Tags: PASS

October 2011 LV UG Meeting

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Published on: October 11, 2011

Boo!

OK, so it really isn’t that scary.  But it is that time of year and we happen to have something that could fix something that might be scary.

It is time once again for our S3OLV Group meeting.  And this month we have two presentations.

Before jumping into more details on that, here is the rest of what the invite would look like if you received it in email.

 

Guts N Grime

Presenting for us this month will be Charley Jones and Julie Rasnick.  (Not necessarily in that order.)

Julie is undertaking the ghoulish challenge of teaching us how to partition.  In our world of ever increasing data and requirements to continue to retain more and more data, partitioning could be a scary undertaking – yet very critical.

Charley is going to teach you everything you ever wanted to know about certificates and probably some things you didn’t want to know ;) .  Again, this is another one of those topics that should be of high value in this day and age of increased need for data security.

In case you can’t see it in the image, the meeting is 13 October from 6:30 PM Pacific.

Phantom Hauntings

Many of you will not be able to attend in person.  That is perfectly fine.  Many will be attending the valuable offerings of Summit 2011 – I get that.  Come haunt our meeting anyway.  We are making the meeting available via livemeeting (or would that be deadmeeting?) for any of you wishing to get that little bit of extra content/learning.  I would love to flood the livemeeting servers with 2-300 Summit attendees for the Las Vegas Chapter meeting.

You can join our meeting for free via the following link.

Attendee URL:  Click Me!!
Meeting ID:  9PWSCW

It’s alive!!

For any of you zombies out there that may not have heard, SQLSat Las Vegas is in the works.  We have reserved a date – March 10, 2012.  We have the venue as well.  Check out my other writeup on it here.  We want to make this event work and hope to see many of you there – spread the word.

In The SQL News

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Published on: September 23, 2011

There is a lot of stuff going on out there these days.  I am looking forward to a few things.  And since I am looking forward to them, I thought there are others out there that are probably interested too!

Books

SQL Server MVP Deep Dives 2:  The first book was awesome.  They have ramped it up again and are bringing us more excellent content.  I think this is a must buy out there.  Go check it out from Manning Publications (the link).  Digital copies are already available for MEAP participants.

Jonathan Kehayias (blog|twitter): I don’t have a lot of info on this.  I know that the book is coming out soon.  I know that Jonathan does some really good stuff.  I know the person that is tech reviewing the book.  And I know that it is being published by Simple-Talk.  Check SQLServerCentral and Simple-Talk to find the book in the next few weeks to months.

Events

SQL Inspire NYC:  Bobby Tables (aka Robert Pearl) is one of the event organizers and a friend.  The event is November 12, 2011 and registration is coming to a close real soon.  Currently there is even a push to get more people registered.  Check out Bobby Tables’ blog on the topic.

SQLSat 103: Another Friend is organizing this SQLSat event down in paradise.  Roy Ernest is extremely excited for this event and wants to put on a good show.  I am working on getting my passport renewed.  This event is February 25, 2012.

SQLSat LV: Another person I know really really well is working with a bunch of friends to try and put this thing together.  We have the date reserved as March 10,2012.  Now, I need to pull the rest of the info together.

Contests

Performance Stories: This contest is currently on-going and about to end.  I submitted an article.  Swing by and vote for my entry.

There are other things happening like Summit 2011, Regional Mentors being named, and a few other books being written (by people like Stacia Misner, Denny Cherry, Jason Strate and Andy Leonard).  I figure you probably already know about the new mentors and Summit by this time.  As for the books, I know even less about those books than the ones that I plugged.  But I can say that these books look to be very interesting as well.

What Happens in Vegas…

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Published on: September 14, 2011

…Need not Stay in Vegas

Coming to Las Vegas in 2012 is an event many have been waiting for.  Those that have been waiting for this event are the SQL professional type.  And believe me, it will be good.

A few friends and I have begun work on putting together a SQL Saturday Event in Las Vegas.  We have a date in mind and a venue.

Venue

We have arrangements with the fine people at MStaff Solutions to use their facilities at LakeSide Center.  Here (to the left) is a great shot of the area that is provided by MStaff (which can also be found on their site).

 

 

 

 

 

We will be able to use a few classrooms as well as one of their dining rooms.   To the right is an image of one such banquet room that they sent to me.

The people at MStaff are excited to be helping put this event together with us.  They really want for this to be a top notch event – as do we.

 

When

Be ready to mark your calendars.  We have put in a date reservation to SQLSaturday for March 10, 2012.  This date is still subject to change.  But I feel confident that it will not be changing at this point.

There seems to be a fair amount of interest in having a SQL Saturday in Las Vegas.  We now hope that this interest turns into a good amount of attendance.  We will be marketing this event for the next few months to try and drive up interest and registrants.

