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• Set and Verify the Retention Value for Change Data Capture

  - by AllenMWhite

  Last summer I set up Change Data Capture for a client to track changes to their application database to apply those changes to their data warehouse. The client had some issues a short while back and felt they needed to increase the retention period from the default 3 days to 5 days. I ran this query to make that change: sp_cdc_change_job @job_type='cleanup', @retention=7200 The value 7200 represents the number of minutes in a period of 5 days. All was well, but they recently asked how they can verify...(read more)

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• TechEd North America 2012 – Day 1 #msTechEd

  - by Marco Russo (SQLBI)

  Yesterday I and Alberto delivered the PreCon day about BISM Tabular in Analysis Services 2012. We received very good feedback and now I am looking forward to meet people that read our blogs and our books! Ping me on Twitter at @marcorus if you want to contact me during the conference. This is my schedule for the next few days: ·         Monday, June 11, 2012 o   10:30am-12:30pm I will be in the Technical Learning Center area, at the Breaktrough Insights (station #8) in the Database & Business Intelligence area (dedicated to SQL Server 2012) o   I will try to watch some sessions in the afternoon o   6:30pm-7:00pm I will be at the O’Reilly booth meeting book readers and doing some book signing ·         Tuesday, June 12, 2012 o   12:30pm-3:30pm I will be in the Technical Learning Center area, at the Breaktrough Insights (station #8) in the Database & Business Intelligence area (dedicated to SQL Server 2012) o   5:00pm-6:15pm I will attend the Alberto’s session DBI413 Many-to-Many Relationships in BISM Tabular (room S330E) o   6:15pm-9:00pm Community Night & Ask the Experts, we’ll discuss about Analysis Services, Tabular and Multidimensional! ·         Wednesday, June 13, 2012 o   11:15am-11:30am Don’t miss this special demo session at the Private Cloud, Public Cloud and Data Platform Theater in the Technical Learning Center area (next to the SQL Server 2012 zone). I and Alberto will present Querying multi-billion rows with many to many relationships in SSAS Tabular (xVelocity) and you’re invited to guess the response time of DAX queries on a 4 billion rows table with many-to-many relationships before we run them! We’ll give away some 8GB USB key if you guess the right answer! o   12:30pm-1:00pm I and Alberto will have a book signing session at the TechEd Bookstore o   3:00pm-5:00pm I will be in the Technical Learning Center area, at the Breaktrough Insights (station #8) in the Database & Business Intelligence area (dedicated to SQL Server 2012) ·         Thursday, June 14, 2012 o   2:45pm-4:00pm I will deliver my DBI319 BISM: Multidimensional vs. Tabular breakthrough session in room S320A. I expect many questions here! And if you want to learn more about Analysis Services Tabular, we announced two more online sessions of our SSAS Tabular Workshop: ·         July 2-3, 2012 - SSAS Workshop Online - America's time zone ·         September 3-4, 2012 - SSAS Workshop Online - America's time zone Register now if you are interested, the early bird for the July session expires on June 19, 2012! I will also deliver a SSAS Workshop in Oslo (Norway) on August 27-28, 2012.  

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• Book Review (Book 12) - 20 Master Plots

