SQL Feather and Quill

SQLQuill – Link Round Up – May 2012 Edition

Andy Lohn — Fri, 18 May 2012 18:24:30 +0000

Here’s the links I’ve tweeted in the last month – hope it is useful/entertaining/etc. (I’ve been trying out ifttt and sending all my tweeted links to instapaper.com, then exporting exporting it from there)

SQL

Tools

News

Entertainment

Happy Birthday, Cumpleas Feliz, Baby!

Humor

Mosquitoes Don’t Even Need To Bite Us, Study Shows | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source

Sports

Sports Humor

Classy Josh Hamilton Dedicates 4 HRs to the Memory of Albert Pujols – SportsPickle News

Running/Workouts

Here’s all the Link Round Ups from 2012

May PASSMN Meeting – Introducing Microsoft’s Big Data Solution

Andy Lohn — Tue, 08 May 2012 13:24:00 +0000

Sponsor: Emergent Networks

Date: May 15th, 2012

Time: 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM

Location: 3601 West 76th Street, Suite 600 Edina, MN 55437 – Note new location!

Live Meeting:

URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups/join?id=7782N3&role=attend&pw=46%7Cmjt-%40C
Meeting ID: 7782N3
Entry Code: 46|mjt-@C

Agenda:

4:00-4:15 : Registration / hospitality / networking
4:15-4:30 : Quick Start for Basic Presentations
4:30-5:45 : Introducing Microsoft’s Big Data Solution
5:45-6:00 : Closing comments/prize giveaways

Presentation:

Introducing Microsoft’s Big Data Solution

Lara Rubbelke, Microsoft

Welcome to the world of Big Data! Hive, Pig, Sqoop, HDFS, MapReduce… Discover how to gain new insight from your data by integrating Hadoop with SQL Server. Join this introduction to fundamental Big Data concepts and terms. Learn how others are leveraging Hadoop and how the Microsoft Big Data Solution fits within the data platform ecosystem.

Lara Rubbelke (B/T) brings her passion for data solutions to the community as a Principal Program Manager for Microsoft. Her expertise involves Big Data, OLTP and OLAP systems, data management, performance tuning, encryption, ETL, and the Business Intelligence lifecycle. She regularly delivers technical presentations at local, regional and national conferences, user groups and webcasts. Notably, Lara has regularly presented at TechEd, PASS Summit, numerous SQL Server Launches, and delivered MSDN and TechNet webcasts.

SQLQuill – Link Round Up – April 2012 Edition

Andy Lohn — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:23:00 +0000

Here’s the links I’ve tweeted in the last month:

SQL

Tools

News

Entertainment

Humor

Sports

Sports Humor

Running/Workouts

Here’s all the Link Round Ups from 2012

April PASSMN Meeting–SQL 2012 and Apply T-SQL Magic

Andy Lohn — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:52:00 +0000

Sponsor: Techfuse 2012 – May 16th & 17th

Date: April 17, 2012

Time: 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM

Location: 3601 West 76th Street, Suite 600 Edina, MN 55437

Live Meeting:

URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups/join?id=F863BG&role=attend&pw=44%2Cj5N%40t7
Meeting ID: F863BG
Entry Code: 44,j5N@t7

Agenda:

4:00-4:30 : Registration / hospitality / networking
4:30-4:45 : Intro / Greetings
4:45-5:45 : Ted Kummert and Mark Souza – SQL 2012 Discussion and Q+A
5:45-6:00 : Break
6:00-7:00 : Itzik Ben-Gan – Apply T-SQL Magic
7:00-7:15 : Closing comments/prize giveaways

Presentation/Discussion:

SQL 2012 Discussion and Q+A

Ted Kummert, Microsoft and Mark Souza, Microsoft

SQL2012 discussion covering the following topics:

Running your Business and Mission Critical environments
BIG Data and scaling breakthrough insights throughout your organization
Unlock New Insights With Pervasive Data Discovery Across the Organization
Adopting the Cloud on your own terms

Ted Kummert is corporate vice president of the Business Platform Division (BPD) within the Microsoft Server and Tools Business at Microsoft Corp. He is responsible for leading the product strategy and development of an integrated application platform – including database and application servers, cloud services, and data programmability and modeling technologies.

Mark Souza (Site/Twitter) is a General Manager in the Microsoft Business Platform Division. He is responsible for all Customer/Partner interaction, Content and Community for the business platform products at Microsoft: Middleware, Database and Cloud. Using Customer Experiences he ensures the BPD division is building and shipping products that customers need to build enterprise class solutions. He is responsible for building the best, most vibrant technical community in the world. He also ensures that the Business Platform community has the highest quality content at their fingertips at the time they need it. Mr. Souza’s twenty eight+ years in the Information Technology business has consisted of database administration, end-user tool management, systems engineering database specialist/lead, client/server architect, Microsoft regional data technology specialist, SQL Server development customer advisory team and most recently general manager of customer, content and community.

