SQLServerPedia

My MVP lead, Ali Brooks, sends out cool resources on a monthly basis.  Some of them are NDA and, so, aren’t available to be shared with the public.  On the other hand, a a whole bunch of these resources are the kind of thing that I thought you would enjoy seeing and are open to the public.  For example, the Application Compatibility Toolkit v5.5, has just launched.  It contains tools and docs to evaluate and mitigate issues before deploying Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Update or the latest version of Internet Explorer in your IT shop.  Get it here.  Here are a bunch of other free TechNet resources that are especially useful for IT professionals, in no particular order:

How Do I Videos: These short 10- to 15-minute videos focus on specific tasks and show you how to accomplish them step-by-step using Microsoft products and technologies.

TechNet Flash newsletter: The biweekly TechNet Flash IT newsletter delivers the latest IT news, security bulletins, product updates, event announcements, and more, making it easy for you to stay in the know. Sign up now for either HTML or text format.  And if you’d rather not wait for the next newsletter, you can get all the latest via RSS in a convenient desktop widget.

TechNet Magazine: Magazine for IT Pros containing Paul Randall’s excellent monthly column.  You can order the snail mail version here.  Long live paper!

Microsoft Server Quest: Semi-fun games that tests your IT skills at www.microsoft.com/click/serverquest.  The Server Quest Contest was launched a while back and all entrants are games developed entirely in Silverlight 2.  Go here to vote for your favorites by Sunday, May 24^th.

Good Career and Learning Sites: Include the new Thrive website and Are You Certifiable.

TechNet: TechNet is the site of mucho bueno stuff.  Webcasts are 60-90 minute long deep dive technical presentations.  Podcasts are shorter media you can list to on your mobile device.  If you want your e-learning in even smaller and more digestible chunks, check out the eLearning Snacks.  The TechNet Virtual Labs let you evaluate and test the newest server products on-line.  The new and cool TechNet Edge gives you the inside scoop on technology happenings.

Want some training on specific topics?  Check out the new Windows 7 Learning Portal for all kinds of learning goodness.  And there’s a really sweet and tasty training kit for PHP on Windows on the menu.  And, being a SQL Server nerd, I’m happy to see new downloadable developer training kit for SQL Server 2008 brought to you by the Microsoft Developer and Platform Evangelism team.

Cheers,

-Kev

 P.S. MS-Word sucks for blog posts.

“A spokesperson for Microsoft said that the problem was not bandwidth but that its SQL Server database had reached excessive fragmentation levels caused by the tremendous surge of queries”.  Read about it here:

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/102445,windows-7-rc-download-crashes.aspx

and also here:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=910

Why didn’t anyone involved bother to think thru the fact that competitors and various elements of anti-Microsoft factions can make a lot of hay about how Microsoft’s own product?!?

Just as politicians only ever admit to “wanting to spend more time with family”, a technology company shouldn’t point to their own product as the culprit of a major technology failure, especially when there are thousands of other reasons that the meltdown might’ve happened.

What are your thoughts?

-Kev

My editor at O’Reilly & Associates sent me an email the other day.  It read “I’m pleased to tell you that SQL in a Nutshell will be one of 19 titles submitted to Apple by early next week. It may take up to 3 weeks after that for them to appear.”  From what I understand, it might cost anywhere from a few cents to $4.99.  That’s an awesome price, considering the print edition is within spittin’ distance of $50.00.  And, in my humble opinion, it’s a price that very nearly constitutes highway robbery when you consider the amount of toil that I and my co-authors put into the book, now in its third edition.  On the other hand, any publicity is good publicity.  So I’m excited to see what happens next.

In case you hadn’t heard this from other authors, let me be the first to tell you.  Remember that old song Video Killed the Radio Star?  Well, we’ve got the same crime with slightly different actors.  (No, it’s not Ms Scarlet in the Library with the Lead Pipe!)  Simply put, the internet is killing print.  It’s a fact.  Newspapers are losing subscribers in droves (averaging about 6% – 7% last quarter alone).  Magazines are withering away.  While my favorite news magazine The Economist (an English publication with a conservative bent) is still as fat as an old Sears & Roebuck catalog (also killed by the internet) with lots of words in tiny print, have you bothered to pick up a copy of Time or Newsweek lately?  They’re so thin that they’re almost transparent, which can also be said of royalty checks for database authors too. 