  - by BuckWoody

  This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for a year. You can read my first book review here, and the entire list is here. The book I chose for May 2012 was:20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias. This is my final book review - at least for this year. I'll explain what I've learned in this book in particular, and in the last twelve months in general. Why I chose this book: Stories and themes are part of software, presenting, and working in teams. This book claims there are only 20 plots, ever. I wanted to find out. What I learned: Probably my most favorite read of the year. Deceptively small, amazingly insightful. The premise is that there are only a few "base" themes, and that once you learn them you can put together an interesting set of stories on most any topic. Yes, the author admits that this number has been different throughout history - some have said 50, others 14, and still others claim only one or two basic plots. This doesn't change the fact that you can build very complex stories from a simple set of circumstances and characters. Be warned - if you read this book it takes away much of the wonder from almost every movie or book you'll read from here on! I loved it. My favorite part is that the author gives you exercises to build stories, right from the start. I've actually used these as the start of a meeting to foster creativity. Amazing stuff. One of my favorite sections of the book deals with plot and story. Plot: The king died, and the queen died. Story: The king died, and the queen died of heartbreak. Add one or two words, and you have the essence of storytelling. A highly recommended read, for all folks of all ages. You'll like it, your spouse will like it, and your kids will like it. I learned to be a better storyteller, and it helped me understand that plots and stories are not just things in books - they are a direct reflection of human nature. That makes me a better manager of myself and others.   And this is the last of the reviews - at least for this year. I probably won't post many more book reviews here, but I will keep up the practice. As a reminder, the goal was to select 12 books that will help you reach your career goals. They don't have to be technical, or even apply directly to your job - but they do need to be books that you mindfully select as getting you closer to what you want to be. Each month, jot down what you learned from the work. And see if it doesn't in fact get you closer to your goals. These readings helped me - I got a promotion this year, and I attribute at least some of that to the things I learned.

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• Working with Reporting Services Filters–Part 5: OR Logic

  - by smisner

  When you combine multiple filters, Reporting Services uses AND logic. Once upon a time, there was actually a drop-down list for selecting AND or OR between filters which was very confusing to people because often it was grayed out. Now that selection is gone, but no matter. It wouldn’t help us solve the problem that I want to describe today. As with many problems, Reporting Services gives us more than one way to apply OR logic in a filter. If I want a filter to include this value OR that value for the same field, one approach is to set up the filter is to use the IN operator as I explained in Part 1 of this series. But what if I want to base the filter on two different fields? I  need a different solution. Using the AdventureWorksDW2008R2 database, I have a report that lists product sales: Let’s say that I want to filter this report to show only products that are Bikes (a category) OR products for which sales were greater than $1,000 in a year. If I set up the filter like this: Expression Data Type Operator Value [Category] Text = Bikes [SalesAmount]   > 1000 Then AND logic is used which means that both conditions must be true. That’s not the result I want. Instead, I need to set up the filter like this: Expression Data Type Operator Value =Fields!EnglishProductCategoryName.Value = "Bikes" OR Fields!SalesAmount.Value > 1000 Boolean = =True The OR logic needs to be part of the expression so that it can return a Boolean value that we test against the Value. Notice that I have used =True rather than True for the value. The filtered report appears below. Any non-bike product appears only if the total sales exceed $1,000, whereas Bikes appear regardless of sales. (You can’t see it in this screenshot, but Mountain-400-W Silver, 38 has sales of $923 in 2007 but gets included because it is in the Bikes category.)

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• PASS summit 2013. We do not remember days. We remember moments.

  - by Maria Zakourdaev

    "Business or pleasure?" barked the security officer in the Charlotte International Airport. "I’m not sure, sir," I whimpered, immediately losing all courage. "I'm here for the database technologies summit called PASS”. "Sounds boring. Definitely a business trip." Boring?! He couldn’t have been more wrong. If he only knew about the countless meetings throughout the year where I waved my hands at my great boss and explained again and again how fantastic this summit is and how much I learned last year. One by one, the drops of water began eating away at the stone. He finally approved of my trip just to stop me from torturing him. Time moves as slow as a turtle when you are waiting for something. Time runs as fast as a cheetah when you are there. PASS has come...and passed. It’s been an amazing week. Enormous sqlenergy has filled the city, filled the convention center and the surrounding pubs and restaurants. There were awesome speakers, great content, and the chance to meet most inspiring database professionals from all over the world. Some sessions were unforgettable. Imagine a fully packed room with more than 500 people in awed silence, catching each and every one of Paul Randall's words. His tremendous energy and deep knowledge were truly thrilling. No words can describe Rob Farley's unique presentation style, captivating and engaging the audience. When the precious session minutes were over, I could tell that the many random puzzle pieces of information that his listeners knew had been suddenly combined into a clear, cohesive picture. I was amazed as always by Paul White's great sense of humor and his phenomenal ability to explain complicated concepts in a simple way. The keynote by the brilliant Dr. DeWitt from Microsoft in front of the full summit audience of 5000 deeply listening people was genuinely breathtaking. The entire conference throughout offered excellent speakers who inspired me to absorb the knowledge and use it when I got home. To my great surprise, I found that there are other people in this world who like replication as much I do. During the Birds of a Feather Luncheon, SQL Server MVP Ted Krueger was writing a script for replicating the food to other tables. I learned many things at PASS, and not all of them were about SQL. After three summits, this time I finally got the knack of networking. I actually went up and spoke to people, and believe me, that was not easy for an introvert. But this is what the summit is all about. Sqlpeople. They are the ones who make it such an exciting experience. I will be looking forward to the next year. Till then I have my notes and new ideas. How long was the summit? Thousands of unforgettable moments.

