04Nov 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

PASS Summit Wednesday Key Note 1

PASS
Nice phot montage, included so many friends. I love PASS. Rushab Mehta launching the Wednesday key note. Unfortunately, this is the DULL, but important, stuff about finances. PASS is a non-profit, volunteer run organization. I'm not going to track this stuff. You can find the full financials on the PASS web site. Celebrating volunteers. You do need to thank the people that make this thing run. I'm especially amazed by the work done by the Program Committee. The outstanding volunteers for the year are: Tim Ford - Program Committe, Quizbowl Me - SQL Server Standard, Editorial Committee Amy Lewis - Co-leader & Volunteer Coordinator for BI Virtual Jacob Sebastian - Chapter Regional Mentor The PASSion Award is going to two people this year: Charley Hanania - International Recipient Allen Kinsel…
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04Nov 2009 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

PASS Summit 2009 – Day 1

PASS
YAAAAAH! The PASS Summit is pretty amazing. Yesterday I sat through the key notes from Microsoft. I was at the bloggers table where I could hear the speaker and lots of typing. I used to consider myself a blogger, but then I watched Brent Ozar doing and learned that I was doing it all wrong. Anyway, the key note was pretty interesting. They talked about future plans and directions of the information platform (note, not data). Right after I presented my first session, Execution Plan Best Practices.  The room was darned full and I only had one, very minor, glitch. After that I RAN to the Birds of a Feather lunch to host a table discussing developing databases on a team. It went all right. I don't think my table…
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27Oct 2009 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

SQL Server Standard, Volume 6, Issue #1

Misc, PASS
It's alive! It's alive! That's enough from Colin Clive. It'll be out for the Summit. SQL Server Standard lives again! Although, not quite in the same shape as it used to be. But hey, stitching stuff together out of dead tissue is messy work. I want to thank our first author who had to suffer through quite a few growing pains and help us blaze a trail through the woods, Thomas LaRock. I want to thank my boss at PASS for all the support especially the time I started whining, Andy Warren. And there's this other guy, who has helped just a ton in this effort in every way, and lead the technical edit team, Brad McGehee. We have a photo credit to Pat Write for the front. Craig Ellis has done…
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10Oct 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

3 Weeks to the PASS Summit

PASS
The PASS Summit is only three weeks away and I'm getting awfully excited. It's not too late to register. Heck, you can register at the door, but you'll pay full price. If you want to save a little, use this registration code, FRP3D, and tell them you know me. They'll hook you up & you'll save $200.  If you're involved with designing, building, developing, developing against, supporting or maintaining SQL Server databases or manage any of those who do any of the above, this is where you should be for the first week of November. You're going to get great information from presentations by top experts within the SQL Server community. Speaking of community, this is one to take part in. You're going to be able to network, talk to, confer, converse…
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21Jul 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Conversations

PASS
Do you know how to start a conversation or how to join one? I usually wait for a pause and then blurt out whatever point I thought was missed, missing, or insufficiently covered. In other words, don't come to me for advice. The fact of the matter is, while the legend of misanthropic, barely washed, hardly lucid, but frighteningly competent IT personnel is alive and strong, in reality, we need to speak to each other, our peers, and worse yet, the business people. Developing social skills is a must. Further, with the economy being what it is (and looks to be for some time to come) you probably need to put those social skills to work building up a network, people you can help and, hopefully never needed, can help…
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10Jun 2009 by Grant Fritchey 9 Comments

PASS Summit Session Preview

PASS
The Pre/Post Conference Sessions and the Spotlight Sessions for the PASS Summit 2009 have been announced. Go check it out. This is going to be a fantastic conference this year based on the topics and the people presenting (and I'm still humbled to be included with that group). I wasn't aware that they had shifted the structure of the conference so that it takes place from Tuesday-Thursday instead of Wednesday-Friday. I'm not sure I like that. I'm not sure I dislike that. In addition to the Pre/Post conferences, a special new session, and program, has been put together by Andy Warren on networking. Since networking is one of the very best reasons to attend the PASS Summit (although pure geek joy can be had in the sessions), this should be very…
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08Apr 2009 by Grant Fritchey 15 Comments

PASS Summit 09 Call For Speakers Deadline Extended

PASS
It's now running until Friday April 24th. That's good news if you couldn't get yourself together by this Friday. However, I wonder if they're also extending the time for the committee to make it's decisions? That means extended worry and sweat for those of us who have already submitted abstracts. But, on the other hand, if they haven't extended the committee's deadlines, then that means those guys are going to be working their behinds off to meet the original date (end of May). I also wonder if it means that they're not getting enough abstracts or if the quality of the abstracts has slipped? New this year you can check out the abstracts to see what others have submitted. That makes for some interesting reading, but now I'm wondering if it's…
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24Mar 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Community

Misc, PASS
I'm always impressed and amazed with what happens in the SQL Server community. If you need help, there almost always seems to be a willing and able hand that reaches down to pull you up. It happens again and again, all around. I take part in SQL Server Central, one of the best, and biggest, communities out there for SQL Server. The people that pitch in every day are some of the nicest you're ever going to meet, but they're also extremely well informed. I regularly benefit from people swinging by this blog to offer suggestions or solutions or improvements to my ramblings. I've been making friends and developing contacts at the PASS Summit for the last four years and at my local user's group for the last two.  I've also been…
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11Mar 2009 by Grant Fritchey 8 Comments

PASS Call for Speakers, March 20th

PASS
In case you don't read the Connector when it comes out (and delete it like I used to), they've announced that the call for speakers is going to open on March 20th and close on April 3rd. No links to the web site yet. That will be in the Connector and on the PASS web site when they open it. I've got three presentations that I'm putting in. I hope everyone else is ready with theirs.
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