PASS Update #44 (Budget)

I had a question recently about how budgets work at PASS, and I think that’s something worth sharing, so I’m going to write an overview of that process today. Note that I’m not the Finance guy, so the “official” word gets published elsewhere, and for that reason I’m not quoting numbers, just talking about process […]

Planning to Fail

Great title for a post, isn’t it? Seems foolish, lazy, or worse to plan for failure, right? Yet, in the real world, stuff fails all the time. Sometimes we could have done more, sometimes we can’t afford to do more, sometimes it’s just the way things are. As DBA’s we’re usually thinking about backups and […]

Literacy & Teaching

I found The Literacy Project at Google after seeing a local op-ed piece about literacy. I love to read, a skill and passion that my parents contributed to by providing books, taking me to the library, and reading a lot themselves. It’s hard to imagine what my life would be without books, without being able […]

My Favorite Attorney – Chris D’Amico

Not often I do plugs here, but then again, it’s rare that I just get first class service, so read on if you might ever need an attorney in Florida. I met Chris four years ago when it was time to sell our business. Some things you can DIY it on, selling a business across […]

A Surprising Result from Ident_Current

If you haven’t used it (and I rarely do myself), Ident_Current (‘tablename’) returns the last identity value generated across all sessions. It’s something to use carefully, and not fall into the trap of thinking that if Ident_Current = 2 and you insert a row that the value will be 3 – someone could have inserted […]

Reminder – Deadline for SQLRally Pre-Con Abstracts is October 15th

See my previous post on the topic,or just go directly to the application.The application has full details, but MVP’s, Summit presenters, and anyone that has delivered full day classes are within the range of people we’ll consider. We’re hoping for a great variety to pick from, and with luck, you’ll be a seminar presenter at […]

SSC Editorial – Great Service

I wrote the editorial about great service after noticing a couple small but interesting customer service experiences during two trips. I’ve continued to think about it since writing it. It’s an obvious win, but not an easy win, or even obvious on how do achieve the win. How we figure that out? Maybe not complete, […]

SQLRally Event Flyer is Ready

The SQLRally marketing team put this flyer together last week. We’ll be trying to get Chapters and SQLSaturdays to link to the flyer and we’ll also be sending out some copies to distribute as well. The link is to the color version, we have a B&W version but through the magic of technology it’s bigger […]

Four Year IT Degree Approved for Seminole State College

Back in 2007 when we started SQLSaturday we had the good luck to leverage an existing relationship between Seminole Community College and ONETUG, the local .Net user group. In other words, it just took some meetings and a few messages to get things going, it wasn’t the often months long search some cities go through. […]

Notes from SQLSaturday #48

I drove up on Friday, just under 7 hours with a couple quick stops on the trip. Listened to Team of Rivals audio book and did a few calls, didn’t seem like a long as drive as it was – hopefully will be be that going home as well. Checked in at the Clarion Inn, […]