Interested in Presenting: Start prepping your presentations!

Interested in Attending:  Be prepared to register and come to “get your learn on!!”

Oh, and please do not leave what you learn, at this event, in Las Vegas.  Some things are not meant to stay in Vegas.

Hustle and Bustle to Kick off September

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Published on: September 7, 2011

September is kicking off with a boom for me.  In one week, it seems I will be here, there and everywhere.  Between SQL, PASS, Family, and User Group – this is shaping up to be quite the week.

Here’s a quick run down of this weeks agenda.

Cross Country

My oldest son is running varsity cross country.  This week there are two meets.  One is in-state and the other is in Idaho.  We are really looking forward to these meets.  He is enjoying the sport, team, atmosphere and success he is having.  The first meet is Wednesday and the second is this weekend.

Soccer

We also have a son starting soccer practice this week.  His first match is this weekend.  He has played before and really enjoys playing soccer.  Mostly, I think he likes kicking the ball hard.

Softball

I sponsor a co-ed softball team.  We just wrapped up the summer season finishing second in the season ending tournament and first in the regular season.  Fall season starts Wednesday and this should be a lot of fun.

Volleyball

My wife captains a co-ed volleyball team.  The league was created as a fundraiser for the high school volleyball team.  She has three matches on Wednesday.  This keeps her pretty busy while I am busy with the kids.  The league is about to wrap it up – so the schedule gets a little less congested after this.

PASS

24 Hours of PASS starts Wednesday.  I am scheduled to moderate a session for Allan Hirt that begins at 19H00 GMT.  I invite you to attend this session.  It should be a good session and well worth your time.  Now where is that record button?  Here is more info on that particular session.

You can find more about the rest of 24HOP here.  The schedule line up is pretty good.

S3OLV

Thursday evening (yes 24HOP is on Thursday too) we will be having our regularly scheduled monthly meeting for the Las Vegas SQL Users Group.  You can read more about that here.  This meeting is open to all wishing to get some more learning out of the day than what is available through the means of 24 Hours of PASS.

SQLSaturday 94

SQL Saturday 94 is being held this Saturday, September 10.  You can read more about what I have already blogged about it – here.  As you can see from the above entries, I already have conflicts on this day.  I am hoping that the timing works out to be available to all three things.

 

S3OLV September 2011

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Published on: September 6, 2011

I really meant to get this post out last week.  My apologies, but here is the post finally.  Along with the post, I also had meant to get the invites for Livemeeting and from Evite for the meeting out – but failed there too.

Now that I have finally got those invites out, I can get this post out – without a moment to spare.  The S3OLV meeting for September 2011 will be in just two days on September 8, 2011 at 6:30 PDT.  Despite the late notification and dispersal of information – I hope you will be able to find the time to share with us that night.

The Las Vegas SQL User Group has another cool opportunity to hear from somebody from outside of the usual group.  This month we have Joel Champagne presenting to us.  Joel has provided the following abstract for his presentation.

Managing test data and stress testing your SQL applications

With Visual Studio 2010 Premium (and Professional to a degree) delivering similar capabilities to what was available in VS 2008 Database Pro Edition, the ability to generate a mass amount of sample data for your database has only gotten more accessible with time.  This talk will take a quick look at some of the available functionality for SQL developers who have access to Visual Studio 2010.  Realizing that other tools exist in this space and not all SQL developers use Visual Studio, we’ll also take a look at the third party data generation facility available in SQL-Hero, seeing how we can create thousands (or millions!) of records very quickly using a powerful rules engine, plus automate this process to support continuous integration strategies.  For example, we’ll take an existing production database with sensitive data, run a simple script that obfuscates the sensitive data and publishes it as an updated development environment.  Joel will also discuss how he’s used these tools to uncover possible performance problems prior to release of large applications.

In addition to Joel giving this presentation, we wanted to also share some other news for the User Group.  24 hours of Pass is September 7 and September 8.  There are many good sessions to attend.  Find something that interests you and check it out this week.  You can find more info here.

Also, the User Group has a daily publication that needs content from the group.  We are publishing the S3OLV Journal on a daily basis.  We are getting great content from multiple sources.  We want to use this resource to get more localized content.  We really want to hear what you have to say and contribute.  You can check out this publication here.

If you would like to contribute anything, contact Charley or myself and we can get it into the journal.  Or you can tweet what you need added to @S3OLV.

If you would like to join our meeting, here are the details:

LiveMeeting:

Attendee URL:  https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/UserGroups/join?id=32795G&role=attend

Meeting ID:  32795G

In Person:

M Staff Solutions & Training

2620 Regatta Drive Suite 102 Las Vegas, NV 89128.

SQL Saturday 94

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Published on: August 22, 2011

SQL Saturday 94 in Salt Lake City is fast approaching.  Will you be there?  I submitted three sessions in hopes of maybe getting one selected.  Last year, I only submitted one at the inaugural SLC SQLSaturday.  I even blogged about my experiences with that one (here and here).

