The Bit Bucket

I was so pleased today to finally get my new geek tool installed. I bought a Rode Podcaster mike a while back but didn’t get a chance to install it till today. I love the balanced (PS1) arm that lets me get it positioned so well while still able to type. And then I can just push it out of the way. It’s a broadcast quality mike and is in a shock mount. I’ve already noticed a major difference in the sound quality, including vastly reduced background noise. I’ve got a pop-filter for it which I might end up using too.

2008-05-19

I was on a flight from Houston to Washington via Dallas today. We seemed to sit forever on the tarmac in Dallas, in fact just over 1.5 hours from leaving gate to taking off. It was amazingly silly. The captain warened us that if he had to stop and restart the engines one more time, we’d have had to return to the terminal for more fuel. And we hadn’t even left.

2008-03-31

I was really sad to hear that Arthur C Clarke died today. For those that enjoyed his work, it’s worth watching his “goodbye” video he made on the occasion of his birthday in December 2007. He knew at that time that the end was near. I particularly liked his choice of a Rudyard Kipling poem to read at the end. You’ll find the video here:

2008-03-19

Hi Folks,

SQL Down Under show 35 with guest SQL Server DPE Evangelist Roger Doherty is now available for download from https://sqldownunder.com .

In the show, Roger discusses what developers are looking forward to in SQL Server 2008.

Enjoy!

Regards,

Greg

2008-03-14

Hi Folks,

SQL Down Under show 34 with guest SQL Server MVP Geoff Hiten is now available for download from https://sqldownunder.com . In this show, Geoff discusses SQL Server clustering, SANs and magic SAN dust.

Enjoy!

Regards,

Greg

2008-03-07

Hi Folks,

SQL Down Under show 33 with SQL Server MVP Allen White discussing the automating of administration using SMO and Powershell is available for download from https://sqldownunder.com .

Enjoy!

Regards,

Greg

2008-02-29

Darren Neimke posted a link to some great content today from his colleague Steven Nagy. Steven had done a bunch of posts on getting started with Notification Services.

It’s a great set of posts but it’s important to get the message out that in the next version of the product, Notification Services isn’t just deprecated, it’s gone. It isn’t wise to use it for any new development work unless you’re intending to stay on SQL Server 2005 for the life of your application.

2008-02-24

Hi Folks,

SQL Down Under show 32 with SQL Server product group member Dr Michael Rys is now available for download from https://sqldownunder.com . In this show, Michael discusses why XML matters in SQL Server, provides an overview and tips on the support provided in earlier versions and discusses the changes upcoming in SQL Server 2008.

Enjoy!

Regards,

Greg

2008-02-23

I was responding to a discussion in the SQL MVP newsgroups today about LINQ. A comment was made about understanding of the basic terminology and layers of software. I figured I should blog this as well to help someone.

1. LINQ per se is unrelated to databases. It’s a language extension that provides an easy to use query syntax for things that are enumerable. You can build a “LINQ to xxx” provider where xxx is almost anything. The thing I find weird about it is that they used SQL keywords as operators at all.

   2008-02-22

I got the good news today that I’ve had 4 sessions accepted in the first round of approvals for TechEd Orlando. Two are in the developer week and two in the IT Pro week. I’m really looking forward to those two weeks as TechEd’s are always great events.

Good to see so many of my colleagues also doing sessions. Peter Myers has two precons together with Douglas McDowell and Craig Utley. Peter also has two sessions in the dev week. Adam Machanic is really excited about his first TechEd session coming up. I just know it’ll be great so don’t miss it. Fernando Guerrero has an interesting session planned, Andrew Kelly has several as does Itzik Ben-Gan both of whom are always great value. Maciej Pilecki also has a session this year that looks excellent.

2008-02-19