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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30Sep 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

SQL Server Standard Update

Misc, PASS
Just to keep people who might be interested up to date on what's happening with the SQL Server Standard relaunch. I've received some fantastic abstracts on a wide range of topics from a diverse group of SQL Server DBA's and Developers. From that, we've got a lot of articles in the hopper going through technical edits and second drafts. Three articles have made it all the way to copy edit. They should be done soon. I'm positive you'll see at least one of them, maybe two, before the PASS Summit. I need even more abstracts so I can publish even more articles. If you meet the qualifications to write for us, please submit an abstract to my PASS email address: grant.fritchey - at - sqlpass -dot- org (unobfuscate the obvious).…
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29Sep 2009 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

Vote for Mr. LaRock

PASS
It is rapidly coming up on election time at the Professional Association of SQL Server users (PASS). Once more, a person I respect and admire is running for office. Tom LaRock has been a volunteer with the organization longer than I have (I'm approaching four years) and for the entire time I've been involved he's been in the thick of things, working for the organization and working with the other volunteers. He does great work. He's presented at the Summit, three times I think, and he's presenting again this year. He's one of the people chiefly responsible for the new Virtual Chapters. He's been serving on the Board as an appointee. I think it's finally time to make it official and elect this great guy to the board. He'll do a good…
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23Sep 2009 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

PASS Virtual Chapters

PASS
If you're not a member of the Professional Association of SQL Server users, PASS, why not? No, I'm sorry. I meant to say, If you're not a member of PASS, you may not have heard about the change between special interest groups and the new Virtual Chapters. What used to be the SIG's has been repurposed, rebuilt and, let's say it, reborn, as Virtual Chapters. There's a whole new energy and all new web sites with content and presentations and more free training than you can shake a stick at. There are great opportunities to begin networking, and we all know how important that is as a means of career building. It's like having a really vibrant, active, useful user's group available 24/7. Get on over and check out the offerings…
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22Sep 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Cape Cod .NET Users Group

PASS
Tomorrow night, Wednesday, September 23, I'm going to present on "Best Practices for Working with SQL Server Execution Plans" for the Cape Cod .NET User's Group.  It's basically a rehearsal for the presentation that I'll be doing at the 2009 PASS Summit in just 5 weeks. Can you believe it's already almost here? I'm so jazzed. This year is going to be a great summit. I can't wait to see everyone again... I... Where was I, oh yeah, come down to Hyannis if you can make it. It should be a fun evening. Not quite as good as the Summit, but a good time.
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02Sep 2009 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

24 Hours of PASS

PASS, SQL Server, T-SQL
This was a pretty cool event. The advertising leading up to it seemed to really cover the community very well. There was even a link to 24 Hours of PASS in my team's local web site. Unfortunately, I'm not an iron man like Tom LaRock, watching all 24 hours. I only hit a few sessions. The first session I hit was Allen White's PowerShell for SQL Server. I have attended a couple of  his presentations at the PASS Summit. I think he's done a great job of gleaning better and better examples out of his presentations. This one was good. I loved the way he put together the backup processes for automating backups. It looked good, took into account common issues, it just worked. I was really happy I got…
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31Aug 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

24 Hours of PASS

PASS
Or, as you should tell your boss, 24 hours of free training by many of the leaders of the industry presenting original sessions that will teach you about topics from SSIS to Spatial Data to Index Selection to CLR performance to... well, you get the idea. This shouldn't be a hard sell for anyone to their boss. "Hey, remember that problem we had the other day with the database that was in simple recovery mode? Yeah, well, Kalen Delaney is presenting for an hour on just that topic." Your follow-up question to the boss, should then be, not, can I, but "Do you want me to get a meeting room and project this for everyone?" Developers, designers, architects, administrators, and managers are going to be able to find something interesting…
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03Aug 2009 by Grant Fritchey 8 Comments

SQL Server Standard

Misc, PASS
PASS is relaunching the SQL Server Standard with a wholly new approach and format. I'll put more out about it as it becomes available. I just wanted to get the word out now, as far and as wide as I can. Basically submissions are open for articles. We're only interested in publishing experienced writers who've published in some other tech-reviewed medium (Simple-Talk, books, SQL Server magazine, the old SQL Server Standard, are a few examples).  If you're interested, send me a direct tweet @GFritchey or an email to grant.fritchey -at- sqlpass.org. All the details will be published soon over at the PASS web site. Short info for those interested: experienced writers who are members of PASS abstracts can be 4-6 sentences describing the thrust, scope & length of the article…
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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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17Apr 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Pushing Connect

PASS
I have posted multiple times that I think Microsoft Connect is one of the best tools you can use to communicate with Microsoft. It works. Buck Woody is reinforcing my position from the Microsoft side of the fence. Look, Microsoft is not a small nimble company like Red Gate. And again, unlike Red Gate, you might not find yourself in a conversation with the CEO of Microsoft on the floor of a conference like the PASS Summit. And short of going to PASS or TechEd to track down some of the developers and project managers (many of whom attend these conferences), you need to have a mechanism to communicate with the company. You can try standing on your front door step and screaming (trust me, the neighbors just call the police)…
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