PASS Archives - Page 12 of 15

14Apr 2010 by Grant Fritchey 23 Comments

The SQL Server Community

PASS

I attended, and spoke at, the inaugural meeting of the Seacoast SQL Server User's group last night. There were about 60 people in attendance. An excellent turn-out and congratulations go out to Mike Walsh (blog | twitter) and the other organizers. I was curious about something after watching Mike present the PASS monthly slide-deck. He asked how many people were PASS members. Approximately a third of the audience raised their hands. When it was my turn to speak, I asked how many people had heard of Buck Woody (blog | twitter). I was honestly shocked when only about 6 people raised their hands. Then I asked how many had heard of Paul Randal (blog | twitter). This time I had about 9-12 people. Finally, I asked about Brent Ozar (blog…

06Apr 2010 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

24 Hours of PASS v2.0

PASS

The kids over at the Professional Association of SQL Server Users have done it again. They're hosting 24 Hours of PASS: Celebrating SQL Server 2008 R2. That's 24 hours of free training by top names in the business, providing you with the information you want and need. I'm not presenting this year (I may cry), but who cares. This is going to be a great chance to get some serious learning. I'm sure going to attend as many sessions as I can. First one that I've already got marked is Andy Leonard's on database development patterns. That's a topic that's near & dear to my heart. So follow the link, look the offerings over, and register right away.

11Mar 2010 by Grant Fritchey 9 Comments

Location of the PASS Summit Follow-up

PASS

I got a little distracted after lunch and was reading through some of the various bloggers reactions to the decision to keep the Summit in Seattle for the forseeable future. I enjoyed Brent Ozar's take on the situation, but the thing that struck me square in the eyes and inspired me to add one more post of my own, was a comment on Brent's post by Aaron. Scroll down and read it. Here's the part that really made an impact: This whole situation is making me less interested in supporting the organization. As a relative newcomer to PASS and having never attended a Summit, Iâ€™m turned off by the â€œcome talk to Microsoft employeesâ€ stance. Iâ€™d rather them say come and talk to (or sing Karaoke with?) cool guys like…

10Mar 2010 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Location of the PASS Summit

PASS

There has been some discussion recently around the location of the PASS Summit. The debate was centered on the results from a recent survey hosted by PASS. Today's Community Connector has an editorial by the PASS President, Rushabh Mehta, explaining why those of us on the East Coast will be flying to the other side of the continent for the next two years, and supplying the results of the survey I get why they're doing this. Microsoft really will commit more resources to an event that is in their back yard. I get it. I also understand, that those of us who consider the PASS Summit a big part of our "community" are actually in the minority. Most people attending the Summit aren't involved in the community, aren't interested in…

06Nov 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

PASS Summit 2009 Day 3

PASS

The day started off with a mixed bag. First we had an honestly tearful farewell withÂ Wayne Snyder saying goodbye to Kevin Kline, leaving the board for the first time since PASS was founded. This was followed by a painfully dull session with Dell all about their commitment to bread & butter DBA concerns. That was followed by Dr. DeWitt doing a deep dive into the history and the future of computing, showing and teaching in ways that only the very best can achieve. It was a fantastic performance, entertaining, enlightening, amazing... Just flat out incredible. It's the kind of understanding that you wish you could get about most things, most of the time. Unfortunately, it came to an end. Today I finally got to hit a lot of sessions. First…

05Nov 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

PASS Summit 2009 Key Note 1

PASS

Wow, the bloggers table is empty today! Nice intro! Good photo's. I love the Summit! Bill Graziano is introducing Day 3. He acknowledged Twitter and the bloggers. We rock! Outgoing board members are Greg Low and Pat Wright. These are great guys who've busted their butts for the community. Kevin Kline is completely off the board now, finishing his time as the immediate past-president. I'm pretty sure that's the first time he won't be on the board. Yep, I'm right, he's never been off the board since PASS was a organization. He really has done a lot for the organization. Thanks for your time Kevin. A review of all the other board members including the new president Rushabh Mehta and Wayne Snyder as the immediate past president. April 21-23,2010 the…

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.Â 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…

30Oct 2009 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

More PASS Activities

PASS

As if I needed more. I'll be sitting at the blogger table and blogging live (as live as I get) during the keynotes. It should be fun. As I said on Twitter, this means I get to pick on the cool kids. Life is good. Thursday I'll be doing a book signing with Apress between 12:30PM-1:00PM across from the Summit bookstore. I don't have a clue which book we're talking aboutÂ since they'll be supplying it. I hope it's the Performance Tuning one, but it might be the Introduction one. Either way, that's another place to track me down & say hello. In addition to my keynote blogging, I'll put up a summary for each day of the summit just like last year. It's looking to be a great summit.

27Oct 2009 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

SQL Server Standard, Volume 6, Issue #1

Misc, PASS

It's alive!Â It'sÂ 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…

21Oct 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Birds Of a Feather Lunch

PASS

The PASS Summit agenda is shaping up and it's already looking to be much busier than last year. The latest is the Birds of a Feather lunch. It's lunch with an MVP. At least 50 different MVP's will be hosting a table each. At each table a topic of discussion will be hosted by the MVP present. It should be a lot fun. It'll be a great way to meet people and share war stories, tips, approaches, what ever. The list of topics and the MVP's leading are available here at Mike Walsh's blog. I'll be hosting a table on Team Development. I crack jokes about beating up developers, but really I see them as partners and teammates. We're all working towards a common goal, delivering the product, whatever it…

Tag: PASS