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• Azure Search Preview

  - by Greg Low

  One of the things I’ve been keeping an eye on for quite a while now is the development of the Azure Search system. While it’s not a full replacement for the full-text indexing service in SQL Server on-premises as yet, it’s a really, really good start. Liam Cavanagh, Pablo Castro and the team have done a great job bringing this to the preview stage and I suspect it could be quite popular. I was very impressed by how they incorporated quite a bit of feedback I gave them early on, and I’m sure that others involved would have felt the same. There are two tiers at present. One is a free tier and has shared resources; the other is currently $125/month and has reserved resources. I would like to see another tier between these two, much the same way that Azure websites work. If you have any feedback on this, now would be a good time to make it known. In the meantime, given there is a free tier, there’s no excuse to not get out and try it. You’ll find details of it here: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/services/search/ I’ll be posting more info about this service, and showing examples of it during the upcoming months.

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• finding a WUXGA or matte laptop

  - by John Paul Cook

  UPDATED: HP still sells 17" WUXGA laptops - details in the new paragraph at the end. Lenovo, Dell, Sony and Sager do not sell a 1920x1200 (WUXGA) laptop. I understand that manufacturers provide what there is market demand for. I also understand that HDTV and the 1080p standard is heavily influencing both monitor and laptop screen resolutions. But I do not understand why there is so little demand for a WUXGA laptop. Nor do I understand the popularity of glossy displays. I really don't like to look...(read more)

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• Thoughts on schemas and schema proliferation

  - by jamiet

  In SQL Server 2005 Microsoft introduced user-schema separation and since then I have seen the use of schemas increase; whereas before I would typically see databases where all objects were in the [dbo] schema I now see databases that have multiple schemas, a database I saw recently had 31 (thirty one) of them. I can’t help but wonder whether this is a good thing or not – clearly 31 is an extreme case but I question whether multiple schemas create more problems than they solve? I have been involved in many discussions that go something like this: Developer #1> “I have a new function to add to the database and I’m not sure which schema to put it in” Developer #2> “What does it do?” Developer #1> “It provides data to a report in Reporting Services” Developer #2> “Ok, so put it in the [reports] schema” Developer #1> “Well I could, but the data will only be used by our Financial reporting folks so shouldn’t I put it in the [financial] schema?” Developer #2> “Maybe, yes” Developer #1> “Mind you, the data is supposed to be used for regulatory reporting to the FSA, should I put it in [regulatory]?” Developer #2> “Err….” You get the idea!!! The more schemas that exist in your database then the more chance that their supposed usages will overlap. I’m left wondering whether the use of schemas is actually necessary. I don’t view really see them as an aid to security because I generally believe that principles should be assigned permissions on objects as-needed on a case-by-case basis (and I have a stock SQL query that deciphers them all for me) so why bother using them at all? I can envisage a use where a database is used to house objects pertaining to many different business functions (which, in itself, is an ambiguous term) and in that circumstance perhaps a schema per business function would be appropriate; hence of late I have been loosely following this edict: If some objects in a database could be moved en masse to another database without the need to remove any foreign key constraints then those objects could legitimately exist in a dedicated schema. I am interested to know what other people’s thoughts are on this. If you would like to share then please do so in the comments. @Jamiet

