question, put you on the correct and best path for an answer, or who knows someone who can help.

“How Do I Contact You?”

There’s an Email link in the upper right corner of this blog. Or you can email me at andy.leonard@gmail.com. Or contact me on Twitter.

“Why is this Selfish?”

I’m glad you asked! Because I enjoy helping you. I believe everyone is put into life for a purpose, and serving you is my purpose. I am thrilled each time I get to help someone.

Helping others makes you feel awesome. People can give you money and things, but no one can give you the satisfaction that comes from contributing.

Helping others is contagious. I’ll talk about this more in a future installment of my series on Managing Teams.

You can get in on this too. How? Pull over next time you see someone stopped on the side of the road with the hood of their car up or standing next to a flat tire. Help someone struggling to load their groceries from the shopping cart into their car. Call someone and tell them you’re thinking about them. Add an encouraging comment to a blog post or send a friend or co-worker or enemy or competitor an email just to say “Hi” and catch up. If you have nothing left due to the economy – financial, emotional, intellectual, social, or any economy – offer the next person you see a smile. Smiles are free in every currency. Be nice.

Conclusion

Try it. And holler if you need a hand. I’m here for you.

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Presenting at Hampton Roads SQL Server and SharePoint Users Group Tomorrow!

andyleonard — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:58:14 GMT

I am honored to present Designing an SSIS Framework to Hampton Roads SQL Server and SharePoint Users Group tomorrow, 20 Jul 2011! You can register here.

Details:

Infotec
100 Constitution Dr
Virginia Beach, VA 23462

Wednesday, July 20, 2011 at 6:30 PM (ET)

If you read this blog and will be there, introduce yourself! I’m the fat guy with a fu.

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SQL Solstice

andyleonard — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 11:00:00 GMT

Introduction

My friends in North Carolina have decided to create a new event called SQL Solstice. Details:

18 - 20 Aug 2011
Holiday Inn Brownstone & Conference Center
1707 Hillsborough Street - Raleigh, NC 27605
Toll Free 800-331-7919

18 Aug - A Day of Deep Dives ($259)

Day-long presentations delivered by folks with real-world, hands-on experience.

Louis Davidson on Database Design
Andrew Kelly on Performance Tuning
Jessica M. Moss on Reporting Services
Ed Wilson on Powershell
(me) on SSIS

19 Aug - Extended Sessions ($129)

These 90-minute sessions take a deeper dive than the usual 60- or 75-minute presentation. There are 20 sessions across 5 tracks.

20 Aug - Community Day ($15.00)

30 1-hour sessions across 5 tracks, and food and beverages are provided.The call for speakers is open!

Conclusion

SQL Solstice is a new event in the ever-expanding SQL Server Community! The organizers are working hard to deliver a first-class experience for attendees and presenters alike.

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PASS Goals and the SQL Server Community

andyleonard — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 12:00:00 GMT

Introduction

I was honored to sit at the blogger's table during the keynote sessions at the PASS Summit 2010! Our official job was to promote the Summit keynotes via social media and our blogs. Our unofficial job was to pick on each other.

Rob's response? "Realised is spelled with an 's', not a 'z'."

Goals Are Good

In the kickoff session for the PASS Summit 2010, Rushabh Mehta announced some lofty goals for the organization to achieve by 2015:

250,000 members
1,000,000 hours of technical learning available to members
PASS Summit 2015 attended by 7,500

These goals are a stretch and I admire them for that reason. And I am confident the goals are achievable and that PASS can achieve them. I think there will need to be significant changes in the PASS organization to accomplish these goals, but I see the potential beginnings of that change in the organization's leadership - the PASS Board - even now.

Votes and NDA

One important change is Individual PASS Board votes will now be disclosed. According to Rushabh's PASS blog:

This is a topic that has been under active discussion for a few months and was also part of our board agenda for today. The board voted unanimously to make individual votes public except for topics which are considered NDA by the Board.

Conclusion

The PASS Board is making changes and moving in the right direction with these goals and changes. I applaud them.

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SQL Saturday #48 Recap

andyleonard — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 11:00:00 GMT

Introduction

I got to attend SQL Saturday #48 2 Oct 2010 and was honored to present.

"I'm Andy, and I'm a session-hopper." There. I said it. When I'm not presenting, I often wander between sessions. I want to learn a little something from everyone. Here are some sessions I wandered through and some notes from them:

Alejandro Mesa - Parameter Sniffing

I started in Alejandro Mesa's session on Parameter Sniffing. I actually got to speak with Alejandro before his session started. We spoke about family and the importance of feedback. Alejandro is cool. He's friendly and cares about delivering quality presentations. His passion for SQL Server and the community is evident - even if you only spend a few minutes with him.

I listened to the beginning of his session. In the portion I heard, he shared a good definition of parameter sniffing. He summarized the benefits and performance hit of parameter sniffing, and stated he would show how to detect and tune for various sniffing scenarios. I wanted to hear the remainder, but Andy Warren was presenting at the same time...

Andy Warren - DBA 101: The Basics

I skipped over to Andy Warren's (Blog | @sqlAndy) talk on DBA 101: The Basics. Andy is a great presenter who's passion for education and SQL Server are obvious to anyone with a pulse.

From what I heard Steve Jones (Blog | @way0utwest) wrote this presentation. There were 25 people in the room with 27 seats. The number of people in the room are a testament to the popularity of introductory material. It's a cool presentation to introduce people to SQL Server. Andy (and Steve) did a good job covering the objects of SQL Server: tables, views, stored procedures, and triggers. There were good questions from various attendees - evidence they were following and thinking about what they learned.

