PASS has structured its registrations to give the best deals to those who register the earliest.  The current rate of $1395 expires June 30th.  As Greg pointed out in his blog, community speakers have been announced.  Register for the summit at http://summit2008.sqlpass.org/ now to beat the price increase.  Come to the ...

SQL Teach - Jean Rene's conference that rotates around Canada, is quickly becoming my favorite event of the year, eh? The last one was in Toronto a couple weeks ago. The next one is in Montreal. Then next spring he'll be in Vancouver again. SQLTeach is 2 tracks of DevTeach which also has tracks for .Net, ASP, architecture, Agile, SharePoint, and ...

The newly formed Boise SQL Server User Group kicks off its first meeting with Kalen Delaney on June 25, 2008. I'm happy to see a Microsoft SQL Server user group in Boise. It will fit nicely with the other development and SharePoint groups in town. For more information, contact Cindy Gross of Microsoft.

This past week, I was in Orlando at SQL Connections.  It went well and I will blog about a few things later, but I was in for a shock when I returned my rental car on Thursday.  I rented from an off-site company to get a great deal.  I usually start looking for a gas station about 5-10 miles before I get to the airport, but I was ...

It seems to be that time of year.  The time of year when conferences and speaking opportunities abound.  I have some events coming up.  If you are in the area, please drop in.  March 20 - 7pm - Triad SQl Server User Group - www.triadsql.com.  I will be delivering a session entitiled BI for the Relational Guy April 3-4 - ...

It's Official, today! We have a party for SQL Server 2008 in LA!  The product may not be shipping, but that won't stop us from having our party. Seriously, Today marks the beginning of a more useful Launch than the 2005 launch.  What am I saying?  The Launch Events will probably be more educational for you this time around because ...

In the latest PASS Community Connector, there is a call for Speakers for this year's summit in Seattle in November.  If you have never been to Seattle in November, it really makes you want to learn more about SQL Server in the breakout sessions. ;-)   But seriously, it is a great venue to meet other SQL Server professionals and ...

Time flies. It's been a year since Dr. Gray, a Microsoft research fellow and Turing Award-winner, went missing while sailing off San Francisco. A year ago, at Boise Code Camp 2.0, I hosted a session on finding Jim Gray, using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Now, a year after Dr. Gray went missing, the Association of Computing Machinery ...

3 weeks from today, the launch party for SQl Serve 2008 will be on!  If you are in Southern California, you will be in the ''happening'' spot.  Enjoy! Why have a launch without the release of the product?  SQL Server 2008 is more of an incremental release.  There are some great new features in the product, but the bulk of the ...

On Jan. 24, there is a FREE virtual conference focused on SQL Server 2008.  This is not just a webcast that you can view online.  The sessions are scheduled at specific times with Live Q&A following the session from the speakers.  Grab one of your SQL buddies and sign-up to attend virtually on Jan. 24! Register Here: ...