Search results matching tags 'Writing' and 'Professional Development'

New Developments at SQLServerPedia.com

KKline — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 17:07:00 GMT

What's Going on at SQLServerPedia.com?

Since the news broke that I was leaving Quest, I've gotten a lot of questions about the future of SQLServerPedia.com (SSP). For those of you who don't know, SSP is a very popular community wiki and blog aggregator with nearly one hundred bloggers actively syndicating their content on the site. Quest actively supports SSP as a non-commercial community entity and I was its former editor-in-chief. The good news is that SSP is not going anywhere. If you write for a blog that appears on SSP, don't change a thing. (Ok, change one thing. Start adding more content to the wiki!)

Maybe I Should Syndicate at SQLServerPedia.com?

If you're actively blogging but not currently syndicating your content there, do so! Details for syndicating on SSP are located here. A few reminders and changes worth noting from what is written on the syndication page:

Under section 1.4, 'What if You Don't Have a Blog Yet?', the team is no longer able to help you with setting up, editing, and fact checking blog posts.
Related to the item above, we vastly prefer to syndicate blogs demonstrating at least six months of active posting. Many bloggers start with good intentions and then fade away. Usually, if you've done it for six months, you're in it for the long haul. Although exceptions are made occasionally, your certain to be accepted as a syndicate with six months of posts.
No posting about commercial products (or even free products offered by commercial entities). That rule also applies to Quest people. Just keepin' it real, folks!
Limit the topics to those that are of interest to SQL Server people. The topics can be about non-SQL Server things, such as other related technologies, leadership, productivity, personal development, and so forth. But it should be at least relevant and interesting to SQL Server people.

Aside from that, what are you waiting for?!? Don't you want thousands more reads on your blog per week without adding inappropriate references to Justin Bieber (blog | twitter), American Idol (blog | twitter), and teen-pop sensation One Direction (blog | twitter)? (You saw what I just did there, didn't you?)

One Tiny Achievement

One thing I'm proud of while I was editor-in-chief at SSP was to evangelize the citation syntax that now seems to be standard practice in the blogging world of "Blogger Name (blog_link | twitter_link)." I wrote about this blog citation syntax first in March of 2010. I'm proud of that. I also introduced badges for site contributors, like the one below.

Aside from those things, I don't think I really moved the needle much because, honestly, I already had too much other work on my plate.

And the New SQLServerPedia.com Editor-in-Chief IS... [drumroll]

... my friend and former colleague, Richard Douglas. Richard Douglas is a SQL Server consultant for Quest Software in the UK covering the gamut of SQL Server products in both a pre- and post-sales capacity. Richard is often performs on-site server health checks to ensure systems are running optimally and to provide feedback on problem areas of database performance. Prior to working for Quest, Richard was working as a DBA in women's clothing. Hmmm, let me clarify. No ... he was not working IN women's clothing. He wore regular men's clothing. The company he worked for was in the womens' clothing business. Whew! That's better. In fact, here's a picture to prove that he, at least occasionally, wears men's clothing:

Richard is active in the UK SQL Server community having been a volunteer at SQLBits. He now runs a PASS chapter and is on the organizing committee for SQLRelay, a series of events around the UK which drew hundreds of attendees this year, he holds several certifications in SQL Server 2008.

Richard's online presence includes: email Richard.Douglas@Quest.com, blog http://SQL.RichardDouglas.co.uk, twitter http://twitter.com/SQLRich, and LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardpdouglas. Please take a moment to say hi!

Enjoy,

-Kevin

-Follow me on Twitter!

Blogger, Have You Heard of Microsoft Broadcaster?

KKline — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 15:02:00 GMT

Introducing the Microsoft Broadcaster: A self-service technical content repository that provides you with rich content for your blogs/sites. On behalf of Microsoft, I would like to take the opportunity to invite you to dive into Microsoft Broadcaster. It's a site that unleashes a torrent of technical content like Videos, Webcasts, Whitepapers, eLearning, and more which you can use in your blogs or user group site to drive deeper engagement with your audience and community. Key Features of Microsoft Broadcaster include:

Download and embed content on your sites without sending traffic away from your site with Microsoft's full blessing.
Customize site by product (e.g. Windows, SharePoint, or Office), by keyword, or by form factor (e.g. webcasts, videos, podcasts)
Set alerts for content updates.

To take advantage of the offer, visit www.microsoftbroadcaster.com. For a more detailed information and program overview please visit http://www.microsoftbroadcaster.com/en-us/faq

Now, It's time for me to get involved and start to participate in the program!

Enjoy!

-Kevin

P.S. Follow me on Twitter!

Cloud Evolving, SQL Server Responding

KKline — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:49:00 GMT

Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) and I did an interview with TechTarget’s Brendan Cournoyer at last summer's Tech-Ed, which as turned into a podcast titled “Cloud efforts advance, SQL Server evolves.” The podcast covers all the major trends at the conference (like BI), virtualization features in Quest’s products (like Spotlight), Brent’s new book and MCM certification, and more. Here’s a link to hear it, appearing on 6/11/10: http://searchsqlserver.techtarget.com/podcast/Cloud-efforts-advance-SQL-Server-evolves.

