The Multifunctioning DBA » PASS

Pass Summit 2012 Session Submission

Colin Smith — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 18:09:48 +0000

Yesterday I was notified that again this is not the year for me. My session was not accepted for the summit once again. That is OK though, I know that they only have so many spots that they can fill and I know that I was up against some good competition. I will try again next year and during the year leading up to the 2013 submissions I am going to work hard to try and get my name more well known in the speaking community. I think that I am pretty good at it and I think that I have some material that is helpful and I really want to share it.

I have one idea in the works and I will be sharing more about that soon. I hope to have this project complete in the next week or two and if it goes well then I will do more. I am also thinking that I will try to present at my local SQL Server group and perhaps even at the Powershell Users group. I would also like to try and present for the PASS VC and see how that goes. Perhaps try and get into some other smaller conferences and just get more experience. I will make it someday, I will not give up and to anyone else who was denied, I hope you look at it like I do. Just keep working and trying to get better at what you do and get out there more and you will make it as well.

To all that have been accepted to speak at PASS, Congrats and I hope that all goes well for you and that you have a great event. The SQL Server community is made up of some great and smart people and I am happy to be a part of it. I want to thank all that spend time in the community helping make everyone better.

PASS 2012 Sessions

Colin Smith — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 14:56:24 +0000

This week is the week that hopeful presenters for the 2012 PASS Summit will be notified if they have been selected or not. We should all know by this Friday if we have been chosen to speak, to be an alternate, or just flat out denied, like I was last year. That is OK though I am not giving up, as is evidence by me submitting again this year. I am not sure if I will be chosen this year or not. I have not had a ton of speaking experience, just three SQL Saturdays, but I am hopeful. I have had full rooms each of the three times that I have presented and have received mostly good feedback. The only not so positive feedback that I have received is that I was too monotone during the presentation. Here are some of the feedback that I have received on my speakerrate site.

“Great intro to Powershell. I just started reading up on it the week before SQLSat47 and this was a big help. It was my favorite session of the day.”

– Matt Nelson

“Colin’s presentation and content at SQL Saturday Phoenix was very well organized and interesting. He has an engaging style. I thought he’d been doing this for years until he said it was his first time teaching. Highly recommended!”

– ssaari

I appreciate the comments and I hope that based on feedback like this that the PASS Committee will give me a chance. We shall see and I will let you know.

24 HOP sesssion

Colin Smith — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:13:32 +0000

I have submitted my session for the 24 Hours of Pass. I hope to get selected for this as I was denied for the PASS Summit based on a lack of speaking experience. I am hoping to get some more speaking experience so if I decide to submit again for the Summit that the lack of experience will not be my downfall. So if I get picked I hope that you can attend. Here is the abstract if you would like to see it.

Would you like to explore Powershell? Learn what it is and why is it important for a SQL Server DBA to know. This session will talk about the beginnings of powershell and the basics of how to use it. Show you some tricks to help make using powershell simpler. Show you how to quickly and easily harness powershell to make your day to day work a bit simpler. Show off some real world scripts that are used daily in order to do things like, Check if a SQL Server is up, Check on space, Audit reporting, push out stored procs to all instances, check versions, and many other useful things. This session will amaze for multiple version of SQL Server by showing examples in SQL Server 2005, 2008, as well as the upcoming 2012.

Hope you join me if I am selected and I hope that you are submitting sessions of your own. Only today and tomorrow left to get the submissions in.

24 Hours of Pass Call for Speakers

Colin Smith — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:49:25 +0000

Only a few days left so go do it. What are you waiting for? Are you looking to share your knowledge, have fun, and probably make some new friends in the SQL Server community? Then do what I am about to do and go sign up to present at the 24 hours of pass. Click the link to go submit your abstract today.

http://www.sqlpass.org/24hours/spring2012/Speakers/CallForSpeakers.aspx

Denali Gets a Name

Colin Smith — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 02:24:43 +0000

During the Keynote at the Pass Session today. Ted Kummert of MS made the announcement that SQL Server Codename Delai is actually going to be called SQL Server 2012. Not very exciting but he went on to say that we would have a full RTM release in the first half of the 2012 calendar year. That is more exciting and that means that I need to get CTP3 up and running somewhere and start playing with it a bit. I am really looking foreward to this release. Some things that i am excited about and I am sure you all are as well are.

Always On – this will give us the ability to do some great things with Mirroring type technology and have multipe read only copies of databases. This is a huge improvement over the current mirroiring in 2005 and 2008.

Powershell – looks like we are getting a pretty good number of new cmd-lets that we will be able to use to automate even more tasks and ease administration. If you do not know Powershell yet now is the time. Go learn it, you will not regret taking the short amount of time it will take.

PASS 2011

Colin Smith — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 05:35:22 +0000

Tomorrow is the beginning of PASS. I wish I was able to attend this year again but I think that my time and money was better spent at the SQL Skills immersion event that I attended. I know that I will be missing out on some great content, networking, and parties.

As much as I would like to be at PASS this year I am actually OK with not being there since I am only in my fourth week at my new job and I think I am really going to like this job. I think that it is going to turn into everything that I thought and hoped it would be. But I digress, I will try to follow as much about PASS as I can but not too sure how much that will actually be. I am looking forward to reading blogs about the event and the keynotes as well as the sessions. I am thinking about ordering the DVDs this year. I did last yer even though I was at the event and I have been very glad that I have them. So even if you are at the summit I would highly recommend that you get them.

