Sooner or later, you’re going to get a new client with a request that makes you a little nervous. Here are a few examples I’ve seen over the years: “We have a multi-terabyte mission-critical database with no backups, and we want it to go faster.” “We have a 15 year old…
I have this weird job where I get to pick which conferences I go to, so, I, uh, go to a lot of them. Here’s how a few of them stack up. Amazon Web Services re:Invent Audience: About 30,000 AWS users. Database session quantity: not a lot. (I didn’t go for the database…
Lemme be the first to say that I’m not an expert on this stuff. There are SaaS experts doing a way better job of this. However, here in our smaller database server community, it’s a different story – so I figured you might enjoy reading how this works behind the scenes,…
In the https://sqlcommunity.slack.com/messages/consultants/ room, we were discussing a project that wasn’t going well. Someone was on a team where one of the team members wasn’t succeeding, and we were discussing ways to turn the situation around. I’ve been a fan of the book Secrets of Consulting for years, and one of…
Logitech’s brought out a new 4K webcam called the Brio, and it goes for about $200. It’s quite a step up from the ~$100 former top-of-the-line Logitech C930e that I’ve been using for a couple of years. Here’s some sample comparison photos: Bright Light Comparison Photos My back wall is painted chroma…
We just moved into a new place and I added a few more touches to my home office setup. I use a motorized sit/stand NextDesk Terra Pro, so I can move the whole desk up or down with the touch of a button. I can’t say enough good things about that…
Erika and I moved to downtown Chicago 7 years ago to be right in the middle of everything. We’re moving out of downtown now, so I wanted to write up a quick recap of what we love about living in the middle of the 3rd biggest city in the US. (Population…
In the SQLcommunity Slack #Consultants channel, Steph Locke (@StephLocke) asked if anyone was doing free consultations or office hours as a way of growing your opportunities. We had a good discussion in there, and I’d highly recommend that freelancers and consultants join that channel for help. I’ve done a free…
The inaugural GroupBy.org online event finished recently, and I had the sublime pleasure of watching a bunch of presenters at work. Because I was staffing the Q&A, Twitter, and Slack, I also got to watch the community reactions firsthand. People love different sessions for different reasons. Let’s start with Pinal Dave….
Several years back, I had the pleasure of working with Paul Randal (blog – @PaulRandal) – first in the Microsoft Certified Master program, and then later at SQLskills with Paul & Kim. I had a phenomenal time – they’re truly wonderful people – and I want to share two of…