Presentation:

Apply T-SQL Magic

Itzik Ben-Gan, SolidQ

When a new version of SQL Server is released, with most of the new T-SQL features that are introduced you can usually quickly tell what their benefits are and what you can use them for. But with some features, it can take some time before people start discovering their true value and what you can do with them. Such is the APPLY operator that was added in SQL Server 2005. Initially it seemed just like an ordinary language element with a couple of uses, but with time people found very creative and interesting uses for it. This session describes the APPLY operator, and focuses on advanced, creative uses.

Itzik Ben-Gan (Blog/Twitter) is a Mentor and Co-Founder of SolidQ. A SQL Server Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) since 1999, Itzik has delivered numerous training events around the world focused on T-SQL Querying, Query Tuning and Programming. Itzik is the author of several books including Microsoft SQL Server 2008: T-SQL Fundamentals, Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2008: T-SQL Querying and Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2008: T-SQL Programming. He has written articles for SQL Server Magazine, SolidQ Journal and MSDN. Itzik’s speaking activities include TechEd, DevWeek, SQLPASS, SQL Server Magazine Connections, various user groups around the world, and SolidQ’s events to name a few. Itzik is the author of SolidQ’s Advanced T-SQL Querying, Programming and Tuning and T-SQL Fundamentals courses along with being a primary resource within the company for their T-SQL related activities.

Top 10 Technological Time Savers to Keep in Touch

Andy Lohn — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 13:55:00 +0000

Social media these days can be a full time job – at least I could easily kill many hours per week in this area. My job doesn’t allot any time for twitter, blogging, reading blogs, etc. Therefore if I want to network, read blogs, blog, keep an eye on what’s happening in the SQL world in general, I’ve got to be smart about it, stay organized and make some shortcuts. Here’s a list of my top 10 time savers to keep my finger on the pulse and interact with the SQL Community. Note, all of these apps/services are free – at least at the basic level, which works fine for me.

Google Reader – Anytime I’m on a computer, Google Reader is usually up. Anytime I am browsing the web, I’m looking for feeds. My three Google Reader tips:
1. Learn the keyboard shortcuts
2. Use folders to organize your feeds
3. If you don’t know how Google Reader works, watch this video, or here’s a slightly deeper explanation.
Google Chrome – every browser has it’s strong and weak points – I’ve learned the ins and outs of Google Chrome and it works for well me. I know the keyboard shortcuts and I love the fact that the address bar is a built in Google search box with instant results.
Paper.li – This creates a daily paper from the shared links on Twitter. I try to set aside 5 minutes a day to read up on what’s happened in the last 24 hours. I’d recommend these two papers:
1. The PASS MN Paper
2. The SQLQuill Daily
Tweetdeck – newest version has a better ability to manage columns, list management and I like the chrome app.
ifttt – “Put the internet to work for you” – this site/service is amazingly simple. It allows you to create custom tasks from things that happen. Here’s a good explanation of how it works from LifeHacker.com.
Buffer – This site allows you to schedule tweets (and facebook updates), but the really cool thing it provides is the analytics of the links you send via twitter. I was quite surprised – a few things I thought people loved, nobody clicked on. A few things I thought was no big deal, tons of people clicked on.
Dropbox – Is a simple, easy to use file synchronization tool. I install it in the same location on all of my computers for consistency sake. This also allows me to make bookmarks in chrome to dropbox files, sync my chrome bookmarks and have them work. It also works well for tasks in ifttt.
Keepass – Password manager – works great, I keep it in my dropbox folder and thus it’s on all my computers.
TrueCrypt – Creates encrypted volumes, which looks just like a file. Anything in my Dropbox folder that I want extra security on, I mount an encrypted volume in my Dropbox folder and add the files there. Okay, I know on the surface it doesn’t look like it has much to do with Social Media, but I can use this to secure files for presentations, upcoming blog posts, presentations, etc – plus I also have created drives using truecrypt for data files on my local machine to mimic the drive layout of a server.
Windows Live Writer – My blog editor of choice because it’s fast, free and easy to use. It’s just like MSWord. You can also customize it and add plugins to it.

I hope this has helped – I know they help me all the time. In fact, I started this post on a different computer, put the notes in my dropbox folder and posted via Live Writer on a different computer. Hopefully it will at least introduce you to one tool that will help you get organized, be more productive or interact with the SQL Community.

SQLQuill – Link Round Up – March 2012 Edition

Andy Lohn — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:24:00 +0000

Here’s the links I’ve tweeted in the last month – hope it is useful/entertaining/etc.

SQL

Tools

Entertainment

Sports Humor

Sports

Running/Workouts

March PASSMN Meeting – Choose Your Own Adventure: Performance Tuning

Andy Lohn — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 16:24:40 +0000

Meeting Details

This month’s sponsor:

Location: 3601 West 76th Street, Suite 600 Edina, MN 55437
Date: March 20, 2012
Time: 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Live Meeting:
- URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups/join?id=JJDQB6&role=attend&pw=4%2B%7C*rDFg9
- Meeting ID: JJDQB6
- Entry Code: 4+|*rDFg9

Please click here for meeting details and to RSVP

Choose Your Own Adventure: Performance Tuning

Jason Strate, Digineer and Thomas LaRock, Confio Software

Life is all about choices, and when it comes to SQL Server it is no different. If you don’t have a methodology for researching questions and resolving issues then you need to get one, and soon. Join Microsoft MVPs Jason Strate from Digineer and Thomas LaRock from Confio Software as they help guide you while YOU make the choices in this interactive performance tuning adventure.

