Most Recent Posts
This blog has moved!
This site will remain up and running indefinitely. I'm simply going to post new material over there.
:{> Andy
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Steve Jones makes some good points in his blog post Training. I find it difficult to believe the short-sightedness of some organizations when it comes to training events like the PASS Summit.
This year's Summit - like all previous years to date - had...
Christy and I have been talking a lot lately about context. By context, we mean "what is already known."
For instance, if I am solciting business advice from someone, they will communicate with me about their business experience from their business...
I'd like to thank the people that attended my sessions at the 2007 PASS Summit in Denver this week! I had a blast and hope you all did as well.
The code will be available from the PASS website and on a DVD. For those in my sessions, I promised I would...
I just returned from a night on the town here in Denver! First, I mosied over to the SQL Server Central bash and got to meet lots of interesting people including Steve Jones and Andy Warren - how cool was that!
Steve was busy administering the event...
I'm at the 2007 PASS Summit!
I was wandering around the Colorado Convention Center earlier today in shorts, unshaven, tired... looking like I'd been rode hard and put up wet. But I caught the last half of Gert Draper's excellent presentation on...
The PASS Summit is less than two weeks away!
I'm getting ready for my presentations. I need a couple laptops to host virtual servers for the demos, so I bought some new gear to take with me.
Check out my Network-In-A-Bag!
It's a power strip,...
It occurs to me today that there are two types of IT managers: those who lead teams everyone wants to be on, and those who lead teams no one wants to be on.
:{> Andy
Technorati Tags: Management IT Leadership Team
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... note the smudged laptop screen... the pacifier... the nearly-finished bottle...
The smudges are from Emma showing me things on my screen. The bottle and pacifier are Riley's. The manuscript is an upcoming e-book on Team Edition for Database Professionals....
Steve Jones has an(other) interesting editorial this morning in which he toyed with / proposed the idea of the government forcing Microsoft to release patches on some regular basis.
I like Steve a lot. We have a lot in common. We're both husbands and...
I received an interesting email a few days back. The sender isn't important - the text is:
Hi ,
I am interested in purchasing textlink advertising on your website Let me know if you are interested and we can discuss further details. I can make a...
The cool people at Wiley (Wrox) allowed the cool people at Solid Quality Mentors to post my chapter, Testing The Database, from the upcoming Wrox release Professional Software Testing with Visual Studio 2005 Team System: Tools for Software Developers...
My daughter Penny started a blog: From the Help Desk!
I love the first entry, and not just because I'm in it. :)
Penny stopped by this weekend to meet her new brother Riley Cooper and we got some cool pictures. My favorite is below!
From left to...
I was recently reminded how lucky I am.
It's true, pure luck has played an important role in my life, defining where I am today personally and professionally. Well, maybe not an important role, but it's been there.
How?
Mostly in the form of opportunities....
My sister-in-law recently passed the PMP certification (congratulations Heather!). I'm waiting for a call from her asking if we need to add resources.
The resources comment above is a joke, but it isn't really that funny. It's indicative of my decades...
Frank La Vigne is trying to plan a wedding (Congratulations Frank and Roberta!) but ran into an error that appears SQL-related (in method name, at least):
:{> Andy
Technorati Tags: Frank La Vigne Sql Error
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Having five kids has its advantages - even if they span a quarter-century. For one, you learn your way around the hospital and get to know what to expect.
You also learn what to avoid, which brings me to Lactation Consultants.
Lactation Consultants...
From the day we learned the due date for our third child was 10 Aug 2007, we pretty much knew the baby would be born 3 Aug 2007. Why? We live in the sticks - Farmville, VA. Although Farmville has a regional hospital with a brand new birthing center,...
The SQL Server 2008 July CTP has been released at Microsoft Connect!
Read about new stuff in this CTP at SQL Server 2008 Improvement Pillars.
The pillars themselves shed some light on the improvements in store with SQL Server 2008:
I can't wait...
Professional Software Testing with Visual Studio 2005 Team System: Tools for Software Developers and Test Engineers is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com!
I was honored to work on this book with three testing gurus: Tom Arnold, Mike Frost,...
Introduction
I was recently reminded that iteration matures software.
The History of Andy, Part 1
Like many DBAs, I was a software developer in another life. I built web applications - working my way up from HTML through DHTML and finally to...
Microsoft (Brian Harry, actually) announces the availability of the Visual Studio Team System Web Access Power Tool!
Web-based TFS folks - get it while it's hot!
:{> Andy
Technorati Tags: TeamPlain Team Foundation Server TFS Power Tool
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As I type in my upstairs office, Christy's downstairs experiencing pre-labor (if not the real deal labor). I'm up here battling the company that administers our COBRA health insurance, seriously considering a letter to my representative in Congress...