I am pleased to announce that I will be speaking at SQL Saturday 452 in Charlotte on Oct 17!  Last year, this event had a great turnout.  Be a part of it this year! Register Now! http://www.sqlsaturday.com/452/eventhome.aspx  My topic is ''First Look at SQL Server 2016''.  Microsoft has been busy working on the next ...

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 ...

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 ...

One of the things that you should do is map out your ''Learning Itinerary'' before coming to the summit. It probably will change once you get onsite, but having a plan will save you time and perhaps some frustration.  You can go to the Summit website and start to build your schedule. When you arrive at registration to get your badge and ...

I remember my first PASS Summit in Denver in January 2002 (Delayed from Sep 2001 in Orlando due to Sep 11).  One of the last sessions that I attended was led by Fabian Pascal.  He runs a website called www.dbdebunk.com and is rather entertaining at times.  At the time that I attended the Summit, I was teaching at High Point ...

I posted earlier that we are holding an organizational meeting in a virtual world called ''Second Life''.  Second Life is a Virtual World where you interact with others by voice or typing or gestures.  Here are the details: Where:  Microsoft User Group Island (Classroom 1) - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Microsoft%20Island/190/73/22 ...