My books have been available via the website Safari for quite a while.  Which, for some reason, seems to be as effective a marketing statement as “I’m kind’a a big in Europe. Really.  I am.”  And while I know there’s a line for it on my royalty statements, it has never made a measurable difference to my bottom line as an author.  Will the Internet ever make a dollar for any of us content creators?  I fear not.  After all, smarter and richer people have tried to make a buck tackling this same question. (Ok – now that I think of it, those people are probably not smarter.  But for a while longer, at least, they’re a whole lot richer.)  Ever taken a look at all those news stories about kids getting sued for downloading Metallica and Colbie Calet without paying?  Well, the downloaders are winning.

As I thought about the opportunity, I happened upon this great article that helped me see why having my book as an iPhone app was a good thing:  http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/why-are-iphone-users-willing-to-pay-for-content/.  Maybe there’s salvation for content creators in the delivery channel?  Maybe iPhone users will consider paying a tiny fee for great content partly because they simply enjoy using their cool gadget/PDA/statement of personal style with excellent interfaces and eminently readable print, bookmarking, and other fancy features?  The jury is still out.  Yes – reading  SQL in a Nutshell on your iPhone or iPod will make you cooler.  (That’s my story – and I’m sticking to it.)  And if too few people agree with that statement, I, and many other content creators like me might not come around for the next edition…

Cheers,

-Kevin

The root of this blog post is witnessing one too many DBAs, either through direct action or indirectly by failing to act, damage or destroy the very databases they are charged with protecting.  In a sense, DBAs are the guardians of an extremely valuable corporate asset – its data.  But a large number of DBAs, while responsible for databases, have no idea how to be a proactive guardian of that data.  And, in my opinion, that is a moral and ethical breach more than it is a technical shortcoming.  This is even more important when we consider that some of these databases have a direct impact on human lives, particularly medical, security, and defense related data.  (I write more about this topic in my monthly column in Database Trends & Applications Magazine.)

When we consider other professions with a direct effect on human lives, we can see that they have all implemented professional codes of ethics.  Famously, the Hippocratic Oath of doctors is just the beginning.  “First, do no harm.”  Professional Engineers (PE), whose buildings might fall down on our heads were they only motivated by maximizing profits, must adhere to seven fundamental canons.  Among them, PE’s shall hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public and that PE’s shall perform services only in areas of their core competency.  Even professions that affect our finances (e.g., certified public accountants) and contractual obligations (e.g., lawyers) are sworn to uphold professional codes of ethics.

The Association for Computing Machinery has a rather long code of conduct for a variety of computer-related disciplines.  But the closest it gets to a DBA-type role is one for a systems engineer.  Certainly, it has some passages which are reusable, such as those related to conflicts of interest.  Honestly, though, it’s not that close.  I think we need our own – a code of ethics for DBAs, database programmers, and BI professionals.

So – what do you think?  What are some ethical standards that we should aspire to?  What are some big ethical lapses that you’ve witnessed, and that we should be sure to avoid as true professionals?

Users Groups are grassroots organizations for technical professionals managing and utilizing common applications or practices.  Like any small collective of individuals with a common purpose or interests there is still plenty of room for individuality however: different expectations from the organization, disparate interests within sub-threads of the products and methodologies pulling the members all together, conflicting schedules that prohibit active participation by many of those who would otherwise attend meetings and social gatherings.  It is this unquantifiable aspect of the group directive that has me wondering: “what do you expect, want, and need from your technical user group?” 

I run the West Michigan SQL Server User Group.  It was founded by Microsoft about two years ago and is now associated with The Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) as a local PASS chapter.  It is also struggling (IMHO.)  Our membership is well-distributed geographically across the entire West side of Michigan.  I’ve centralized meetings in the Grand Rapids area, where the SSUG was founded and where my office is located.  We tend to average about 15 members in attendance at each meeting - this includes myself.  I recently attempted a second monthly meeting in Kalamazoo, 60 miles to the south, where I live and the home to the second-highest concentration of Microsoft customers (and members for the SSUG); we had 4 attendees total in-person:  this was comprised of Brent Ozar (our Speaker), myself, and two employees of the company hosting the meeting.  We had limited attendance online, we tend to average 1-5 online attendees at any of our meetings.  I don’t think speaker talent is the issue:  we’ve pulled in strong talent thanks to my years of association with PASS.  Honestly I don’t know why we don’t have a better draw.

My expectations were that we’d have an organization that would meeting monthly, pull in at least 30 members in person, perhaps the same amount online.  We’d have a solid leadership core and be able to alternate meetings between Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo.  Furthermore, we’d have the full backing and support of PASS and Microsoft in our endeavors.  Obviously the attendance expectations are not being met.  In regards to leadership it is just myself and Jason Burton, who volunteers to keep the web presence alive; I have yet to ever meet the original leader for the user group.  Microsoft is doing a good job supporting us; our Microsoft Rep, Rick Brewis, makes the drive in from Detroit for meetings and has the facility up and ready to go for meetings before I even step in the door.  PASS has done an adequate job of providing some resources, but I’ve never spoken with our Regional Mentor about the user group, we see each other socially at PASS Summits only, and we’ve yet pulled in speaker talent as a result of PASS and the user group working together to do so.  I’ve heard these complaints over the years so it was not an unexpected situation.