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• T-SQL Tuesday #007 and T-SQL Tuesday Has a Logo

  - by Adam Machanic

  This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by Jorge Segarra, the “SQL Chicken.” The topic is rather open ended: What is your favorite new(ish) SQL Server feature? Love the DACPAC? Can’t wait for PDW? Post about it and tell us why! In other T-SQL Tuesday news, we now have a logo. Those of you who are participating in the event, take notice; the rules have changed. Now that we have a logo we’re simplifying the linkback and subject guidelines a bit. Henceforth you can title your post however you want. It...(read more)

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• GNOME Amazon Referral Fees April 2010

  <b>Blog of Jaap A. Haitsma:</b> "In April 2010 the GNOME Foundation received the following Amazon referral fees:"

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• Spatial data from shapefiles (for T-SQL Tuesday #006)

  - by Rob Farley

  I’m giving a presentation on May 12th at the Adelaide .Net User Group, around the topic of spatial data, and in particular, the visualization of said data. Given that it’s about one the larger types, this post should also count towards Michael Coles’ T-SQL Tuesday on BLOB data . I wrote recently about my experience with exploded data , but what I didn’t go on to talk about was how using a shapefile like this would translate into a scenario with a much larger number of shapes, such as all the postcode...(read more)

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• Database Maintenance Scripting Done Right

  - by KKline

  I first wrote about useful database maintenance scripts on my SQLBlog account way back in 2008. Hmmm - now that I think about it, I first wrote about my own useful database maintenance scripts in a journal called SQL Server Professional back in the mid-1990's on SQL Server v6.5 or some such. But I digress... Anyway, I pointed out a couple useful sites where you could get some good scripts that would take care of preventative maintenance on your SQL Server, such as index defragmentation, updating...(read more)

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• Yet another use of OUTER APPLY in defensive programming

  - by Alexander Kuznetsov

  When a SELECT is used to populate variables from a subquery, it fails to change them if the subquery returns nothing - and that can lead to subtle bugs. We shall use OUTER APPLY to eliminate this problem. Prerequisites All we need is the following mock function that imitates a subquery: CREATE FUNCTION dbo.BoxById ( @BoxId INT ) RETURNS TABLE AS RETURN ( SELECT CAST ( 1 AS INT ) AS [Length] , CAST ( 2 AS INT ) AS [Width] , CAST ( 3 AS INT ) AS [Height] WHERE @BoxId = 1 ) ; Let us assume that this...(read more)

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• Tips for adapting Date table to Power View forecasting #powerview #powerbi

  - by Marco Russo (SQLBI)

  During the keynote of the PASS Business Analytics Conference, Amir Netz presented the new forecasting capabilities in Power View for Office 365. I immediately tried the new feature (which was immediately available, a welcome surprise in a Microsoft announcement for a new release) and I had several issues trying to use existing data models. The forecasting has a few requirements that are not compatible with the “best practices” commonly used for a calendar table until this announcement. For example, if you have a Year-Month-Day hierarchy and you want to display a line chart aggregating data at the month level, you use a column containing month and year as a string (e.g. May 2014) sorted by a numeric column (such as 201405). Such a column cannot be used in the x-axis of a line chart for forecasting, because you need a date or numeric column. There are also other requirements and I wrote the article Prepare Data for Power View Forecasting in Power BI on SQLBI, describing how to create columns that can be used with the new forecasting capabilities in Power View for Office 365.

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• Is Data Science “Science”?