Enjoy!

-Kev

Twitter at kekline

Significant Personnel Moves Inside of the Microsoft Azure Team and "Protect Your @#$% Content!"

KKline — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 17:57:00 GMT

Dream Team Forms Around Azure

If you're wondering whether to hedge your long-term bets on cloud computing, this should help you solidify your thinking.

Microsoft has been building a dream team for Azure, including the patriarch of Windows (and father of Windows NT) Dave Cutler. Tweets from several Microsofties reveal that another revered technologist, Mark Russinovich of SysInternals fame has also joined the team. When almost all of the heavy hitters in a company like Microsoft go to work on a single exciting new technology, you can easily tell which direction the wind is blowing. I encourage you to get on board soon with cloud computing, at least in experimentation mode. Read more about Russinovich joining the Azure team here.

Protect Your @$#% Content or

News About KevinEKline.com This Week

I've been enjoying two new features of Wordpress over on my professional website which is missing here on SQLblog.com - scheduled blog posts and auto-tweets. What got me thinking about using scheduled blog posts and auto-tweets, you ask? For starters, my friend and former colleague, Brent Ozar, put a lot of thought and time into the question "Who Owns Your Content?". Then, to add fuel to the fire, two of Quest's best marketing minds, Christian Hasker and Andy Grant, took a survey of all the places I was posting my thoughts and IP, which led to some great advice from Andy. I'd initially thought that by writing in multiple places and on many other websites, it would promote my content. But a quick analysis showed that I was giving without getting anything in return, not even recognition. I was easily writing three or four magazine style articles per month with very little to show for it, not even ping-backs to my website.

The schedule blog posts have come in very handy. First, I'd decided a while back to start talking more about what I do at Quest Software and the products that I'm a part of. Since I don't want to come across sounding like a schill, I decided that I'd put those posts on my own website and not torture you with those posts where I'm syndicated. If you're interested in posts about products like LiteSpeed or Toad for SQL Server, you can check for my regularly scheduled posts to appear on Wednesday morning. I've now got a nice little queue of Quest-related posts for many Wednesdays to come. Second, I've also decided to attempt to bring in more of the content I'd written for other websites and channels into KEK.com. So I've scheduled a series of posts that bring in other content I've written and/or recorded elsewhere. For example, Thursdays mornings are the time where I'll post my YouTube video clips. Since I already had a ton on YouTube, I'm putting those up via scheduled posts for the next several weeks. Of course, I'll also be posting new videos. But it'll be good to have all of my old videos up there too in a single place. Finally, as I mentioned before, I'd written a couple long-term columns without ever getting even one extra website hit from all that work, such as my professional development articles for SQLPass.org. I'm pulling those back onto KEK.com and will continue those columns, but as elements of my own blog. You'll see more about them here when they're posted.

Enjoy!

-Kevin

Twitter @kekline

Collaboration Nation Call to Action! Calling All SQL Server Bloggers and Twitterers

KKline — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:15:00 GMT

The Suggestion

The Modern Language Association hasn't made up all the new rules yet to govern how one blogger should reverence, er, reference another in their blog posts. But they should! Let's get that ball rolling for them.

I'm not exactly sure who started this format, but it's my favorite. When writing a blog post in which you mention another person's blog, let's do it like this:

"blogger name (blog_hyperlink | twitter_hyperlink)"

So, we might read a blog post by my friend Kimberly Tripp (blog | twitter) that might look something like this:

"...the Scottish Terrier was so well known in early American society that as recently as the 1910's, Manhattanite nannies instructed their young charges to be good else the "Scottish Terrier" would eat them, after a lengthy session of slobbery nuzzling and years of canine devotion. It is for this very reason that I've given my Scots/English husband, Paul Randal (blog |twitter), several variations of the nickname "Scottish terrier", "scotty", "snotty", and "scotsnots" until such a time as needed for me to roll up the newspaper, give him a good spanking, and stick his nose in ..."

Well, you get the point. And didja notice that I worked in not just one, but TWO entire examples of the blog-reference syntax?!? I can hardly believe my own craftiness. I went to university for four years to learn that y'know - and to learn how to funnel beer - but I digress.

The Call To Action

One thing I love about the SQL Server community is our very community-ness. (I also like the fact that you'll let me invent stupid words on the fly without too much criticism.) So, let's make the glob, {ah! damned dyslexia!} , blog reference business even easier by having you (yes, YOU) post your own blog & twitter links as a comment here.

I repeat - post a comment here containing your name, blog (with embedded hyperlink to your blog), and twitter (with embedded hyperlink to my twitter, er, YOUR twitter account).

I'll then repost a brand new shiny article with a full compendium to everyone's blog & twitter hyperlinks (except Brent Ozar's (blog | twitter) ) which you can save to some obscure cranny of Outlook or WordPerfect to call up at a moments notice when the urge to both blog and reference other bloggers strikes you.

Thanks and looking forward to seeing your blog reference soon!

-Kev

-Twitter @kekline