Category: Uncategorized

Tia thinks I’m crazy to book early, but I like to have a choice of flights, and I like to get things off my plate. I heard back from someone about TechEd today, so I decided to just book the trip. One less thing for me to worry about.

SQL Saturday #22 in Pensacola is the weekend before, and I am speaking there first. A few of the Red Gate people are flying to New Orleans and driving to Pensacola.

That sounds like work, so I booked two one-way flights. I arrive around 2pm in Pensacola on Friday, will speak Sat and then catch a ride back with some Red Gate people to New Orleans where I’ll spend Sun night, Mon, and Tues meeting with people before coming home early on Wed.

No sessions for me, just touching base with authors and saying hi at TechEd, so it should be a light week with the chance for me to get some work done.

I did have a fun 15 minutes wasted on the phone. I had to cancel two trips earlier this year, so I wanted to use my credit. Apparently United doesn’t issue “credit.” What they do is allow you to rebook the flight, charging you $150. However you can’t use the website to rebook the ticket. Instead you have to call an agent.

And oh yeah, they charge you $25 for the agent.

So I call, we get my account up, and 10 minutes later he says that I can rebook one flight. OK, I agree to do that. He gets my info, goes through things, and then says it’s $150 + $25 for $175 and I have $168 credit. Am I ready to book?

Holding my temper in check, I then ask can he waive the agent fee, but apparently he’s a dim bulb, reading from a script or not allowed to deviate. We go around a few times, me using logic, him passing the time reading from his script. I ask can I book two one-ways with this ticket, and get credit from my other flight. No, he can’t handle that, but his grasp of the English language isn’t great, so I hang up.

Book through Expedia, get my itinerary on my phone, just easier.

Good thing I went for a run afterwards.

I hope there will be more surveys, so I’ll tag this as 2010. The results were released recently, and there were some write-ups on the results. There was the release by PASS, and then a great interpretation (and debate) by Brent Ozar. There are others as well (Brian Kelley, Jack Corbett, Tom LaRock).

The survey was flawed, but aren’t they all? I’m sure PASS would like help in getting another one together, and they have asked. Feel free to contact them with feedback.

However. (you knew that was coming, right?)

There’s an interpretation missing. Why don’t we have an official interpretation of the results from PASS? Why hasn’t the board published something that explains how they viewed the results? Shouldn’t at least a couple of the board members have spent time going over the results by now?

There’s a write-up on the PASS blog on the chapter survey (thanks, Douglas). Transparency was on the last Board agenda in March. People have called for more transparency and communication. There’s a short announcement, but no feedback from board members on how they view the survey.

It’s our fault. We get what we allow, and a few of us make some noise about this, but it’s not enough of you out there that contact PASS and let the board know what you’d like. Too many people sit back and just let PASS happen, or in this case, do very little.

PASS can be a great organization for helping the SQL Server community grow, bond, learn, and become stronger. However it takes a little effort from all of you.

If you read this, take 5 minutes and draft a short email to the PASS board. Ask them to blog, ask them for their interpretation, tell them they’re doing a great job.

Are SQL Saturdays falling from the sky? (from Jen McCown, @midnightDBA)
I think so. This past weekend had three events, #39 in NYC, #41 in Atlanta, and #44 in Huntington Beach, CA. That’s unusual, but this weekend we have #36 in Wheeling, WV and #38 in Jacksonville next weekend, then two more in May (#35 Dallas and #27 Portland). That’s 7 events in 30 days, which is amazing. Extrapolate that for the year and you would be looking at 84 events in a year!
That. Is. Amazing.
When Andy (blog | Twitter) and I talked about this three years ago, we were thinking that getting 12 events would be great, and we hoped we could get to the point where we might do 50 in a year.
It looks like that could happen, and I’m hoping PASS continues to push for it. There are, as of now, 23 events scheduled for 2010, and a few more in the works (Denver and Nashville that I know of).
I think it’s cool, and I’m glad to be a part of them. I have plans to hit two more this year, Pensacola and Baton Rouge, and might do another if I can.

This is one of the reasons that I don’t like to put CTP software (or Beta software) onto machines that I can’t take the time to wipe and rebuild. Buck Woody wrote a note about upgrading your CTP, and the short answer in his blog is:

NO

You can’t upgrade a CTP and it’s not supported. Well, maybe you can upgrade a CTP, but it’s a bad idea. There could be settings, registry entries, etc. that get stuck from the CTP into the RTM, and it might bite you later.

I don’t think it’s worth the risk. Honestly SQL Server is easy to detach dbs, script logins, uninstall, reinstall, fix it up. It’s a simple process, even if you have jobs, so I wouldn’t complain about it, wouldn’t chance it, and just rebuild the SQL instance.

Here’s what I’d do if you don’t want to rebuild Windows

1. Perform a physical to virtual migration using Hyper-V. This will give you a backup.
2. Script out logins, jobs, save packages on the file system. If you have linked servers, do those as well. I might do a complete script of the server if you can.
3. Detach the user databases.
4. Uninstall SQL Server 2008 R2 CTP (or whatever version). Make sure you get all Control Panel SQL Server entries.
5. Delete the registry keys that might exist.
6. If the user databases are in default locations, move them. Delete the folders from the file system.
7. Reboot
8. Reinstall SQL Server
9. Attach databases.
10. Run scripts to add logins, jobs, etc. Fix orphaned users.
11. Test, test, test,

Easy-peasy