  - by BuckWoody

  I hold the term “science” in very high esteem. I grew up on the Space Coast in Florida, and eventually worked at the Kennedy Space Center, surrounded by very intelligent people who worked in various scientific fields. Recently a new term has entered the computing dialog – “Data Scientist”. Since it’s not a standard term, it has a lot of definitions, and in fact has been disputed as a correct term. After all, the reasoning goes, if there’s no such thing as “Data Science” then how can there be a Data Scientist? This argument has been made before, albeit with a different term – “Computer Science”. In Peter Denning’s excellent article “Is Computer Science Science” (April  2005/Vol. 48, No. 4 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM) there are many points that separate “science” from “engineering” and even “art”.  I won’t repeat the content of that article here (I recommend you read it on your own) but will leverage the points he makes there. Definition of Science To ask the question “is data science ‘science’” then we need to start with a definition of terms. Various references put the definition into the same basic areas: Study of the physical world Systematic and/or disciplined study of a subject area ...and then they include the things studied, the bodies of knowledge and so on. The word itself comes from Latin, and means merely “to know” or “to study to know”. Greek divides knowledge further into “truth” (episteme), and practical use or effects (tekhne). Normally computing falls into the second realm. Definition of Data Science And now a more controversial definition: Data Science. This term is so new and perhaps so niche that the major dictionaries haven’t yet picked it up (my OED reference is older – can’t afford to pop for the online registration at present). Researching the term's general use I created an amalgam of the definitions this way: “Studying and applying mathematical and other techniques to derive information from complex data sets.” Using this definition, data science certainly seems to be science - it's learning about and studying some object or area using systematic methods. But implicit within the definition is the word “application”, which makes the process more akin to engineering or even technology than science. In fact, I find that using these techniques – and data itself – part of science, not science itself. I leave out the concept of studying data patterns or algorithms as part of this discipline. That is actually a domain I see within research, mathematics or computer science. That of course is a type of science, but does not seek for practical applications. As part of the argument against calling it “Data Science”, some point to the scientific method of creating a hypothesis, testing with controls, testing results against the hypothesis, and documenting for repeatability.  These are not steps that we often take in working with data. We normally start with a question, and fit patterns and algorithms to predict outcomes and find correlations. In this way Data Science is more akin to statistics (and in fact makes heavy use of them) in the process rather than starting with an assumption and following on with it. So, is Data Science “Science”? I’m uncertain – and I’m uncertain it matters. Even if we are facing rampant “title inflation” these days (does anyone introduce themselves as a secretary or supervisor anymore?) I can tolerate the term at least from the intent that we use data to study problems across a wide spectrum, rather than restricting it to a single domain. And I also understand those who have worked hard to achieve the very honorable title of “scientist” who have issues with those who borrow the term without asking. What do you think? Science, or not? Does it matter?

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• Installing Microsoft Atlanta

  - by John Paul Cook

  Since my previous post on Microsoft Atlanta, I've been asked how someone can get started with it. Go to https://www.microsoftatlanta.com/ and click the Create Account button using a Windows Live id such as a Hotmail account. If you don’t have Silverlight installed, you’ll be prompted to install it somewhere along the way. I encourage you to install Atlanta and try it out. The product is still being developed and your early feedback can make a difference. When you click Download Registration Certificate...(read more)

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• Slides and demo code for Columnstore Index session

  - by Hugo Kornelis

  Almost a week has passed after SQLBits X in London , so I guess it’s about time for me to share the slides and demo code of my session on columnstore indexes. After all, I promised people I would do that – especially when I found out that I had enough demos prepared to fill two sessions! I made some changes to the demo code. I added extra comments, not only to the demos I could not explain and run during the session, but also to the rest, so that people who missed the session will also be able to...(read more)

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• VCPASS: Extend your T-SQL Scripting with PowerShell

  - by dbaduck

  Date: November 16, 2011 Extend your T-SQL Scripting with PowerShell Description: I'll be covering some of the different way we can use PowerShell to extend our T-SQL scripting. This session will include a mix of using SMO, .NET classes, and SQLPS to help you understand the power for new scripting technology. At the end we’ll be creating a solution that put together all this techniques. Date/Time: 11/16/2011 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EST Registration Link: https://www.livemeeting.com/lrs/8000181573/Registration.aspx?pageName=7wzjxg98v9160twm...(read more)

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• More free geek-read.December SolidQ Journal is online

