I spent this past weekend traveling to and attending SQL Saturday Colorado in the outskirts of Denver. This was the first such event in this area, and was arranged and co-hosted by volunteers from the local SQL Server user groups including Denver, Boulder, and Colorado Springs. Marc Beacom, chapter leader of the Denver group, was the chief organizer and did…
Though things have died down a bit since the initial #passvotes backlash, the recent development in the PASS board election process is still the talk of the town. I’ve had the opportunity to talk to a number of folks about this, and have read some excellent blogs and other opinion pieces from those on both sides of the debate. I…
I’ve fielded a number of requests recently asking how to interrogate a file within SSIS and change the processing rules based on the metadata of said file. A recent forum poster specifically asked about using the foreach loop to iterate through the files in a directory and, on a per-file basis, either process the file or skip the file if…
Last weekend I went to Baton Rouge (by way of New Orleans) to attend and speak at the second annual SQL Saturday event there. This event was my third of four scheduled SQL Saturday of the summer. I flew out of Love Field in Dallas with fellow Dallas SQL Server pros Sean McCown and Tim Costello, and we met up…
Unless you’ve spent the last two days hiding under a rock, you’ve heard the uproar around this week’s development in the PASS board election. The Nominating Committee (NomCom) published the list of candidates who will be on the ballot for this year’s three open board positions. Five candidates made the cut; two did not. The buzz – mostly negative –…
The second annual SQL Saturday Baton Rouge event is coming up in less than two weeks. Have you registered? I’m honored to be speaking at this event again this year. I’ll be presenting an introductory SSIS class (one of the 7:30 early bird sessions). Later in the morning I’ll be delivering a talk on expressions and configurations in SSIS, one…
There are some questions that can’t necessarily be answered in a book or a training video. Those are often the questions revolving around “why?” rather than “how?”. A prime example from my own experience is my lack of understanding of the criticality of transaction isolation levels. As a very green SQL Server professional (and in this case, I define professional…
We’re three weeks removed from the first annual SQL Saturday Dallas event, so I’ve had a little time to gather my thoughts on our successes and shortcomings in this inaugural event. This was the first SQL Saturday event held in Dallas, and we expect this to be an annual event moving forward. We started planning this some 8 months ago…
This weekend I flew out to Pensacola, Florida to present a session at SQL Saturday 22. This was the second SQL Saturday that Pensacola has hosted, and I’ve been fortunate to have attended and spoken at both of them. I got in around 5pm, travelling with my friend and fellow Dallas area speaker Tim Costello on what might be the…
So for those of you who attended SQL Saturday Dallas this past weekend, here’s my Top Ten(ish) list from the event: Getting lost in the construction zone on Spring Valley on the way A thousand Quest splat balls Competing with SQL Saturday Portland and Indy Tech Fest on the same day – but knowing that ours was the biggest, because…