I recently did a Rick Review of the Day 3 Keynote from the 2008 PASS Community Summit that featured Dr. DeWitt speaking on new technology that ended up in the Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW) edition of SQL Server 2008 R2.  I decided to also listen again to the Day 3 Keynote from the 2001 PASS Community Summit.  While I listened intently to ...

Am I stuck in the past?  Not really, but I like to blog about the recordings that I have recently watched.  There are a lot of recordings out there on the PASS website and other places.  Recently I have had the good fortune of exploring some of the neat technology behind the Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW) in SQL Server 2008 ...

I ran across this recording about 3 months ago.  It is a recording that is open to everyone.  It was recorded at SQLBits 7 with Christian Bolton as the speaker for a session entitled: ''Consolidating data collection with SQLDIAG and analysing it all with SQLNexus''.  I found it very informative and hope that you will ...

One of my goals in 2012 is to blog on a more consistent basis.  One idea that I have for keep this goal is to blog about a webcast or session recording that I listened to.  I often listen to webcasts / session recordings while working.  It helps to keep me ''current''. So I will be starting a series called ''Rick Reviews'' which ...

As I finish up preparing for the Sep 20 (@1pm ET) webcast, I thought a final blog post may be appropriate in order to quickly reference many of the areas that I have touched upon.  Naturally, much of this information is geared towards First Timers, but Alumni are welcome to join in the webcast as well and are encouraged to help spread even ...

In this post, Logistics centered around how to get to downtown from the airport (SEA - commonly referred to as SEA-TAC for Seattle - Tacoma). As you would expect, the Seattle airport is almost always busy.  Some airports have periods where almost no activitiy is going on.  That is rare here.  Signage is good throughout the airport ...

I really don't think that you can get the full flavor of the Summit unless you delve into Social Networking.  There are multiple vehicles for social networking.  Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn, and Yelp are all tools in the Social Networking Toolbox.  At the Summit, the best one of these is Twitter.  With twitter, yo ...

Now that I have covered just about all of the ''official'' Summit activities, it is time for a blog post about ''After Hours'' activities. There is a webpage that lists some of the activities that we are currently aware of.  You can find that page here. Monday Night Networking Dinner - Last year, Andy Warren and Steve Jones started a ...

One of the most valuable parts of the entire Summit experience is the networking that goes on. In this post, I will go over some of the opportunities for you to network with others.  Once again, this post will not focus on ''after hours'' activities which will come later. Badge and Ribbons - Once you get to the Summit and pick up your ...

The Summit is much more than just geat content from excellent speakers.  There is a great deal of other stuff going on at the Summit to really enhance your experience.  In this post, I will not focus on the ''after hours'' events. Do you want to get your hands dirty with Denali?  Perhaps you downloaded the latest Denali bits, but ...