The next time I presented for SQLSaturday was for Johannesburg a few months ago (their inaugural event too).  And, true to form, I blogged about that (here and here).

Each of those experiences, I gave the same presentation.  This year, for SLC, I added two presentation submissions about Reporting Services and about Table Compression.  Neither of those was selected.  The Documentation presentation was selected again.  I had hoped to get to present one of the other two.  That is all well and good though.

Since the last time I presented, I learned more.  I have refined some of the queries a bit.  I have also refined the topic a bit.  It should go much better this time.  Are you coming to SQL Saturday 94?  I hope to see you there!!  If you come, you will be faced with a great dilemma.  Which outstanding content will you witness and attend in order to learn?

And if you don’t come for the learning, then come for the networking.  If not for the networking, then come to at least check out the sponsors (like SQL Solutions Group or myself – yup I am a sponsor this year).

Summit 2011

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Published on: August 11, 2011

Call me a slacker.  I have been postponing registering for Summit 2011.  I wanted to be sure that I had the week available in order to attend.

I finally did it!  I registered for Summit 2011.  I was stoked about it too.  Then I got the schedule for my sons’ cross country season.  I started worrying about missing region championships and had to come back and recheck the schedule.  Then I took another look at the season schedule.  I did this a few times because I didn’t want it to be true.  Region Championships are that very week – (Oct 12).  Now start the major dilemma.  I sure hope he will be running in the championships.

For now, I am registered for the Summit.  Come October, my plans may change relative to my sons performance and whether or not he will be competing at Region.

So, I hope to be seeing many of you at Summit.  If I am not there – you know why.

S3OLV August Meeting II

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Published on: August 8, 2011

I recently published a post about the upcoming meeting for S3OLV.  This post is to serve as an update to the post.  It is quite important that a more accurate abstract be shared concerning the presentation that will be given.

So, here is the update on that abstract and hopefully it will prove more enticing to people looking to attend.

Title: Banish RBAR!

Abstract: SQL Server is primarily designed for set-based operations, so code that performs Row-By-Agonizing-Row (RBAR) operations is going against the design, rather than working with it. Come to this code filled session, where we will examine several recent additions to SQL Server, and learn how the vast majority of RBAR code can be replaced with efficient, set-based code. Learn how the APPLY operator works; iterate through incoming data just once with the MERGE statement; “slice and dice” your data with the Windowing (ranking) functions; re-write your multi-statement table-valued functions to inline functions to help the optimizer and speed up your queries; learn how to create a grouped delimited list – without loops!

Wayne has worked quite hard to put this presentation together.  In addition to this presentation, he is asking that attendees please take five minutes after the presentation to share some feedback.  He has all of his presentations available for “rating” on speakerrate.

I would encourage all that attend this meeting to give that valuable feedback.  I hope you all enjoy this months presentation.

Come One Come All S3OLV August 2011

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Published on: August 5, 2011

Hey Yo!!  We are primed and ready for this month down in Las Vegas.  We have a return presenter and we are looking to get some speed freak on with our TSQL Code.

From the Invite – one would see these notes:

This month we have a new feature we want to share with the group.  We started a little newsletter that may be of interest to you.  Anybody who is interested can publish to this newsletter very easily.  First things first:  find the newsletter here:

http://paper.li/sqlrnnr/1308943349


LiveMeeting Information:
 Attendee URL:

https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/UserGroups/join?id=Z77GTH&role=attend

 Meeting ID:  Z77GTH
VERY IMPORTANT
The meeting location has changed.  We will no longer be meeting at The Learning Center.  New meeting location is M Staff Solutions & Training / 2620 Regatta Drive Suite 102 Las Vegas, NV 89128.
Now, we also need to talk a little bit about who we have presenting this month.  Wayne Sheffield presenting to us about what he affectionately calls “Greased Lightening.”  Wayne is going to show us in this presentation some work he has done with Delimited lists.  This is a session well worth the price of attendance.  ;)
The meeting will be August 11, 2011 at 6:30 Pacific Time.  We hope to see you there.

SSSOL July 2011 Reminder

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Published on: July 13, 2011

This is just a quick note to remind anybody who may be interested of the upcoming Las Vegas User Group meeting.

As I posted here, we will be learning OLAP for the OLTP pro.  This will be presented by Charley the chapter President.

Also note, this meeting is available via livemeeting.  We hope to have a great many of you present for this meeting.  The meeting will start at 6:30 PDT on Thursday July 14, 2011.

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