Blog Posts

My Home Office Setup – 2012

February 18, 2012

chicago, computer, desk, home office, productivity

I’m running out of excuses to produce bad T-SQL: My Home Office Setup We just finished moving up the street in downtown Chicago, and I’ve finally made it: I’ve got the proverbial corner office. The view north up Michigan Avenue: Heading North That’s Millennium Park, home of the Bean, Buckingham Fountain, and lots of festivals. On the left side, the Art Institute and the Gehry-designed Pritzker Pavilion finish up the park just short of a line of skyscrapers including the Microsoft offices where our local user group meets. The view east toward Lake Michigan: Beyond My Monitor When I look…

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Join Me In Building a Story

February 2, 2012

disneyland, health, life quest, marathon, running

Let me tell you a story. Several years ago, I worked at Southern Wine & Spirits in Florida alongside Ben Block. Ben was a fellow member of the Windows team, and we managed stuff like storage, VMware, SQL, and a bunch of other applications. Ben and I shared the pale, flabby skin that marks so many of us IT geeks. (We both still have it, by the way – this isn’t an inspirational story about getting skinny or tan.) We ate bad food, worked long hours, and sat in office chairs the whole time. Oh, sure, we’d get up every…

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And they wonder why my stuff is negative.

Blog Posts I Couldn’t Develop in 2011

January 23, 2012

blogging, inspiration, writing

I keep a list of blog post ideas in RememberTheMilk.comin case I run out of ideas. After piling up dozens of them, I’m giving up and setting some of my favorites free. If I couldn’t write these in 2011, I’ll probably never get around to it. If you’re looking for inspiration, here you go: Why Bad People Hate Good DBAs – Developers hate us because we find flaws. Sysadmins hate us because we identify hardware problems. Network admins hate us because they can’t blame the database. Just because people hate you doesn’t mean you’re doing a good job, though. 5…

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PASS Board Brouhaha BS Bulletin

January 18, 2012

#passvotes, pass, sqlpass

You, dear reader, have a real job that doesn’t afford you the ability to follow this kind of gossip, so lemme bring you up to speed. Dec 28 – Board Election Results Announced The Professional Association for SQL Server held their elections for Board of Directors, the people who shape the direction of the community, SQLSaturdays, and the annual PASS Summit. Here’s the final tally: Adam Jorgensen – 1,026 Denise McInerney – 990 Rob Farley – 958 Sri Sridharan – 781 Kendal Van Dyke – 762 Geoff Hiten – 526 There were 3 spots open, so Adam, Denise, and Rob…

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Although I'm not sure where my MCM beer opener went.

How to Pass the SQL MCM Exam

January 3, 2012

certification, exam, mcm, microsoft, microsoft certified master

The number one question I hear from prospective Microsoft Certified Masters in the Yammer study group is, “How deep do I need to go on each topic?” The MCM is a relatively new certification program (as opposed to the MCITP) so there’s no boot camps or braindumps. This makes it tough for candidates to feel confident that they know enough to splurge on the written test. After all, this is a hell of a tough test, and at $500 per take, it’s not cheap either. Or is it? What if, out of paranoia, you spend the next three months of…

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How I Made the #SQLPASS Top 10 Sessions

December 11, 2011

conference, presenting, sqlpass

This is the third year in a row that I’ve made the Top 10 Sessions at the PASS Summit list. I’m really humbled and honored, and I can only think of one way to respond: with a Top 10 list of my own. Here’s the Top 5 Reasons I Made the #SQLPASS Top 10 Sessions List: 5. I examined the feedback questions, n0t just the answers. Each year, PASS uses the same set of feedback questions to gather information: How would you rate the speaker’s presentation skills? How would you rate the speaker’s knowledge of the subject? How would you…

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How Windows Phone 7.5 Worked For Me

December 4, 2011

ios, iphone, klout, mango, microsoft, phone, review, wp7

I’m an iPhone user, and I just spent the last two weeks using a Samsung Focus as my primary phone. The Focus runs Windows Phone 7.5 as its operating system, and I was curious to see how the software stacked up. Am I biased? Well, yes and no: I’ve owned every iPhone since the original one came out, but I’m not so blindly loyal that I shelled out money for an iPhone 4S. My iPhone 4 is good enough, and I’m not the kind of guy who wants to be seen walking down the street telling my phone what to…

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I'd tell him I hate him, but he'd kick my ass.

Why You’ll Be More Interesting Next Year

December 1, 2011

fitness, life quest, nerdfitness, personal, personal development, quest

You’re boring and overweight. I know this because you, dear reader, are just like me – that’s why we get along so well. So let’s work on this together. Steve Kamb’s Gun Show Steve Kamb (Blog – @SteveKamb), on the other hand, is interesting and fit. I know this because his blog is named NerdFitness.com, his arms are the size of my legs (but not in that gross Ahnold way), and he’s living one of the most interesting lives I’ve seen. Steve turned his life into an adventure game – Steve’s Epic Quest of Awesome. He’s built levels for himself,…

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Why I Run Behind And Sideways

November 19, 2011

consulting, life quest, personal, unemployment

I’d like to thank my opening act, Dave Winer, for warming up the crowd. See, he was the featured guest on the StackExchange Podcast last week, and this week, it’s me. Let me bring you up to speed, kids, because there’s a lot of self-deprecating humor about to go down here that could be misinterpreted as bragging. Dave Winer was a huge pioneer in the fields of blogging and podcasting, inventing some of the technologies that make it possible for me to write this post through my laptop and for you to read it through RSS. Because I’ve been doing…

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Why I Misspell in my #WP7 Tweets

November 19, 2011

klout, microsoft, phone, review, wp7

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Just got the new Samsung Focus from Klout for being an influential tech person in Chicago. First impression: the OS is gorgeous, but man, the autocorrect is awful. Perfect example – type oh-space-e as if you wanted to type “one” and the phone just leaves it as “o e”. I could forgive that if the space bar wasn’t THE BIGGEST KEY ON THE ENTIRE KEYBOARD and it’s located right next to the N, just begging my finger to hit it by accident. I’d post pictures of all the wonky app user experience problems, but Windows Phone 7 doesn’t have the…

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Blog Posts

Hi. I’m Brent.