This year was my last year as a member of the leadership of the Professional Association for SQL Server. I will still be involved with the organization, but will be rolling off of the Board of Directors at the end of my 2 year term in December. That made this event a little different for me. I've...
I found out this morning that I've been named a SQL Server MVP (Most Valuable Professional). For those of you who don't know what the MVP program is, here's a brief overview. Each quarter, Microsoft selects a group of people across many different technologies to become MVPs. Your selection...
Another day, more booth duty. I spent a good part of my day working with the VSTS Database Edition team. Great group of people - and they have a great product. It is nice talking to people who have no idea how the product can help them. When they see what it can do, they normally want to get it in place...
I spent a bunch of time today in the SQL Server TLC area down on the show floor. I did, however, manage to get away for a great session on Extended Events presented by Bob Beauchemin - who I had dinner with the night before at a great Brazilian steakhouse. It's amazing all that you can do with the...
The call for presentations for the 2008 PASS Community Summit closes on Friday, March 28, 2008. If you are interested in submitting an abstract, go to http://calltospeakers.sqlpass.org/ . The PASS Community Summit is a great opportunity to start your career as a conference speaker or to add to your presentation...
If anyone is interested, I will be presenting at the Wisconsin SQL Server User Group meeting in June. The meeting date is Tuesday, June 10, 2008, and it will be held at the Microsoft office in Waukesha, WI. The meeting starts at 4:30 PM, and usually is wrapped up by 6:30 PM (to allow people to make it...
Have you ever been so frustrated with a software installation that you just ended up doing a fresh OS install and starting over? I got that way last week trying to install Team Foundation Server 2008. I wanted to install a named instance of SQL Server on my data tier, but Team Foundation Server wasn't...
Just a quick post to say that the February CTP of SQL Server 2008 has been released. You can download it from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/bb851664.aspx . You will need to subscribe to Microsoft Connect - if you haven't already. Have fun! I know I will. Chuck
I've been seriously ramping up on the SQL Server 2008 feature set over the past few weeks, and I'm noticing that there are a ton of new features in the database engine that not a lot of people are talking about. Everyone hears about the biggies - Resource Governor, new Date data types, Spatial...
Have you ever spent days pounding your head against a wall investigating an issue that has no logical explanation? Then next time this happens, check for a password embedded in whatever it is you are trying to do. I just got done troubleshooting a SQL Server Agent job that suddenly stopped working. I...