The title says it all
Registration for SQLBits is now open.
We expect this to be very very popular so make sure you register quickly.
http://www.sqlbits.com/
I’ve been running SQLBits for 5 years and have always had a desire to make the SQL community better. I’ve often thought about running for the board but have never stood up Just over a year ago I was at a meeting with some SQL leaders about growing PASS globally. At that meeting a friend of offered to help the board from an international perspective. I thought he was mad. James runs his own business, has been managing the sponsors for SQLBits and has 3 kids to look after, no way would he have the...(read more)
If you’ve had your ear to the twitter ground you will have seen that the provisional agenda for SQLBIts has been put online. http:// sqlbits .com/information/agenda.aspx You will also notice that we have put on a little weight. Yes we’ve eaten too many sessions meaning we have to extend to another room from the 10:50 onwards. This means you have 6 sessions to choose from rather than the normal 5. Whats more to get even more sessions in we’ve looked at those that have registered and decided they are...(read more)
Are you trying to build a SQL Server database project and getting The imported project "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\SSDT\Microsoft.Data.Tools.Schema.SqlTasks.targets" was not found. Confirm that the path in the <Import> declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk. We had this recently when trying to build one SSDT solution but not when building another. Checking the build agent the error was correct that file didn’t exist...(read more)
Something I’m very conscious of when delivering a BI solution is being able to show the facts in a concise way but also not to hide whats going on. I was reminded of this when I looked at the weather today. Everywhere they are reporting weather warnings for the south east and so I though I’d check on the BBC website http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/4281?area=AL5 Looking at that I thought we are going to miss the worst of it, just like a few weeks ago. However from previous experience...(read more)
One of the most enjoyable things about SQLBits is reading all the blog posts/reviews after the event. We are normally fortunate enough not to have pissed anyone off and so the posts are generally positive. Most pieces are from attendees however this piece is from a wife of a sponsor http://iknowmarketing.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/events-community-vs-commercial/ . Its a nice piece for us as it highlights how we work and that how we focus on making the event personal for all those involved. We deal...(read more)
Don’t forget that if you complete you session and conference feedback for SQLBits then you will be entered into a draw for an XBox Super Elite . Not only that, we also have a registration for the PASS Summit in November this year to give away . The survey is essential for us to make SQLBits conference better . If you don’t tell us what doesn’t work then we can’t fix it. We listened this time and gave you better signage and more information in your agenda about sessions and the abstracts. So please...(read more)
PASS have given use a number of prizes for SQLBits. We
have registrations for PASS Europe and PASS North America as well as DVD sets of
the sessions from the North America summit last year to give away.
Not only that, if you want to go to PASS Europe and you are a SQLBits user
then you can get a promotion code that not only gives you the best price it also
raises money for SQLBits.
To get the promotion code login and then visit the community page http://www.sqlbits.com/about/Community.aspx
PASS have given use a number of prizes for SQLBits. We
have registrations for PASS Europe and PASS North America as well as DVD sets of
the sessions from the North America summit last year to give away.
Not only that, if you want to go to PASS Europe and you are a SQLBits user
then you can get a promotion code that not only gives you the best price it also
raises money for SQLBits.
