There are a bunch of really great events coming up in the Southern California region that I wanted to get on everyone's calendar if they are not already.
SQL Firestarter Learning Event
This event will be held on Saturday, May 17th at the Microsoft MTC up in Irvine. Registration still looks like it is open. I would register soon as there are a limited number of attendees for this event. If you are Developer or IT Pro for SQL Server there are some great sessions at the event. There are also some great (wink, wink) speakers at the event. Get more info and register here: http://www.firestarterevents.com/
Team System Education Day
The San Diego .Net User Group is proud to be hosting Chris Menegay from Notion Solutions for our Team System Education Day taking place on Saturday, May 31st at the AMN Healthcare Conference Center. This will be an all-day session dedicated to giving you the education you need to know about Team System. You will be walking away from this conference with a wealth of knowledge about Team System. The price for the conference includes Continental Breakfast, Lunch and snacks throughout the day. There is something here for developers, testers, and architects alike. If you are doing any team development you will want to attend this conference. Get more details and register here: https://www.123signup.com/event?id=tjnyb
SoCal Rock & Roll Code Camp
Make your plans now to attend the latest and greatest version of the SoCal Rock & Roll Code Camp to be held on June 28th-29th on the UCSD Extension Campus in La Jolla. There is always an impressive lineup of speakers and a wonderful variety of topics. Also, there is also an awesome Geek Dinner on Saturday night featuring great food and live Rock and Roll. Be sure to sign up and attend. Also, if you are interested in speaking sign up to deliver a session. It is fun and educational, and you are helping support the local technical community. You can get more information here: http://www.socalcodecamp.com.
I am honored to have been chosen as a SQL Server MVP for the upcoming year for my work in the SQL Server Community. When I look at the list of MVPs I am truly humbled to be joining their company. I am looking forward to joining them in a couple weeks at the MVP Summit up in Seattle. Participating in your local communities is such a great and rewarding experience, I would recommend that everyone look for ways that they can contribute to their own communities.
I am also looking forward to Partying with Palermo
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.
I normally do not post things like this, but I just could not resist as this one hits home as my wife and I are currently going through the baby naming process right now. Got this link from Woody and just could not resist posting. Originally posted on http://www.xckd.com/
I know that Visual Studio 2008 is getting most of the press today for releasing, but there was also a big CTP release from the SQL Server Team as well. The November CTP was released today in all its glory. This is a big release and there are a bunch of new features included in this release.
The list of features in this release is long, so if you are looking for a quick view of the features included the Connect Site has a nice graphic with the list of features by CTP Release. You can download the November CTP via the Microsoft Download Page. You do not have to be participating in the SQL Server Connect CTP program to have access to this CTP, although registering for the program will get you notifications for CTP resources such as White Papers, Webcasts, Chats, and other CTP goodness along with participating in the forums and giving feedback to Microsoft about the CTP.
Looks like I know what I will be doing this Thanksgiving!
Windows Live Writer has officially moved out of Beta. I have been using Live Writer from the early releases to post my entries. I was really happy with the authoring experience from the first version. As has been mentioned there are a couple things about the install that are a little outside the norm.
It was a little confusing at first being able to add things to the install as it was installing, but everything got installed successfully and this is my first post using the new release. I have not even begun to explore all the options and plug-ins available, but overall it is a solid release and in my opinion a great tool for my blogging.
Get it Here
Coming up next week I will be giving a presentation to the San Diego SQL Server Users Group on Thursday, November 15th, giving an overview of some of the new features coming in SQL Server 2008. I will talk a lot about the vision of SQL Server 2008 as a Data Platform and also demo some of the features that are in the latest public release, the July CTP.
http://www.sdsqlug.org/home/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.meetingDetails&presentationID=71
Come on out and check it out. There will be pizza and soda along with great content and socializing with other members of the group.
Look forward to seeing you there!
One of the fun things about being involved in the .Net User Group is the ability to be able to organize great conferences and bring first class speakers to the community. This weekend we are having an all-day conference with MVP Jason Beres that will focus solely on WPF and Silverlight. If you are doing any type of UI development this is a conference for you.
For User Group members the cost is only $49 bucks. We will have lots of giveaways and the event will be nice and intimate allowing you a great chance to come away with some great prizes such as Infragistics licenses, books, and Microsoft Software. The intimate nature of the event will also give you a great chance to interact with the speaker and other attendees making the event that much more beneficial.
For more details and to sign up for the event you can go here:
https://s08.123signup.com/servlet/SignUp?P=1522574191155957500&PG=1522574182300&Info=
Look forward to seeing everyone there.
I had a great time at the Silicon Valley Code Camp giving my presentations and getting to meet all the awesome attendees. I got to meet a lot of the great people up there that organized the event such as Peter Kellner and Anand Iyer. I am sure there are many more that I just not get a chance to meet so sorry to miss all of you. A big thank you to Foothill College as well. The facilities were beautiful, and everything worked perfectly for my sessions.
As for my sessions, the crowds were great in both sessions and everyone was very engaging with lots of questions. It is always interesting to hear what people are doing with SQL Server. For every feature you show, someone is using it or wants to use in a way that you never even thought of. I honestly learn a lot by giving the presentations and talking to people about SQL Server.
For those of you who attended the sessions I posted the slides at code up in my Sky Drive. You can access them below. If you have any feedback to share on the presentations feel free to drop me a comment or send me an email. Thanks everyone for the great attendance and I look forward to seeing you next year.
T-SQL Presentation:
http://cid-0de80c48ebb4bc36.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Silicon%20Valley%20Code%20Camp/SVCodeCamp_NewTSQLInSQLServer2005.zip
Reporting Services Presentation:
http://cid-0de80c48ebb4bc36.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Silicon%20Valley%20Code%20Camp/SVCodeCamp_DeliveringDataWithSQL2005ReportingServices.zip
Thanks to everyone for attending...
Andrew
If you are in the San Francisco/San Jose area this weekend and have not registered for the Silicon Valley Code Camp you are missing out. There are almost 800 people registered and 78 sessions packed with great information. There is an awesome variety of sessions and there is something for everyone. If you still need to register you can do so at the Registration Page and you can check out the full schedule of sessions on the Sessions Overview Page.
I will be giving two presentations at the Code Camp:
- A T-SQL Tour through SQL Server 2005 (Wiki)
- Delivering Data using SQL Server Reporting Services 2005 (Wiki)
I am really looking to both speaking at this Code Camp and also attending. There are some great speakers that are going to speaking at the Code Camp. This is a great opportunity to learn some interesting new things and meet some other technical people within the community.
If you are planning on coming to my sessions feel free to leave comments on the Wiki or on my blog to let me know if there is anything you would like to see ahead of time.
Hope to see everyone there.
I had a great time in San Luis Obispo for the Central Coast Code Camp. Hopefully, they will be able to make it an annual event. All the attendees in my sessions were great and had great questions. I also enjoyed the Geek Dinner on Saturday and meeting some of other speakers and attendees at the Code Camp.
A big thanks goes out to Robert Hope for organizing a fantastic Code Camp. Looking forward to coming back next year.
For all those who attended my sessions and those that were not able to I posted zip files with the slides and code from both of my presentations up on Live Drive http://cid-0de80c48ebb4bc36.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/CentralCoastCodeCamp/
Send me an email via the contact form or drop me a comment if you have any issues or feedback on the sessions.
Cheers,
Andrew
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