Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

  • SQL Saturday #52 – Colorado

    I will be speaking at SQL Saturday #52 – Colorado in a little less than two weeks. I am giving my presentation of The Modern Resume and also doing a short talk at lunchtime on your career and trying to move forward. Hopefully it will go over well and if you’re not interested, take lunchtime to network with a few people. Either new contacts, or old ones, but take advantage of the time to meet with people outside of an office and talk some shop or career.

    There is a fantastic lineup of speakers, including a few highly respected speakers from out of town. Jason Strate ( LinkedIn | Blog | @stratesql) , Tim Mitchell (LinkedIn | Blog | @Tim_Mitchell), and Jack Corbett( LinkedIn | Blog | @unclebiguns) are coming from other states, as far away as Florida to give you some amazing training.

    From the local community, we have Chris Shaw ( LinkedIn | blog | @sqlshaw), Marc Beacom (LinkedIn | @marcbeacom), Carlos Bossy (LinkedIn | blog | @carlosbossy), and more.

    The event is on Sept 25th, and here is some information:

    8:00am – 5:00pm – Feel free to come a few minutes early to get registered and then network with other professionals from around the area

    Cherry Creek Presbyterian Church
    10150 E. Belleview Avenue
    Englewood, CO 80111
    sqlsat52

    This is just E of the Denver Tech Center, near Cherry Creek State Park and slightly SE of Cherry Creek High School.

    Hope to see you there!

  • Technical People Should Blog

    I ran across a great blog titled: Post 300 or why all developers should be blogging. The reasons given in the articles are great, and I think they apply to all technical people.

    You will learn by blogging, and you will keep stuff in a place that you can go back and review it, in addition to giving you something to impress interviewers. There is one more big reason, however.

    You need to communicate.

    I don’t think I’ve ever seen a position that didn’t require some type of communication skills. You might not need to get up in front of a group and express things (or you might), but almost everyone needs to document things or communicate through an electronic written medium. It could be email, IM, texting, some forum system, or anything else. However you need to communicate.

    The more you build these skills, the better off you will be. There are definitely some very talented people that can get away with poor social skills and poor written skills, but that’s not most of us. Most of us need to communicate effectively.

    To me, blogging is like typing. A developer that hunts and pecks with two fingers is not likely a good developer. And certainly they’re not an efficient developer.

    The same thing comes from communicating. You need to practice it to get better at it. You don’t need to write as much as me, or write as long a posts as I do, but by writing regularly, you’ll learn to better express yourself.

    (cross posted to The Modern Resume)

  • Is Your Database “Web-Scale”?

    It’s not safe for work (NSFW), so be sure that you’ve implemented a cone of silence as appropriate for your environment.

    It’s a parody of the Evo v iPhone video (also NSFW), this time looking at NoSQL and MongoDB v RDBMS systems.

    http://www.xtranormal.com/site_media/players/jwplayer.swfhttp://www.xtranormal.com/site_media/players/embedded-xnl-stats.swf

  • Goal Update – Misc accomplishments

    I have been trying to better track my goals this year, and find myself failing at some, exceeding at others. I’m not sure if that means that I did a poor job setting goals, or that I’m not so good at following through. I’ll have to evaluate that in December.

    In terms of goals, this is a milestone for me. Not really a big goal for this year, but it’s an accomplishment that I’m proud of, and it exceeds a goal I set two years ago.

    As of today, I’ve been running continuously for two years. Every day I’ve run at least a mile every day for 730 days. Yesterday was my 730th day, and today, Sept 10, 2010, starts my third year. I track this on my other blog (The Daily Runner) and I’m listed on the Running Streak Association’s site as #210 on the active list.

    Getting through these past two years has given me new insight into my health, and also kept me going in other areas. I learn to better manage my life and keep on a more even keel over time as well as motivate me.

    So I looked at how other things are going. I checked my posting for the year, and I have these counts:

    Month  Post Count
    8        410
    7        453
    6        377
    5        352
    4        442
    3        277
    2        372
    1        280

    That’s an average of 370 a month, which is above my goal of 300/month. Pretty good, and I’m enjoying answering questions again, which is a bonus.

    I also checked my blog count. I was trying to post every day, and I know I missed a few days, but I had a few double posts as well.

    Month Posts
    1       39
    2       37
    3       26
    4       37
    5       28
    6       44
    7       37
    8       30
    9        8

    With an average of 22 days a month, and an average post count of 34, I think I’m doing well here.

    I did miss one newsletter, and started two in the morning when I woke up, but otherwise doing well there as well. Now if I could just find some time to work with SSRS….