Jason Strate (B/T), Digineer Inc, is a DBA with over fifteen years of experience. Thomas LaRock (B/T) is a seasoned IT professional with over a decade of technical and management experience.

Support me and Team #SQLPlunge for the Special Olympics

Andy Lohn — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:00:00 +0000

On March 3, 2012 I will be jumping into a hole in the ice in Lake Calhoun to raise money for the Special Olympics. One item on my bucket list will be crossed off – I don’t think I want to get good at this, but I do want to try it.

The big reason we are doing this is to raise money for the Special Olympics, this has always been one of my favorite charities. I love sports and competing in anything – this organization gives people with disabilities the opportunity to experience the thrill of competition and the fun of learning a skill and working on a craft.

This is where you come in. I need your help raising money. If you wish to donate to the cause, you can do so here.

Here are the facts about the event:

Who - Tracy McKibben* (B/T), Jason Strate (B/T), Afroza Ahmed and I make up Team #SQL Plunge

Here is Team #SQLPlunge’s page

*denotes team captain

What – Jumping in a hole in the ice.

Why – I’m still not sure, Tracy tweeted something about not knowing if he should do it this year, I responded that with these temperatures, this would be an easy year to do it. The next thing I know…

Where – Lake Calhoun, Minneapolis

When – March 3rd, 2012

Here is more info on the Minneapolis Polar Plunge.

Other Info – My alma matter participated in an event this year – Gusties Support Special Olympics Minnesota

This is just cool – not what we are doing, but just too cool not to share.

Updated – February 2012 PASSMN Meeting – Geographic Visualizations Using Maps in SSRS

Andy Lohn — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 04:32:35 +0000

Sponsor

Meeting Details

Location: 3601 West 76th Street, Suite 600 Edina, MN 55437
Date: February 21, 2012
Time: 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM – Later Time than normal
Live Meeting:
- URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups/join?id=R9352R&role=attend&pw=QqGKDQ7%5Bp
- Meeting ID: R9352R
- Entry Code: QqGKDQ7[p

Please click here for meeting details and to RSVP

Geographic Visualizations Using Maps in SSRS

Brian Larson, Superior Consulting Services

This session will explore the many and varied uses of the map report item in Reporting Services. From providing geographic analytics to diagramming locations on a warehouse floorplan, the map report item – when combined with SQL Server spatial data types – can be used in a variety of ways to create spatial representations of your data. We may even look at a game or two created using the map report item.

Brian Larson, as a contract member of the Reporting Services development team, contributed to the original code base. Brian is the Vice President of Technology for Superior Consulting Services. Brian has presented at national conferences and events and is the author of “Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services: 3rd Edition” and “Delivering Business Intelligence with SQL Server 2008: 2nd Edition” both from McGraw-Hill Professional.

SQLQuill – Link Round Up – February 2012 Edition

Andy Lohn — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:55:00 +0000

Here’s the links I’ve tweeted in the last month – hope it is useful/entertaining/etc. (I’ve been using buffer, ifttt and instapaper.com to manage my lists). Here’s last month’s version. Without further ado – here’s the list:

SQL Feather and Quill

SQLQuill – Link Round Up – May 2012 Edition

SQL

Tools

News

Entertainment

Humor

Sports

Sports Humor

Running/Workouts

May PASSMN Meeting – Introducing Microsoft’s Big Data Solution

SQLQuill – Link Round Up – April 2012 Edition

SQL

Tools

News

Entertainment

Humor

Sports

Sports Humor

Running/Workouts

April PASSMN Meeting–SQL 2012 and Apply T-SQL Magic

Top 10 Technological Time Savers to Keep in Touch

SQLQuill – Link Round Up – March 2012 Edition

SQL

Tools

Entertainment

Sports Humor

Sports

Running/Workouts

March PASSMN Meeting – Choose Your Own Adventure: Performance Tuning

Meeting Details

Choose Your Own Adventure: Performance Tuning

Jason Strate, Digineer and Thomas LaRock, Confio Software

Support me and Team #SQLPlunge for the Special Olympics

Here are the facts about the event:

Updated – February 2012 PASSMN Meeting – Geographic Visualizations Using Maps in SSRS

Sponsor

Meeting Details

Geographic Visualizations Using Maps in SSRS

Brian Larson, Superior Consulting Services

SQLQuill – Link Round Up – February 2012 Edition

SQL

Time Management/Productivity

Tools/Tips

News

Entertainment

Humor

Sports

Sports Humor

Running/Workouts