The SQL UPDATE Statement

I'M ON A BOAT!

This is just a quick note to say that I’ll be in South Florida this weekend presenting at SQLSaturday #40. This weekend and the following week are particularly awesome for a few reasons:

1. My birthday is Friday!
2. Look at this lineup, it’s PACKED with #awesomesauce
3. SQL BBQ on Sunday
4. SQL Cruise next week!!!!

So…yeah, it’s going to be an awesome week for sure. On Saturday I’ll be presenting two sessions:

• SQL University 101 – Starting the SQL journey
• SQL University 202 – Managing a SQL Server pt 2

If you’re there please come say hi, even better come to my sessions! If not, don’t worry I won’t be offended as I’m going up against some awesome sessions (although I’ve noticed a trend where I always end up in same time slots as Brent!). So if you’re in South Florida area come join us, it’s free! Sessions start at 8:30 and go until about 4:30-5. Also even if you’re not attending you can connect with all attendees and speakers via the networking page. Hope to see you there!

Last weekend I had the distinguished pleasure of attending Chicago’s very first SQLSaturday event. Before I begin my recap I’d like to again give a HUGE thanks the organizers of the event: Wendy Pastrick (Blog | Twitter), Aaron Lowe (Blog | Twitter) and Ted Krueger (Blog | Twitter) as well as all of the awesome volunteers that helped out.

My wife Jessica (Blog | Twitter) and I arrived into Chicago Friday afternoon. We had time to catch a bite at Grand Lux Cafe with some friends and my sister. Pretty nice place, kind of like a Cheesecake Factory but a little better. My wife’s a foodie so she was loving it! After lunch I got the pleasure of meeting Brent Ozar (Blog | Twitter), Jeremiah Peschka (Blog | Twitter) and Jeremiah’s friend John Jakubowski (Blog | Twitter) as they picked me up and we headed out to the ‘Burbs for the speaker’s dinner. We had plenty of time in car to talk about all things geek such as NoSQL, Ruby on Rails, PASS and a few other choice subjects not fit for print. Let’s just say I learned some strip clubs in Ohio have free steaks for lunch.

Continue reading ‘SQLSaturday 31 Chicago: Recap’ »

Well the title says it all and you’re thinking “well obviously we’ll see it live if we’re there” but that’s not the big news: I’ll be broadcasting my SQLSaturday sessions via LiveMeeting this Saturday! That’s right, for those who can’t make it and want to get a taste of SQLSaturday, join us in my sessions over the internet! Big thanks to Jermiah Peschka (Blog | Twitter) for setting this up for me. Links to the LiveMeetings are listed below for the two sessions I’ll be doing:

UPDATE: Ok Jonathan Kehayias (Blog | Twitter) has brought to my attention that internet at the event might be spotty at best so this live event may or may not happen. Follow me on Twitter for updates as they happen…

Policy Based Management 101 (10:15 am-11:15 am EST) – LiveMeeting Link

Twitter and SQL Server:A Perfect UNION (1:15-1:30 pm EST) – LiveMeeting Link

I’m going to try and have the sessions recorded, let’s see how it goes!

AUDIO INFORMATION
-Computer Audio(Recommended)
To use computer audio, you need speakers and microphone, or a
headset.

FIRST-TIME USERS
To save time before the meeting, check your system to make sure it is
ready to use Microsoft Office Live Meeting.
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=90703

TROUBLESHOOTING
Unable to join the meeting? Follow these steps:
1. Copy this address and paste it into your web browser:
https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/8000181573/join
2. Copy and paste the required information:
Meeting ID: 9KHZ82
Entry Code: dnP`2rr&G
Location: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/8000181573
If you still cannot enter the meeting, contact support:
http://r.office.microsoft.com/r/rlidLiveMeeting?p1=12&p2=en_US&p3=LMInfo&p4=support

NOTICE
Microsoft Office Live Meeting can be used to record meetings.
By participating in this meeting, you agree that your communications
may be monitored or recorded at any time during the meeting.

As if next week couldn’t get any better, Andy Warren went and jacked up the awesome factor. Details of the contest are below but HURRY! The contest ends tomorrow (Sunday) at 5pm.

THE MAIN PRIZE: Free attendance at any of the seminars next week, a $149 value!

THE CONSOLATION PRIZE: We’ve got three runner up prizes, a super discounted price of $99 for any seminar next week.

THE CONTEST: Correctly answer all three of the following questions:

1. Which speaker ‘spins’ a good story?
2. Which session seems to be the most fishy?
3. Which speaker (hint: could be multiple answers) is speaking at a SQLSaturday for the first time?

HOW TO SUBMIT: Email your answers to sqlsaturday21@sqlsaturday.com with a subject of ‘Seminar Contest’. Entries must be received by 5 pm on Sunday and will be announced later Sunday evening – along with one more exciting contest!

Good luck! 

SQLSaturday #21 is gonna be HUUUUUUGE!

I’m excited about next weekend’s SQLSaturday as its going to be one HUGE event. If you live anywhere in the Southeastern United States you should be excited as well! Why? Well for starters next is, for all intents and purposes this is going to be like PASS Summit: East Coast Edition.

For starters, the week leading up to SQL Saturday will feature some top-notch seminars. Each seminar is $149 and includes full-day training as well as lunch. Here’s the seminar schedule for the week:

Monday: Essentials of Managing SQL Server by Andy Warren (Blog | LinkedIn)

Tuesday: Learn BI in a Day by Brian Knight (Blog | Twitter)

Wednesday: Real World Performance Tuning by Kevin Kline (Blog | Twitter)

Thursday: From Zero to SSIS by Andy Leonard (Blog | Twitter)

Friday: Performance Tuning Methodology by Buck Woody (Blog | Twitter)

In addition use code “KKLINE” to get a 20% discount if you register for two or more seminars! Even better if you sign up for the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday sessions together you can knock $200 off the price by using the discount code ”Bundle” at checkout. Also worth noting is that Kevin Kline will be visiting various user groups around the state next week. Here’s the schedule:

And that’s just the week leading up to the main event!!!EXCLAMATIONPOINT

On Saturday we have a plethora of great speakers and sessions. In addition to all the guys I’ve previously mentioned in this post we also have guys like Chad Miller (Blog | Twitter), Joe Celko (Blog), Joe Webb (Blog | Twitter), Kendal Van Dyke (Blog | Twitter), Jonathan Kehayias (Blog | Twitter), Ken Simmons (Blog | Twitter) and more presenting! This SQLSaturday is also seeing the introduction of the mini-sessions. Mini-sessions are 15-minute presentations aimed at first-time speakers to encourage them to present at a big event without the pressure of having to fill that hour time slot.

So what are you waiting for? Oh what you want one more thing to entice you? Ok, how about free T-shirts for the first 150 to arrive to the event? Swag? We got it in spades. We only have a few seats left so hurry up and register!