I know this is a dry post; there is no bacon on this breakfast plate today.  I’m venting and looking for ideas from those who have trodden down this path before me.  Sometimes the road less travelled is not the correct road to take.  I’m looking at walking in the footsteps of giants.  Perhaps at some point later I can start cutting a new path.

Brent Ozar and I had an interview with Jeff James over at SQL Server Magazine.  The topic was virtualization, where Brent and I were able to riff extensively on the topic.  I encourage you to take a look here.

And if you haven’t already checked it out, look at Brent’s excellent blog.  Here’s a good place to start:  http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2009/02/sql-server-and-cloud-links-for-the-week-14/.

Enjoy!

-Kev

I was recently tagged by Chris Shaw, in his blog post Things You Know Now, with the thread started by Michelle Ufford (aka the SQLFool), in her blog post also entitled Things You Know Now.  In the original thread, Michelle asks “It doesn’t have to be DBA skills, but what do you wish you knew when you were starting?”

Of course, I wish I knew the top and bottom value of a lot of stocks years before anyone else did.  That’d make Kevin a very wealthy dude.  It would also make Kevin a person who didn’t care about IT at all.  (Gosh – that sounds wonderful!)  But that gets out of the realm of useful advice and into pure day dreaming.  On the other hand, when I think about useful advice that might benefit someone else, I can come up with a couple tidbits.

First, I am now a huge fan of the adage “The perfect is the enemy of the good” meaning that the search for getting everything just oh-so-perfect can prevent us from ever getting something that’s a-okay for our needs.  I would now modify this in IT projects to “The new and unproven is the enemy of the old and solid.”  I’ve always known how important education is for an IT professional in general and a database professional in particular.  Because of this, we’re many times willing to support or were even an eager champion for a new and unproven technology.  Knowing what I know now, I would have, overall, done a better job of being a DBA and manager if I’d fought “the next best thing” more often in favor of better processes and better business practices that fed and supported the overall actions of the companies I worked in. Here’s an example – when I was lead DBA in a previous job, we were talking into developing a huge knowledge management and collaboration system using the latest and greatest technologies in the Microsoft stack.  I knew that a reasonably effective solution could be built on top of the SQL Server relational engine, but I was lured by the glittering new technology and luster of the “new and improved”.  Fast forward two years and, after millions of dollars in development costs plus more than one tarnished career, Microsoft decides that the core technologies of our project are going to be abandoned.  In retrospect, I should’ve stuck to my guns that a finished “good enough” solution is always, always, always better than an unfinishable “perfect solution”.  A smooth running family sedan is much better than a hot rod that never gets out of the garage.

Second, job security is only ensured through success on the job, not through popularity, relationships with the boss, mad skills, knowledge or any other measurement.  Because of this, it’s critical to understand what it is about the job that measures your success.  For many DBAs, keeping the SQL Server systems running smoothly and remedying/recovering from problems is “success”.  I know of several extremely talented individuals who have written books and have had MVP status, but couldn’t keep a job for long because they didn’t focus being successful in their day-to-day job. 

Finally, plagiarise code freely.  Build a network of friends who don’t mind sharing their hard work, such as good scripts and homegrown documentation, and then reciprocate in kind.  I developed a lot of code, techniques, and processes over the years that I probably could’ve gotten from others.  In this way, I could’ve leveraged the smarts of others to help me get more done during the working day, so that I could’ve spent more time at home with the family.

Well, those are my “Things I know now that I wish I knew then”.  I’d love to hear your comments!

Best regards,

-Kevin

Check out my new interview conducted by Steven Wynkoop over at http://www.sswug.org/media/.  We talk about a number of topics, such as some of the latest pains we’re seeing in the market and one of my biggest personal pet peeves on SQL Server.

Enjoy!

-Kevin

P.S. For some reason, it looks like I’m striking a “Captain Morgan” pose.  But I’m actually sitting on a bar stool with my right foot on the higher rung and left foot on the lower rung.

I had the pleasure of speaking with SQL Server MVP, Denis Gobo, about my newest book, SQL in a Nutshell 3rd Edition.  In the interview, we discuss the state of database industry, ANSI SQL, and other related questions.

Check out Denis’ interview (and his fine blog) at http://blogs.lessthandot.com/index.php/DataMgmt/DBProgramming/an-interview-with-kevin-kline-about-sql-.