If it is your first time at the Summit then I have this advice for you. Network and find the parties. You will have a good time and you will meet some great people that are having or have had the same challenges that you are facing right now. they will be able to help you with those issues even if that is just letting you talk them thru the issue. Sometimes just that dialog helps you figure it out and that is just awesome when that happens.

So go out and have a great time and learn as much as you can. Get the DVDs and meet as many people as you can. You will not regret it and I hope to see you next year, fingers crossed, if I get to go.

PASS Sumit changing venue

Colin Smith — Sat, 21 May 2011 21:00:33 +0000

A few days ago PASS announced that the 2013 Summit will be in Charlotte NC. This is great news, in my opinion. I have only been to one Summit and it was AWESOME and I recommend it to any SQL Server pro out there no matter what level you are at. I had such a great time but I do not think that I will be able to go this year unless I get chosen to speak, Fingers Crossed!! I will for sure try to attend the conference in 2013. I think it is great to be able to travel and see new places and also this will give users on the East Coast the chance to go without having to spend so much time and money.

Great Job PASS on choosing this local!

PASS Summit DVD’s already helping me out

Colin Smith — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 16:50:13 +0000

So I just got my DVD’s on Tuesday after getting back to the office after vacation. I have watched a few and all that I have seen are very good. But I must point out the session called “Transactional Replication: Beyond the Basics” by Kendal Van Dyke (Blog | Twitter). Maybe it is just me and perhaps only because I got pulled into an environment that is using a lot of transactional replication and is having some issues. The issues are not only with replication but we have many issues with replication. I am also fairly new to replication. I understand what it does and the basics of how it works.

Kendal’s session really helped me out though. I have a much better understanding of what is going on “under the hood” with replication and I have some ideas of how I think we need to change our topology to better fill the needs of the application. He showed a the options that you have with replicating tables, procs, etc.. I had no clue that I had so many options. Now I can really dig into the replication and find out if we really are replicating all the data and information that we need to. I know for sure that all the tables do not have Primary keys and that is a big problem since that is a requirment to be able to replicate a table.

Another thing he went over is setting up alerts and doing it the correct way. This has been a problem for us but will not be any more.

Kendal is also very active on twitter with the #sqlhelp hashtag and gives out some great information about many topics to all.

Any way I just wanted to Tell Kendal that I enjoyed the session and I am sure that I will watch it again. I wanted to thank him along with all the other presenters at PASS. I have not watched them all yet but this one helps me now and gives me a good idea of where to start and how to accomplish what I need to get done.

The only negative thing I could say about the session recording, and I doubt this is Kenal’s fault, is that the audio cuts out at about 64:45 into it and does not come back until about 75:15 minutes. So that is about 10 minutes worth of information that I am missing out on. But a great session for me. Thanks again.

PASS Summit DVD’s are here!!!

Colin Smith — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 15:00:37 +0000

Today I came back into my office after being out for a couple of weeks. One week I was traveling for work and then I was on Vacation for a week and that was nice. Well when I got back to my desk I had a package sitting on my desk and I thought “hmmm what could that be?” I opened it up and it was my copy of the PASS Summit DVD’s. I am so excited to finally get the chance to watch all the sessions that I wanted to go to but could not make it to. I will also again be watching all the sessions that I did go to. I wish I had another week off so I could just go home and watch them all. My wife is not going to be happy tonight when she wants to watch TV I put one of these DVD’s in. I can not wait. I am shocked that I got them already. I really thought it would take longer to get the. Anyway off to start watching..

Hope you got yours as well.

It really is a Very Merry Christmas

How PASS inspires me

Colin Smith — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 10:00:54 +0000

I was very lucky and my company was nice enough to send me to the PASS Summit and I can not thank them enough for that. When I was getting ready to go to the Summit I was like a kid on Christmas Eve. The anticipation was killing me and I could just not wait to get to the event and have fun and learn as much as I could. And that is what I did and the Summit exceeded all of my expectations. Seeing all the smart people together in one place and so willing to share knowledge and experiences with one an other. And not only the presenters but all the attendees and Microsoft employees and I just mean everyone. It was a refreshing experience to say the least.

But the presenters especially inspired me to get out and try to do more in the community. They showed me that you do not have to be an expert and you do not have to know all the answers. That was also very refreshing to me. It really showed me that everyone has something to give that someone else will learn from. We all work hard and we all see a lot of the same issues as each other. If you have a way to deal with an issue that is better, or more efficient then my way then I have learned something. I think that I have some knowledge that others could benefit from. The speakers really showed me that they are all very smart for sure but that they are all just like you and me. They might have more experience and or knowledge in some or even most areas, but I might be able to teach even them a thing or two.

They taught me not to be shy. To be proud of what I know and to share it with others. To take the tough questions and it is OK to say I do not know but shoot me an email and I will find out. It is OK not to be an expert at everything and I can still share my knowledge.

That is one of the most beneficial things that I got out of going to PASS and I hope that more and more of us out there learn that and share the wealth of knowledge that you have, but do not be afraid to learn something new in the process.