Scary DBA Halloween Special
Not so much my special as SQL Saturday #59’s Special. These guys in NYC are pulling out all the stops. This blog post proves it. If you can make it to only one SQL Saturday in the next 5 months (I’m hosting one in 6), you should go to this.
SQL Saturday New England: The Date
Mark your calendars. Make your travel arrangements. Plan on being in the Boston area on April 2nd, 2011. Three of the local SQL Server users groups will be hosting a SQL Saturday event on that date. I’ll be blogging (a lot) with more details as they become available.
UPDATE: Fixed the date.
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.
SQL Saturday #39, New York, New York
A town so big they named it twice.
If you’re not excited about SQL Saturday in NYC this weekend… why not? Take a look at the schedule. There are some excellent speakers presenting there. This is going to be a great opportunity to learn a lot of stuff, network with your peers, and possibly pick up a bit of free swag. What’s not to like? See old friends, meet new friends, learn stuff and all for free. I’m presenting a session called MUQT (pronounced “MUCK” the T is silent because we shouldn’t be doing this).
SQL Saturday #39 New York
New York, New York, it’s a hell of a town. The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down. The people ride in a hole in the ground…
Anyway, my abstract for SQL Saturday #39 in New York was accepted a while ago, but I just got all my reservations set, so I’m going for sure. This should be a pretty exciting event based on the people and the schedule. Hope to see you there.
SQL Saturday #34 Wrap-up
Whew!
It’s over. New England Data Camp v2, aka, SQL Saturday #34, was completed on Saturday. Going in we had maxed out our online registrations at 500, an accomplishment by itself. During registration on the day of the event, we shut down registration and just started waving people through the door at 300. Our best guess at the total attendance was 340 (not the 375 I tweeted during the delirium of the day). There were a couple of minor glitches and one major one. The major glitch was not enough vegetarian food. We just ran out. Everyone else seemed to get a meal. We had just a few, read that 3 or 4, sandwhiches at the end of the day.
I want to personally thank Adam Machanic for all the hard work he did putting the thing together. It wouldn’t have happened at all without him and it was as good as it was because of him. Just as much thanks goes out to Jim O’Neil of Microsoft for all his assistance putting things together. We also had a lot of help from Chris Bowen, also of Microsoft. Thanks guys.
Our sponsors were excellent people. In no particular order, Confio, Expressor, Microsoft, PASS, Idera and Quest all stepped up and helped us out. I want to thank them personally, and if you attended the event and got anything useful out of it, you should thank them as well. Around the same time next year guys, please.
We also got some support from O’Reilly who sent us some swag. Same goes for Processor Magazine. We gave away everything they sent us and could have used more.
I also want to thank the speakers. We had industry heavy weights and people speaking for the first time and everything else in between. I didn’t see all the speakers or all the rooms, but I made a point of getting around and sitting through sessions when I could. I learned stuff. I saw great presentations and I saw full rooms. You guys rocked and rocked hard. Good job and thank you for all your time and effort.
Finally, I want to thank everyone who came. It was a great community event and everyone I spoke with seemed to have managed to pull something out of it, networking, learning, or teaching.
SQL Saturday #34
The event is this Saturday. Take a look at our sponsors, speakers and the program. It’s going to be a great opportunity to learn about SQL Server and things around SQL Server. If you’re in the New England area, please register and take advantage of this excellent event. 450 of your peers are already pledging to show up. This is going to be a good time for networking too.
New England Data Camp v2/SQL Saturdy #34 Update
The second annual New England Data Camp is shaping up to one excellent event. We’ve put together a great set of sponsors. Thanks to them we’re providing much better food than last year and the chance at a bit of swag, again, better than last year. But, most importantly, we have an excellent selection of speakers. The schedule has been posted so you can go and check it out and start laying out which ones you can hit. Some of the people speaking are known internationally (Adam Machanic, Aaron Bertrand), some are local luminaries, some are up and coming, and several are probably on the fast track to being MVP’s. In other words, this is the place to go to learn something about SQL Server in New England.
It’s not too late to register, and of course you can register at the door. It’s a free event and, as you can see, it’s going to be very educational and useful.
And don’t forget your local user groups. Southern New England SQL Server Users Group has Adam Machanic speaking this Wednesday, and on a different topic than he’s presenting at the Data Camp, so it’ll be worth visiting both.