  - by Greg Low

  I'm really excited to see the last SolidQ Journal for this year out the door. It's our free online magazine. I've been wondering about the future of printed technical magazines for a long time. I doubt they have much of a future, as online publications become more prevalent and more timely. By the time a print magazine gets to you, it's such a long time since the author wrote the material that it's hard to even retain relevance in a fast moving world. That's why I'm so happy to have the format we...(read more)

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• Data Movement and the Decision Matrix

  - by BuckWoody

  Maybe it’s my military background, or maybe I’ve always had this predilection, but I like to use two devices when I need to make a complex decision: A checklist and a decision matrix. I like to use a checklist because it ensures that I remember the big bits of what I need to do, and brings up questions or areas that I didn’t think about when evaluating options for the decision. And the decision matrix – that’s the thing I use to actually lay out those options. It’s simply a spreadsheet-like grid (I use Excel, but paper and pencil works as well) that lays out the requirements or advantages for the decision across the top, and the options I have on the left-hand side. Then in the “cells” I put whether or not that option on the left will meet the requirement in that column. I then simply “weight” each cell to organize the choices by best-fit. The right answer (or answers) will float right to the top. I was asked yesterday about options for moving data in SQL Server to another system. There are just dozens of ways to do this, from bcp to Replication, each with certain advantages and costs. But asking the questions for the top row first helped me show the person that it isn’t a particular technology that is important, it’s laying out those requirements and thinking about which elements are more important than the other. For instance, is it more important to have the data moved all the time, or is it OK if that happens once in a while? Does the data have to move in two directions or just one? All of these will help that answer jump right out. Try it sometime – it’s a great learning exercise, since it will force you to focus on filling out the matrix. The answer is out there, Neo. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Presenting Loading Data Warehouse Partitions with SSIS 2012 at SQL Saturday DC!

  - by andyleonard

  Join Darryll Petrancuri and me as we present Loading Data Warehouse Partitions with SSIS 2012 Saturday 8 Dec 2012 at SQL Saturday 173 in DC ! SQL Server 2012 table partitions offer powerful Big Data solutions to the Data Warehouse ETL Developer. In this presentation, Darryll Petrancuri and Andy Leonard demonstrate one approach to loading partitioned tables and managing the partitions using SSIS 2012, and reporting partition metrics using SSRS 2012. Objectives A practical solution for loading Big...(read more)

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• Did You Know: What do you know that isn't so?

  - by Kalen Delaney

  You know what they say… it's not what you don't know that will hurt you, it's what you know that isn't so! In other words, your misconceptions. Or, as Paul Nielson calls them in his SQL Server Bible … MYTHconceptions. Some misconceptions come from misunderstanding of complex information, or from misinterpreting your own results, and assuming we can generalize behavior from one particular situation. Since I teach advanced classes to students with lots of SQL Server experience, I actually see a lot...(read more)

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• With Choice Comes Complexity

  - by BuckWoody

  "Complex" may be defined as "Having many steps, details or parts." Many of Microsoft's products, including SQL Server, can be complex. I'm stating what most data professionals already know - there's usually multiple ways to do things in SQL Server. For instance, to import some data into a table you can use graphical tools, SQLCMD, bcp, SQL Server Integration Services, BULK INSERT, even PowerShell, just to name a few tools at your disposal. That's really not the issue, though. The bigger issue is that there are normally multiple thought-processes, or methods, that you have available for a task. That's both a strength and a weakness. If things were more simple, you would have fewer choices. Sometimes that's a good thing. Just tell me what I need to do and I'll do it. However, your particular situation may not fit that tool or process, so having more options increases your ability to get your job done the way you need to do it. On the other hand, that's more for you to learn, which is harder. There's another side of this benefit/difficulty that you need to be aware of. Even if you're quite good at what you do, keep in mind that the way you know how to do something may not be the only way to do it. Keep your mind open to new possibilities, and most importantly - to new knowledge. SQL Server professionals teach me something new every day. So embrace the complexity - on balance, it's a good thing! Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Is the Internet Making us Smarter or Not?

