What I'm Reading, July 22 2011

KKline — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 14:43:00 GMT

I read too much, and that, my friends, is an entirely separate topic for a blog post. But I thought I'd share with you a little more about what I'm reading because sometimes, if I'm lucky, it might be something you'd enjoy too. So I'm going to start sharing what I'm reading at least once per week, partly so that I don't firehose too many reading links directly into your brain (where I to do it say once per month) and partly to solidify in my own mind the information that I'm reviewing. So here are a few good links for the seven days leading up to July 22, 2001:

Microsoft and Whitehouse partnership on BigData: BigData isn't a particularly new concept. But I was intrigued to learn that the National Science Foundation, Microsoft, and 13 other teams were partnering on developing better BigData analytics for lots of government data from activities such as healthcare, economic development, education, transportation, and the power grid. Cools stuff! Plus, Microsoft has developed a new tool called Project Daytona to better harness the power of the cloud, in general, and Windows Azure, specifically.
While we're on the topic of Federal IT in the Cloud be sure to read this linked article from ComputerWorld. Say what you will about our government, but putting government IT in the cloud and increasing both its transparency and availability will make a huge difference in how the Federal government will be able to service the public. We're talking as big a difference as corporations experienced between the "catalog on the web" experience of the 1990's to the Web2.0 experience of today.
If you're the social media type, give this article a read discussing the Power of Hashtags in Social Media.
The Register, of the UK, whose tagline is "Biting the hand that feeds IT" has a great article on a spat over database technologies between the IT sage Michael Stonebreaker and Google. It's a great read if for no other reason than to prove that databases are worth fighting over.
And if you think Microsoft is still towing the relational database barge without thinking about other technologies, you need to read up on Projects Dryad and Daytona.
Finally, I'm still getting lots of questions about when and where to limit SQL Server's Max Degrees of Parallelism. Be sure to read Microsoft's Recommendations and Guidelines for 'max degree of parallelism' configuration option here.

And just because so many of us in IT are closet or former musicians, there's Live Guitar Lessons with Steven Krenz, sponsored by my hometown boyz at Gibson Guitar. Got a favorite article or tool tip? Let me know! Enjoy,

-Kev

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Sequels for SQL Server: The Week of November 27, 2009

KKline — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:02:00 GMT

Just as an FYI, I've added one new slide deck and webcast to http://KevinEKline.com/Slides/, as well as quite a few upcoming user group events where I'm speaking in http://KevinEKline/Upcoming-Events/.

I'm starting a new series called Sequels for SQL Server. In this series, I point you to seven sites where you can go beyond the nose-to-the-grindstone resources that we see every day as SQL Server professionals. These are the story that comes after and outside (the sequels) of our daily working lives (the other SQL). Let's broaden our horizons together. If you hit on an interesting but overlooked topic, I'd like to hear from you at http://KevinEKline.com/.

SQL Server: We live it. We love it.

An amazing example of explosive growth in SQL Server performance using SSDs from one of the most popular on-line gaming systems, Eve On-Line by CCP Games.

Devices & Gadgets: Usually making our lives better, sometimes not so much.

Everyone I know wants the newest best smartphone, InfoWorld gives us a good test run of them all. Ultimate mobile deathmatch: iPhone vs. BlackBerry vs. Droid vs. Pre.

Futurewatch: Important issues just over the horizon.

The reshaping of our national power grid will provide profound benefits to consumers, but it will also bring enormous liabilities that could equal—or even outweigh—the very problems we hope to solve. And this webcast from O'Reilly on Grid 2.0 is also quite good.

Humor: I haz da funny.

Witness firsthand a mind-boggling worst practice by a DBA insisting that he's implementing a best practice.

Professional Development: Because there are two words in "database professional".

Peter Drucker, one of the greats in management thought-leadership, would've turned 100 last week were he alive today. Check out these top 20 quotes from the man who revolutionized management theory.

Society: Important issues to discuss with your friends and family.

Quoting the Motley Fool, "We spent the latter half of 2008 feeling the wrath of "too big to fail." Today, banks are bigger than ever. We need to end that. Now." It's Time to End "Too Big to Fail". Read this thought-provoking article soon.

WorldView: If James Bond knows that the world is not enough, then so should I.

The smartest analyst on international issues out there, Fareed Zakari, discusses US and Indian relations in this insightful article from Newsweek.

Thanks,

-Kevin

Twitter @KEKline

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