January 2008 - Posts
First things first, hats off to the wonderful team that put together the Code Camp again this year in Fullerton. Many thanks to Woody Pewitt, Michele Leroux Bustamante, Daniel Egan and Mark Rosenberg for a great Code Camp in Fullerton.
I came up from San Diego to give a talk on Delivering Data with SQL Reporting Services. This is obviously a topic that has a ton of interest as there were about 45 people in the room and there were a lot of great questions. For those of you that were at the session, or had a conflict with another session you can download the slides and code HERE.
There was one example that we were not able to get to that I thought might be interesting showing a bit more regarding the power and flexibility of drilling through to other reports. There is an alternate report for the last example that uses a calculation to dynamically calculate a range and send via parameters to the drill through report. They are the same reports, but with the filename suffixed with RangeParam.
There were a bunch of questions that I will answer in follow up posts within the next week. I wanted to get the slides and sample code out to everyone as soon as I could.
If you were at the session or not, feel to send me any questions via the contact form. Looking forward to the next Code Camp in June in San Diego.
So the local Developer Evangelists out here on the West Coast managed to somehow get marketing and their bosses to approve The Code Trip. The idea is that our esteemed Evangelists will be packing up and going around and visiting 28 cities traveling around in a pimped out RV spreading cheer and good tidings to developers along the way. Sounds like a recipe for some very interesting podcasts, blogging and demos along the way.
They are still in the planning phase so if you want them to come to your city (or avoid it ;-) ) let them know by submitting your ideas via the website. You can also subscribe to their RSS Feed.
As for ideas, their definitely needs to be a stop in San Diego which happens to be right across the border from Tijuana. I wonder what the border agents would think of this thing rolling across the border. I am sure you can follow each of the evangelists individually as well via their respective blogs:
I love reading the quarterly Microsoft Architecture Journal. In the past I have usually read the PDF version of the Journal although sometimes I would read the print version as well. It's great for its lack of advertising meaning if I am carrying the print version I am not carrying around half a pound of advertising.
In November (so I am a little behind - with good reason though), Microsoft released a WPF Architecture Journal Reader that you can download that allows you to read every issue of the Architecture Journal along with searching. Even better it synchronizes with the content feed to automatically download new issues when they are published. You can also get some more information from the blog of the Editor-in-Chief Simon Guest.
Overall, I would welcome this format for all my publications. I am not sure that I would want a separate application for every magazine, but if I could get all my print subscriptions in this format I would love it. There are certain times when I would not be able to use the format (plane takeoff and landings, probably being the main one), but for those certain circumstances I could print out a few articles to read during that time. Moving subscribers over to a medium like this would seem like a win-win for magazines. Lower (read: none) printing costs, lower distribution costs and a much more flexible format in terms of the number of articles and layout of the magazine.
I would love for some of my other publications to be distributed in this format.
The 5th Southern California Code Camp is happening on Jan 26th & 27th on the campus of Cal State Fullerton in Fullerton, CA. The Code Camps keep getting better with more attendees, more speakers and even better Geek Dinners. There is already a large number of registered attendees and a VERY impressive lineup of presenters on a wide range of topics. There is truly something for everyone at this Code Camp.
I will be up giving a talk on SQL Reporting Services that was a big hit up at the Silicon Valley Code Camp so I am looking forward to bringing it to Southern California. I am really looking forward to attending and meeting all the great speakers and attendees in the community. I look forward to seeing everyone there and be sure to stop by and say hi.
I have been away for a little bit, but with good reason. I have been working on a SQL Query for the past nine months and I finally finished.
Select
m.genes + f.genes
From
Mother m
Inner Join
Father f
My wife and I welcomed our first baby Melea on December 15th, 2007. It was a very exciting and amazing experience and we are now getting adjusted to life as a family of three.
Look for more blogging in 2008 as SQL Server 2008 makes its debut as well.