Thanks,

-Kevin

Just in case you have too much time in your day, why don’t you make sure that you’re following all of the best blogs out there in the ether.  This list is all of the SQL Server MVPs that I’m aware of.  (The list doesn’t include SQLServerPedia blogs, unless it’s the MVPs main blogging site.)  If you know of other worthy blogs, perhaps by non-MVPs, I’d love to hear about them!

Aaron Bertrand http://sqlblog.com/blogs/aaron_bertrand/default.aspx

Adam Machanic http://sqlblog.com/blogs/adam_machanic

Adrian Downes http://adriandownes.blogspot.com

Alan Koo http://alan-koo.blogspot.com

Allen White http://sqlblog.com/blogs/allen_white/default.aspx

Andrew Karcher http://blogs.claritycon.com/blogs/andrew_karcher

Andrew Kelly http://sqlblog.com/blogs/andrew_kelly

Andy Leanard http://vsteamsystemcentral.com/cs21/blogs/applied_business_intelligence/default.aspx

Andy Leonard http://sqlblog.com/blogs/andy_leonard

andy warren http://blogs.sqlservercentral.com/andy_warren/default.aspx

Bill Graziano http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/billg/

Bob Beauchemin http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/bobb

Brian Knight http://pragmaticworks.com/community/blogs/brianknight/default.aspx

Byron Hu http://blog.csdn.net/byron_hu

Chris Webb http://cwebbbi.spaces.live.com

Christian Robert http://blogs.codes-sources.com/christian

Cristian Lefter http://sqlserver.ro/blogs/cristians_blog/default.aspx

Dan Guzman http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/dang

Darren Gosbell http://www.geekswithblogs.net/darrengosbell

Davide Mauri http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/dmauri/

Dejan Sarka http://blogs.solidq.com/EN/dsarka/default.aspx

Denny Cherry http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/sql-server/

Dinesh Priyankara http://dineshpriyankara.spaces.live.com

Geoff Hiten http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/geoffh/

Gianluca Hotz Blog http://blogs.ugidotnet.org/ghotz

Glenn Berry http://glennberrysqlperformance.spaces.live.com

Greg Galloway http://artisconsulting.com/Blog/GregGalloway

Greg Low http://sqlblog.com/blogs/greg_low/

Hugo Kornelis http://sqlblog.com/blogs/hugo_kornelis

Jamie Thomson http://blogs.conchango.com/jamiethomson/default.aspx

Jason Follas http://jasonf-blog.blogspot.com/

Jasper Smith  http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/sqldbatips

Jeff Smith http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/jeffs/

Jessica Moss http://jessicammoss.blogspot.com

Joe Webb http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/joew

John Welch http://agilebi.com/cs/blogs/jwelch

Kalen Delaney http://sqlblog.com/blogs/kalen_delaney/

Kasim Wirama http://blogs.netindonesia.net/kasim.wirama

Kevin Kline http://sqlblog.com/blogs/kevin_kline

Kiki Noviandi http://blogs.netindonesia.net/kiki

Kimberly Tripp http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/kimberly/

Linchi Shea http://sqlblog.com/blogs/linchi_shea

Louis Davidson http://sqlblog.com/blogs/louis_davidson/default.aspx

Luca Bianchi http://blogs.aspitalia.com/lucabianchi/

Matija Lah http://milambda.blogspot.com/

Mitsugi Ogawa http://blogs.sqlpassj.org/mitsugi

Niall Flanagan  http://nflanagan.blogspot.com/

Nick Barclay http://nickbarclay.blogspot.com/

Paul Nielsen http://sqlblog.com/blogs/paul_nielsen/default.aspx

Paul Randal http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/paul/

Phil Brammer http://www.ssistalk.com

Pinalkumar Dave  http://blog.SQLAuthority.com

Rafael Salas http://rafael-salas.blogspot.com/

Rob Farley http://msmvps.com/blogs/robfarley/

Rodney Landrum http://www.simple-talk.com/community/blogs/rodney

Rushabh Mehta http://sqlblog.com/blogs/rushabh_mehta/default.aspx

Sean McCown http://weblog.infoworld.com/dbunderground/

Simon Sabin http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/simons

Simon Sabin http://www.sqljunkies.com/weblog/simons

Takahiro Matsumoto http://blogs.sqlpassj.org/matu_tak

Tara Kizer http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/tarad

Tibor Karaszi http://sqlblog.com/blogs/tibor_karaszi/default.aspx

Tony Rogerson http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tonyrogerson

Yoshihiro Kawabata http://blogs.sqlpassj.org/yoshihirokawabata