  - by BuckWoody

  I’ve been reading recently about an exchange among some very bright folks, some who posit that the Internet with its instant-on, sometimes-right, big-statement-wins mentality is making people think in a more shallow way, teaching us to rely on others as experts and diluting our logical thought process. Others state that it broadens our perspective and extends our mental reach. Whenever I see this kind of exchange on two ends of a spectrum, I begin to wonder if both sides might be correct.   I can certainly say that I have changed my way of learning, reading, and social interactions because of the Internet. And my tolerance for reading long missives has indeed gone down. I tend to (mentally and literally) “bookmark” things I never seem to have time to get back to. But I also agree that I’ve been exposed to thoughts, ideas and people I never would have encountered any other way. So how to deal with this dichotomy?   Well, I’m going to go off and think about it. No, I’m really going to go off for a full week to a cabin I’ve rented in a National Forest in the Midwest. It has no indoor plumbing, phones, Internet connections or anything else – only a bed to sleep in and a place to cook a little. I’m taking one book, some paper, and a guitar with me and that’s it. I plan to spend my days walking, reading a little, playing a little on the guitar, but mostly just thinking. Those of you who know me might find this unusual. I’m an always-on, hyper-caffeinated, overly-busy, connected person. I haven’t taken a vacation in five years, at least for more than two or three days at a time. Even then, I keep us on the move constantly – our vacations aren’t cruises or anything like that. I check e-mail, post and all that. When I’m not on vacation, I live with and leverage lots of technology, and work with those that do the same. This, however, is a really “unplugged” event, and I’m hoping that it will let me unpack the things I’ve been stuffing in my head. I plan to spend a lot of time on a single subject, writing notes, thinking, and writing more notes.   So after I post tomorrow's “quote of the day” I’ll be “going dark” for a week. No twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, e-mail, chat, none of my five blogs will get updated, and I’ll have to turn in my two articles for InformIT.com early. I won’t have access to my college class portal, so my students will be without me for a week. I will really be offline. I’ll see you in a week – hopefully a little more educated. See you then.   Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Is the Internet Making us Smarter or Not?

  - by BuckWoody

  I’ve been reading recently about an exchange among some very bright folks, some who posit that the Internet with its instant-on, sometimes-right, big-statement-wins mentality is making people think in a more shallow way, teaching us to rely on others as experts and diluting our logical thought process. Others state that it broadens our perspective and extends our mental reach. Whenever I see this kind of exchange on two ends of a spectrum, I begin to wonder if both sides might be correct.   I can certainly say that I have changed my way of learning, reading, and social interactions because of the Internet. And my tolerance for reading long missives has indeed gone down. I tend to (mentally and literally) “bookmark” things I never seem to have time to get back to. But I also agree that I’ve been exposed to thoughts, ideas and people I never would have encountered any other way. So how to deal with this dichotomy?   Well, I’m going to go off and think about it. No, I’m really going to go off for a full week to a cabin I’ve rented in a National Forest in the Midwest. It has no indoor plumbing, phones, Internet connections or anything else – only a bed to sleep in and a place to cook a little. I’m taking one book, some paper, and a guitar with me and that’s it. I plan to spend my days walking, reading a little, playing a little on the guitar, but mostly just thinking. Those of you who know me might find this unusual. I’m an always-on, hyper-caffeinated, overly-busy, connected person. I haven’t taken a vacation in five years, at least for more than two or three days at a time. Even then, I keep us on the move constantly – our vacations aren’t cruises or anything like that. I check e-mail, post and all that. When I’m not on vacation, I live with and leverage lots of technology, and work with those that do the same. This, however, is a really “unplugged” event, and I’m hoping that it will let me unpack the things I’ve been stuffing in my head. I plan to spend a lot of time on a single subject, writing notes, thinking, and writing more notes.   So after I post tomorrow's “quote of the day” I’ll be “going dark” for a week. No twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, e-mail, chat, none of my five blogs will get updated, and I’ll have to turn in my two articles for InformIT.com early. I won’t have access to my college class portal, so my students will be without me for a week. I will really be offline. I’ll see you in a week – hopefully a little more educated. See you then.   Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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