Dread or Desire

Posted on January 4, 2021 by way0utwest

Today is the first business day of the new year. We’ve made it, and we’ve left 2020 behind, though I suspect some of the challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic will remain for some time. Vaccinations are occurring, but there are a lot of people that need them, and until the world finds many people protected, I don’t know how back to normal things will get.

One thing I wonder about is the business office. Those of us working in technology may not have been too disrupted with the shift to remote work, but we also didn’t have a choice. Recently I saw an article, Dreading or dreaming of a return to the office in 2021, that piqued my interest. I wonder for many of you, do you desire or dread the return to an office?

I suspect the majority of people want some sort of hybrid situation, a few days in the office and a few days at home. Among the friends I’ve asked, office time ranges from 4-5 days a week in the office to 1-2 days a month. I don’t know many people that never want to go to the office, and relatively few that want to be there full time.

Personally I’ve been in the hybrid situation for years. I work most days at home, usually spend about 40 days on the road in various other locations and then get to the Redgate office for about 12-15 days a year. That works out well for me, and it lets me keep in touch with people, build bonds and trust, and enjoy life at home. I hope that I’ll be able to get back to the UK in 2021, but who knows how life will change.

I do think many businesses will look to use their offices in some way. As they do, I know that there will be another period of disruption and adjustment for employees. From having others around to the commute time to the finding the things I need (either digital or physical items), I would suspect that it will take weeks for everyone to feel comfortable again. I also wonder if most of us will be happy with the way our situation works out.

Steve Jones

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Saving PASS Pro Videos

Posted on January 4, 2021 by way0utwest

PASS will close down their websites on 15 Jan 2021. That’s just a couple weeks away, and if you’re someone that paid for a year of PASS Pro access, like me, you might want to save the videos so you can still go through the courses. I have no idea if someone will buy the assets and make them available, but I did contract for a year of access, so I believe I can save them for personal use.

NOTE: DO NOT PUBLISH OR DISTRIBUTE THESE TO ANYONE ELSE. That would be illegal and a copyright violation. It may also break other laws.

Here’s what I did to save off my own personal copies.

First, you need to log into the PASS site. In your dashboard, you should see a PASS Pro section. Click that.

2021-01-04 10_36_40-PASS _ MYPASS

This take you to the PASS Pro site. Here, you need to click “Learn” and then pick the item you want. I was more concerned with the current videos than older ones, so I chose the Educational Series.

2021-01-04 10_37_06-Educational Series - PASS

From here, I pick one. For example, I was interested in Dr. Greg Low’s Cloud Transformation. For the series, you need to go through it quickly, but there are some assessment gates. For example, I couldn’t easily pick Item 4, because I hadn’t started item 3.

Design issues aside, click on an item and view the video.

2021-01-04 10_38_31-PASS_ Cloud Transformation

This opens a popup with the video. Click Play, and once it starts, you can right click and “Save Video As”.

2021-01-04 10_38_09-PASS_ Cloud Transformation

If you don’t click Play, you’ll be saving the HTML page, which isn’t what you want.

I went through the series, and it took just a few seconds to start a video and save it off. I could then close it and do the next one. Once I’d started a video, even for 3-4 s, I could get to the next one.

2021-01-04 10_47_46-PASS_ Cloud Transformation

The caveats here are that there are assessments, and you cannot get past them until you go through them. Take some guesses, as you have a few chances, but note your answers. Maybe you can answer well enough to get past them. If not, here were my quick guesses on module 1 for cloud:

2021-01-04 10_50_52-PASS_ Cloud Transformation

2021-01-04 10_51_17-PASS_ Cloud Transformation

I passed:

2021-01-04 10_51_26-PASS_ Cloud Transformation

On to module 2.

Hopefully this helps. If someone gets an automated way to grab these, I’ll update this post.

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Daily Coping 4 Jan 2021

Posted on January 4, 2021 by way0utwest

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag. 

Today’s tip is to get outside. Pick up litter or do something kind for nature.

There isn’t a lot of litter in my life, as I live in the country. Most people are good about not throwing things out in the neighborhood, though certainly I might find some when hiking a trail.

However, we are trying to to better by nature. My wife and I watched Kiss the Ground a few weeks ago. It was fascinating to me, and it got us interested in trying to compost and do better with the world. We already have piled up and composted horse manure, which some friends have come to get, but we decided to try and do one better.

We got a kitchen bin for gathering food scraps, and then bought a basic composter for the yard. We’re starting to use it and capture the waste, trying to reuse it. I don’t know if we’ll get to gardening, but we certainly can use it to spread around and help build better soil.

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Building a Better Community

Posted on January 2, 2021 by way0utwest

The demise of the PASS organization is just a few weeks away, and if you want to watch or save any content, be sure you get moving. The sites go dark on 15 Jan 2021, so time is short. I found I could right click and save a number of the PASS Pro videos, as I’d like to see what content was produced by some of my friends and fellow community members.

As we look forward, I am hopeful and excited that the community will continue to come together and find ways to grow and share with each other. Already DataSaturdays are up and events coming. Even if my bid for SQLSaturday.com falls short, I’m not remotely worried. We will continue to grow and run events that help the SQLFamily share, grow, and bond. The excitement and growth of the community across the last two decades was facilitated by PASS, but I think it’s really the people in the community that have done the work of building an amazing movement, especially around SQL Saturday.

I saw this past week a number of posts that look to the future. I liked Brent’s question of what you might want in a community. Most of the respondents note that content is the number one goal, which I agree with. When Andy, Brian, and I started SQL Saturday, we did so with the idea that many people don’t have the time or resources to go to the Summit (or SQL Bits, SQL Intersection, etc.). We wanted to provide a way that most people could get the conference experience and get inspired and excited. It worked better than we ever imagined, and I’m confident that many people will find ways to do so in the future. Already, with events like GroupBy, New Stars of Data, Data Relay and DataGrillen, there is plenty of enthusiasm in the community.

We are having discussions about how to replicate some of the success with Data Saturdays already. There is guidance for speakers and user groups. If you are a part of any of those, ensure that you are preparing for things to change in a few weeks. Look to the future, and find a way to help your community grow in 2021.

Steve Jones

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