Author: way0utwest

I saw this blog about an Accenture survey of potential car buyers. It mentions that people likely won’t buy a green car unless it is superior in every way to a gasoline only car. The blog tends to lean towards the side of someone that doesn’t like hybrids. There’s a comment about why they look so bizarre, which seems odd to me. There are a lot of hybrids out there that look just like the gasoline versions. The Prius is shaped differently, but so is the Dodge Caliber. Are they really odd?

Are these really that different? I might argue the Prius has softer lines, which contribute to better gas mileage.

I think that there is a lot of fear out there for people in looking at hybrids. I have a few friends that are down on them, based on comments from other friends, that don’t seem right. I think there is some mis-information out there, as well as just some prejudice for no reason.

I have had friends, and strangers, come ask me about my Prius experience and if I recommend them. I think it’s a great car, but I do caution them that they ought to do some analysis. I had one guy actually send me a bunch of data on his driving habits, and I crunched numbers with him, arriving at the decision that a Prius didn’t make sense for him.

In 3 years, I’ve driven 60,000 miles. That’s 20k a year, and I think that at the current $2.75 a gallon, I think it saves me about $1000-1100 a year in gas over even something like a Ford Focus, which is listed as the same class by the government as a Prius.  If I compare to a minivan, which was what we considered, I’m more like $1500 a year.

That’s significant, and it means that my $4500 “hybrid tax” has been paid off. It actually paid off sooner since my first year we drove 26k miles and gas was $4/gal!

However if you drive more like 10-12k miles, and consider a better vehicle that gets closer to 30mpg, then it might be savings of more like $500 a year. If you have a of highway driving, then you might be saving less, so it doesn’t make sense.

Unless you just want the car.

  One of the dangers of being an “Internet Journalist” or even just a blogger, is that you might compromise who you are to attract readers.
Or in the case of your “modern resume,” impress someone for a new job.
Here is case of someone losing control of their ethics, for the sake of ratings. This is more of a journalism story, and the only person that I think it really hurts is the writer, but maybe that’s not true. Maybe it didn’t even hurt him. He still has a job.
You, however, might not be so lucky.
There are companies that would let you go if they found out you misrepresented yourself in an interview, or with a resume.
Don’t write something for the sake of attracting or impressing readers. Write about what you know, and what you don’t. Admit your mistakes, and highlight your successes.
Your blog, your presentations, your articles, are all a part of your career, and you should treat them as though they are precious. You are the product in your career, you are what you can sell, and your brand is what you have to sell.
If people stop believing in that, you are in trouble.

I think maintenance plans were a great improvement in SQL Server 2005, with a more visual designer and the ability of the DBA to chain together whatever tasks they wanted.  Service Pack 2 brought some enhancements, and a few bugs, so I’d recommend that you apply SP3 to your servers and clients if you are using them.

I rarely see issues with building packages since it’s a fairly simple designer, but there are two places where I have seen people have trouble editing them.

1. Version differences
2. Outside editors

I’ll explain the basic issues I’ve seen to give you a few things to check if you can’t open a plan.

Version Differences – The designer for maintenance plans is a cut-down version of the SSIS editor. As a result, there are sometime changes or enhancements to this designer delivered in SPs or CUs. If you have created a package in one version of SSMS, often you cannot open that package in a lower version. So the first thing to check is that the server and/or designer client is at a higher version than the one that is failing.

Outside Editors – The designer is a version of the SSIS designer, which is a version of Visual Studio. However those products contain many more features, and while you can use them to edit your maintenance plans, you can introduce changes to the plan that the basic SSMS designer does not support. As a result, you can’t then open the package again in the SSMS designer if you’ve opened it in Visual Studio or BIDS and changed something.

There usually are error messages to clue you in to the issue, but these are the two things I’d check first if you have issues modifying maintenance plans in SSMS.

For the handover of SQLSaturday to PASS, Rushabh Metha, President of PASS, came to the Charlotte SQL Saturday, where Andy Warren and I handed over a symbolic key. It was at the end of the keynote, and fun for us, though I’m not sure that many of the attendees thought much of it.

I think this was the most impressive SQL Saturday from a speaker/content viewpoint. There were about 17 MVPs there by my count, and a few more people that could easily be awarded at any time. That alone made it a fantastic event, with so many excellent speakers giving training.

The event was held at the Charlotte Microsoft office, which is also one of the locations for the SQL Server support group at Microsoft. A number of their engineers held a Q&A session during the day, giving the high end DBAs a chance to ask questions without the cost of a CSS call.  The facility was nice, though a slightly high security pair of buildings that required security guards to let people in and out. It was nice of Microsoft to donate the space, and employees, to allow local professionals to get training. It was slightly confusing as to where the rooms were, but plenty of volunteers around to direct people.

The keynote was late in starting, with check in going a little slow. One thing I’d recommend to other SQL Saturday events is start check in early and perhaps schedule a couple birds-of-a-feather sessions early in the morning for people that check in first. Andy and I had talked about it, and shared the deck and I think it went over well.

I posted my section of the keynote over the weekend, and I have a video as well that Blythe Morrow from PASS HQ took as well.

I went to Kendal Van Dyke’s session on blogging/speaking, before giving my own take on the subject with my presentation on The Modern Resume. Both were well attended, drawing about 20-30 people in each. I noticed that there were a few tracks that had almost double sessions back to back. While that might seem strange to speakers, I think it’s great for attendees. If you miss one to see another session, you can get similar material in the next slot.

I’d like to see more SQL Saturdays consider that, and put out more tracks, but duplicate sessions so that people would not be torn between two topics. You will never get this perfect, but duplicating some sessions throughout the day would be good. I know I’d be happy to present twice on the same topic at an event.

The rest of the day seemed to run smoothly. There were snacks in the afternoon, people flowed between sessions, though I ended up chatting with a number of friends that were speaking at the event. It’s a good time to network and that works for me. I’d like to find some ways to help others network as well that attend the event and that’s one place that I think PASS can help.

People seemed to enjoy the training, and I heard good comments about sessions. I missed out on the after party, having to head back to Denver on Saturday night, but I thought this was a great event. There were a few vendors that attended as well, and they were all pleased with the turnout, which is great. Without vendor support, these events don’t happen.

I had a great time, and am looking forward to the next SQL Saturday that I can attend. I would love to come back to Charlotte as well.

The keynote is up on YouTube if you are interested.

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Part 2