Upcoming Presentations: #24HOP & #SQLSAT46
Blogging has been a bit quiet of late. That’s because I’ve been spending a lot my spare time getting ready for presentations that I have to give. Two of them are in about two weeks.
First, and this one is going to be a big deal, is 24 Hours of Pass: Summit Preview. At the PASS Summit this year I have two spotlight sessions, both on tricks and tools for tuning queries, one on using execution plans and the other on using DMVs. Since the 24HOP presentation is supposed to be a lead-in to the PASS presentations, I decided that before you started tuning queries, you need to know which queries to tune. The presentation is titled: Identifying Costly Queries. I understand there are already nearly 2000 people registered. Let’s see if we can break LiveMeeting on September 15th. And please, try to break LiveMeeting for all the other sessions too. 24HOP this year is spanning two days, plus another four hours, so it’s really 28 Hours of PASS. There are going to be some fantastic sessions by great presenters.
Second, and I’m very excited about this one too, I’m travelling for the first time (not counting driving the car) to a SQL Saturday event. Red Gate, wonderful people that they are, have sponsored my trip to SQL Saturday #46 in Raleigh, NC, on the 18th of September. I’ll be doing an initial run through of my PASS Summit session on using execution plans to tune queries. If you can’t make the Summit this year, but you can make it to Raleigh, this is your chance to see this session. Check out the schedule for this SQL Saturday. It’s going to be a huge deal. I see a whole bunch of MVP’s and authors who are going to be giving you their best stuff. I’ll also be doing a lunch time session on some Red Gate tools (have to pay for the trip). The software they released in the spring is SQL Source Control. It’s a pretty amazing bit of programming that works within SQL Server Management Studio to get your database into source control (and if you’re not using source control with your databases, time to start).
Between getting these, and other, presentations together, working on books (tech edited one, working on chapters on another, getting ready to rewrite the Execution Plans book), actually spending time with my family, oh, and going to work (note, I didn’t say working), my blog posts have suffered a bit. I’ll get back on the stick very soon. Hopefully before Tom updates his blog listings.
If you attend any of the in-person events where I’ll this fall (and I’m going to four, SQL Saturday #46, New England Code Camp #14, PASS Summit, SQL Saturday #59), please look me up. Say hello. These events are all about networking and building community. The people that go and present expect you to stop them in the hall and talk to them. That’s what this community stuff is all about. Meeting people and making connections.
PASS Elections
There are a lot of things I’d like to say about the PASS elections. I was on vacation last week when the news about the slate of candidates broke. I’ve gone through a lot of emotions thinking about this, which is funny, because, really, what does it matter? But, because of the people, and let’s face it, PASS is nothing without the people involved, it does matter. But, I’ve decided to say as little as possible because I’m not convinced I can add constructively to the conversation and that is what is most needed at this time.
First, I want to endorse a few candidates. The people I’m going to endorse, I’m endorsing because I know them personally. I’ve worked with them, I’ve talked to them, I’ve read their stuff. I know these guys. None of this is to question the other people on the slate, their abilities or character, but these are the ones that I can personally recommend. So, I suggest you vote for, in no particular order, Andy Warren (blog|twitter), Allen Kinsel (blog|twitter) and Geof Hiten (blog|twitter).
Finally, the one person I would have liked to have endorsed, because he’s the guy who got me involved with the SQL Server community, who gave me chances to write, who always promoted the Summit, who gave away SQL Saturday to the PASS organization, who has acted in many ways that are positive for our community… well, anyway, I can’t endorse him because he’s not on the slate. I’ve heard the explanations for why that’s true and I still don’t understand it. But, since he’s taking the high road on this, I’ll follow along and refrain from further comment.
Be sure, if you’re eligible, that you vote in the PASS elections. This stuff can be important if you care about the community and the people involved.
Viva Las Vegas!
I won’t be going to Las Vegas, but I will be presenting to the Las Vegas SQL Server Users Group, S3OLV. The sesssion will be “Introduction to Execution Plans.” Please swing by if you’re in the area.
I’m not sure if they’ll make the LiveMeeting available to the public or if they’ll record the session. But if they do, please attend that way too.
A Milestone
I just passed 100,000 views on the blog. That’s from 400 posts over a period of time starting in March of 2008. You guys have posted 1129 comments. The average views per week went from 39 in 2008 to 160 in 2010.
I realize others out there are hitting 100,000 a week, but for some of us small time bloggers, this is a big deal.
I just wanted to say thanks for stopping by and I hope my attempts at understanding SQL Server, PowerShell, SCOM, spatial data, Visual Studio, ORM and whatever else I’ve posted about has been helpful in some way.
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