To get the promotion code login and then visit the community page http://www.sqlbits.com/about/Community.aspx
If you can’t make it to SQLBits and you are registered then please unregister. We are currently at our limit and so in unregistering you leave the possibility that someone else might be able to attend. Thank you SQLBits Committee...(read more)
Interesting little situation occurred today, the person I was working with was trying to add a login to a server and was getting the following error. “The server principal '<domain>\User' already exists” They were using a command like this and couldn’t figure out why they were getting the error above because when they looked at the logins setup on the system the login definitely didn’t exist. CREATE LOGIN [<domain>\<user>] FROM WINDOWS WITH DEFAULT_DATABASE = [master] The...(read more)
I’ve been a fan of the the SayNoTo0870 website for ages. I hate it costing me money to phone a company for support of their product. Especially on a mobile phone where 0845 and 0870 numbers are v expensive. So I’ve developed an accelerators for IE one allows you to find an alternative number using the company name and the other by using the original number. You can add the accelerators by going to my downloads page . To use the accelerator just select the company name, right click and navigate to...(read more)
If you are a SQL Server Professional in the UK and ideally in the London area and would be interested in working with me on some interesting SQL Server Projects then please contact me. http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/simons/contact.aspx Work will be performance tuning, SSIS and general SQL development....(read more)
If you need to find out when statistics were last updated run the following select OBJECT_NAME ( s . object_id ) object , s . name , STATS_DATE ( s . object_id , s . stats_id ) StatsDate , s . auto_created , s . filter_definition , s . has_filter , s . no_recompute , s . user_created , stuff (( select ',' + col . name from sys . stats_columns sc join sys...(read more)
I’m growing my first ever moustache for Movemb http://uk.movember.com/ You can see my mo space and pictures of the thing growing on my lip here http://uk.movember.com/mospace/6154809 If you would like to support me then please do make a donation and make this worth it. https://www.movember.com/uk/donate/payment/member_id/6154809/ Were not even half way through the month and not sure how I’ll get to the end. Please contribute to keep me motivated not to slip with the razor. If anyone knows...(read more)
There has been so much news coming out of MS lately and one that does seem to have gone by with very little noise is Federation in SQL Azure http://player.microsoftpdc.com/Session/591d586f-3732-4bff-8ee2-857f27d74df4 This is a fascinating feature that enables you to spread a database across multiple nodes. Sharding is another term for this and is one of the main reasons people like the NOSQL movement. It will be fascinating to see whether this federation will start to appear in the main SQL Server...(read more)
Our next SQLBits event in Telford in July has topped the number of registrations for the Friday and we are still over 2 months to go. This is going to be our biggest regional SQLBits ever by a long way both in terms of attendees and sessions. I’m currently in the planning for the Friday evening party and it will be a special event. If you care about data and work with SQL Server the SQLBits XII is an event that you do not want to miss. Its not too late to register but I’ve been told...(read more)
My career started at a company where we hardly had email, the network was a 10base2 affair with cables running all around the office. You used floppy disks and the thought of a GB of data was absurd. You had to look after every byte and only keep what you really needed. Whilst the cost of the spinning disks gradually falls the cost and size of flash storage continues to plummet. The new Crucial SSD is £380 for 1TB I can now keep 128GB of data on a SD card the size of my finger. It only costs...(read more)
If you’ve been reading the wires about SQL Azure you will have seen a change to the tiers that are being offered. Thsi is all so that you can get a more predictable performance level from the platform and also to enable Azure to manage the resources. You now have 3 categories basic, standard and premium, and within those you have some other levels. This enables you to start your service at a low level and then as required request more capacity (through the portal or API). For details on the...(read more)
I’m looking for 2 SQL people to join our data team. I need people that are keen to develop an exciting data platform with strong SQL skills. Desirable skills are MDX/SSAS, data warehousing and working in finance industry. The role is a full time role based in London. If you are interested then let me know either via my http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/simons/contact.aspx or via twitter @simon_sabin https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?screen_name=simon_sabin&text=Read your blog send me details . No...(read more)
Its the reports. Take this for example, it is a report generated during a demo of Report Builder 3.0 by someone in MS marketing. She says things like “..and you can see easily how my divisions are doing”. No you can’t you’ve just got a bunch of numbers. This is really the issue with reporting systems and especially with Microsoft reporting. The problem is that people think generating a report is about getting lists of numbers onto a page. Reporting services is great at doing that and its very...(read more)
It was sad to hear today about computermanuals.co.uk closing down after a period of administration. Whilst I do love books, the access to technical information, of high quality on the internet and accessible on your PC does mean the printed technical book does look to be going the way of the dinosaur. The silver lining is that you can get some books really cheap in their closing down sale http://www.computermanuals.co.uk/scripts/search.asp?g=1837...(read more)
If you are in Dublin then we have a meeting on tonight at the Microsoft office. The subject of the talk is “Almost all queries have to do two things, get data and join it together. In this session we will look at the aspects of these that most people think they know but in reality don’t. “ If you think you know SQL then you should come along and we'll see if you are right http://www.mtug.ie/UserGroups/ SQLServer/tabid/82/ctl/Details/ Mid/413/ItemID/110/ Default.aspx?ContainerSrc=%5BG% 5DContainers...(read more)
I recently asked a few questions about some features I was surprised weren’t in reporting services. The response I got from the team was,”raise them in connect and get them voted for”. So thats what I’ve done. Here is a list of the items I’ve raised as well as items I’ve found that I think should be being done. if you agree with any of these features please vote. It does make a difference. Controlling functionality in report builder Controlling what a user can do in report builder, i.e. not...(read more)