In the same way that the finest presentations involve much more than the simple relaying of information, the finest software demos are much more than just presenting features.  REMEMBER: The goal of a demo is to INSPIRE the audience to use the software/technology, not to teach them every nuance of software/technology.I've ...

The week of the 4th of July is a happy week for Americans.  Most families get out for a parade, a fireworks display, a picnic in the park, a movie where Will Smith puts the beat down on a bunch of aliens, or an afternoon at the pool or lake.  We celebrate the contributions of our service men and women. We honor veterans. We ...

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 ...

NOT A WHINER I've been really intrigued by a meme making the rounds of the blogsphere concerning goals for the coming year and picking a theme word, rather than the usual New Year's resolution. Et tu, BrentO?As with all memes, they start with a blogger picking the topic of discussion (in this case, Tara Hunt at HPC) and was picked up by my ...

I was honored to be recently interviewed by the crew at Consortio Services.  You can find my portion of this particular webcast at http://www.cstechcast.com/podcasts/cs-techcast/episode99/ beginning at 17:24.  In the interview, I discuss a number of thoughts and opinions about the future of cloud computing, where our profession is ...

In the Sequels for SQL series, I point you to sites where you can go beyond the nose-to-the-grindstone resources that we see every day as SQL Server professionals.  (My favorite resource for pan-SQL Server pointers is Steve Jone's Database Weekly email newsletter.)  These are the story that comes after and outside (the sequels) of ...