Introducing any topic in SQL Server in 60 minutes is tough. If you know someone brand new to SQL Server and databases in general, this is a good talk for them.

Julie Smith - Cool Tricks to Pull from your SSIS Hat

Meeting Julie Smith (Blog | @Datachix1) was a cool surprise for me. Julie is a great presenter with years of Business Inteliigence experience. Her presentation covered SSIS Expression Language and Variables. She did a good job with the "gotchas" of Variable scoping - accidentally creating a variable at a lesser scope than intended is a big-ee. She demonstrated the constraint options of the precedence constraint - which is a powerful and under-represented topic in many SSIS training sessions. I learned to use the Preview Pane in Windows Explorer!

I liked her presentation style and the material. Plus she provided some feedback on my SSIS Design Patterns talk that I will incorporate in future 60-minute versions of this talk.

Unfortunately, I needed to leave for the long trek back to Farmville before her session completed. I look forward to learning more cool SSIS tricks from Julie in the future!

Conclusion

SQL Saturday #48 was a huge success. The Columbia community responded to this awesome event by turning out in droves. I found the attendees of my sessions engaged - even right after lunch - and I received awesome questions throughout.

The organizers of the event are to be commended. They organizd an awesome event - from the Speaker Dinner through the After-Event party. About 90% of those in my sessions were attending their first SQL Saturday event.

:{> Andy

Blog (Durnit!), Getting Started

andyleonard — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:00:00 GMT

Introduction

I got some cool responses to my post Blog (Durnit!). This includes at least one blog, Adventures In SQL, by David Levy (Blog / Twitter), started as a result! Wow, how cool!

Reading comments and email, I realize I left out one important part, where to...

Get Started

First, you need to decide whether you're going to host your own site or pick a site at which to blog. I recommend starting on one of the free sites - just until you get your sea legs. There's a ton of free sites out there, but three stand out:

Of those three, I've heard more positive things about Wordpress than the others. I'm not an expert on these things, so please take any recommendation from me with a grain of salt.

Caution, Steep Grade Ahead

I know blogging looks easy, I used to think it was easy too. It turns out blogging is work. It's fun work because you get to decide what to blog about, but it's not all fun and games. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking blogging is easy: we're reading the blogs of brain scientists like Brent Ozar and thinking "Look at all he writes! That can't be that difficult?"

Blogging can be daunting. Don't be fooled (as I was) by looking at the quantity and quality of content on someone else's site. One mark of someone skilled at their craft is they make it look easy.

Some Advice

Again, Brent Ozar offers some great advice about getting started in his post Building Your Blogging Momentum. I can't recommend this post enough. Brent's advice to "schedule your posts to be published at least one week after writing" is a proven way to build your writing stamina.

Conclusion

Get in the game! Start blogging!

:{> Andy

Blog (Durnit!)

andyleonard — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 12:00:00 GMT

Introduction

The past few days I've read several blurbs from folks expressing why they don't blog. The reasons range from "I have nothing interesting to say" to "I don't know enough" to "Everything I want to write about has been blogged already."

Pfffft (to quote @RachelAppel)

Come on. Seriously? If you think, you can blog.

I Have Nothing Interesting To Say

Yes you do. And you'll say it in a way that no one else will. One day - perhaps months or even years from now - someone will encounter some problem you solved and about which you blogged. They'll search for an answer and your post will pop up in the results. They'll click on that link, read your post, and solve their problem. All because you blogged. Every now and then, someone will leave you a comment or send you an email thanking you. That's a cool feeling right there.

Andy's Little Secret: If I solve the same problem twice, I blog about it... for me!

I Don't Know Enough

Yes you do. You solve problems for a living. No, they're not the same problems I solve, nor are they the same problems Bob Ward or Jimmy May solves. But they are problems and you solved them. You know enough to blog.

Maybe you solved them with help from another post. That's great! When you blog about how you solved the problem, link to that post. Then describe how you used that technique to solve your problem, and include anything you learned along the way.

I can hear you asking "But why Andy?" I'm glad you asked! Because everyone writes in their own style (you should! See Steve Jones' article on plagiarism), you will use different words and phrases than others. The way you describe the issue may be the best match for a future search.

Andy's Other Little Secret: I learn more from mistakes or false assumptions than anything else.

Everything I Want To Write About Has Been Blogged Already

No it hasn't. Technologists the world over suffer from a terrible bias when it comes to evaluating their own knowledge. In a nutshell, we think if we figured it out, anyone can. We value own knowledge at 0. And we consequently over-value everything anyone else knows - especially if we know little or nothing about the same topic.

As stated earlier: Even if it has been blogged before, write about your experience solving the problem.

Andy's Last Little Secret: I get my best blogging ideas from forums.

The Rules of Blogging

Rule #1: There are no rules.

Rule #2: Please see Rule #1.

Brent Ozar has an outstanding post called Building Your Blogging Momentum. It's a classic. Done reading it yet? Wasn't that an awesome post? I thought so too! The next post in the series is good too.

Conclusion

If you think, blog.

:{> Andy

Presenting at Southern Maryland .Net User Group 14 Dec 2009

andyleonard — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:00:00 GMT

I'm honored to present Database Design for Developers to the Southern Maryland .Net Users Group! I'll be there Monday evening, 14 Dec 2009, and the meeting starts at 6:30. If you read this blog and attend, be sure to introduce yourself!

:{> Andy