On August 10th 2010 I attended and presented at the PGH.NET User Group meeting named “5 Guys with Code.”  According to one of the PGH.NET leaders tweet it looks like the headcount was 60+

The following are some thoughts and highlights from the presentations.

Presentations

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  • John Sterrett (Blog | Twitter) – Table Value Parameters with SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft .NET  
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    • Download sample code and presentation here.
    • Download SQL Server 2008 R2 Developer Toolkit
    • Download SQL Server 2008 Developer Toolkit here
    • Table Value Parameter links

I presented a feature that is included in SQL Server 2008 and underused by many developers.  This presentation shows developers how to pass a  DataTable, DataReaders and Lists to SQL Server database objects with only two extra lines of C# or VB.NET code. 

As promised below are some reference links

• David Hoerster (Blog | Twitter) – jQuery Code Snippets in Visual Studio 2010

Time is money and David’s fifteen minute tip might just save you a lot of time and money.    He covered several tools that will help you generate some awesome JavaScript. 

I  really liked the jsFiddle.NET tool.  It looks like a great tool to mockup some a user interface (more on user interfaces later).

• Rich Dudley (Blog  | Twitter ) – A Quick Look at the New SQL CE Engine

Being addicted to databases I very happy to see that I wasn’t the only one presenting a topic based on databases.  Rich did a great job explaining what SQL CE can do and what it cannot do. 

Rich blogged about his experience (post includes photos, slides and more)

• John Hidey (Blog | Twitter) – Layout Controls for XAML

I have to admit that XAML and I don’t get along well.  We had a fling a few years ago.  XAML cheated on me and I haven’t been the same since.

Ok seriously, I tried XAML a few times and found it very hard to understand.  John did a great job going over the common things that are hard to understand when you get started with XAML.   John started with some very basic controls and then built a final example that included all the basic controls.

• Eric Kepes (Blog | Twitter) – Bowling for TDD

At this summers PGH.NET Code Camp we had a speakers session where one of the presenters said, “Code is considered legacy code when TDD is not applied.”  Eric bowling for TDD example showed how anyone can start developing TDD.

Once upon a time I did software development for a dot.com start-up that did very well.  Highschoolsports.com  is a huge success and eventually got bought by Gannett.  When I worked there we were constantly tracking unique hits.  In the back of my mind I always wondered how we did against other companies.

Today I caught up with a good friend of mine Adolph Santorine (old owner of highschoolsports.com) at tonights Greater Wheeling Chapter of AITP meeting and he showed me a tool I had to throw on here.  Its a web app that allows you to compare your competitors unique hits against yours. 

Give www.compete.com  a try.  It’s a nice tool that just might give you what you need.

Every year the Pittsburgh, PA and Wheeling, WV chapters of AITP have a joint meeting in Washington, PA.  It is usually is the most attended meeting for both chapters.   Currently at this point in time 40 people are signed up to attend. 

The meeting is scheduled for Tomorrow June 9th 2010 and it will be held Holiday Inn – Meadowlands at 340 Racetrack Rd, Washington, PA 15301.  You can register online and pay at the door. The cost is $29.  The meeting starts at 6:30pm

The topic for this joint meeting is Cyber-crime, investigations and digital forensics it will be presented by the Members of the FBI Pittsburgh Division Cyber Squad.  Members of the FBI Pittsburgh Division Cyber Squad will discuss current trends in cyber-crime, investigations and digital forensics.

On May 19th there will be 24 live back-to-back presentations including ones highlighting new features provided in SQL Server 2008 R2 and more.  I attended parts of the 24 hours of PASS last year and was blown away by the content.  If you work with SQL Server I highly recommend you attend.   You can register online now at http://www.sqlpass.org/24hours/2010/

The following speakers are lined up for this great event.  Adam Machanic, Andy Leonard, Brad McGehee, Brent Ozar, Brian Knight, Chuck Heinzelman, Dean Richards, Don Kiely, Don Vilen, Donald Farmer, Glenn Berry, Greg Low, Jacob Sebastian, Jessica Moss, Kevin Cox, Kevin Kline, Louis Davidson, Maciej Pilecki, Peter Myers, Peter Ward, Rushabh Mehta, Sean McCown, Simon Sabin, Thomas Grosher

That’s fine, it looks like these sessions will be recored and made available through PASS within two months.  If you access the event this way you can watch 24hrs of PASS and the paint at the same time

A good friend of mine Thomas LaRock(blog | twitter) is organizing this bad boy.  For more information check out his post or the 24 hrs of PASS site.  I know it will be a big hit!

This past weekend I had the pleasure of helping out David Hoerster (bio, twitter) with the setup of PGH.NET Code Camp.  Why, would I want to get up before the crack of dawn to help?  Well for starters David is a die hard Pittsburgh Pirates fan like myself.  Okay the real answer, is that I wanted to help with the code camp before I ran my first SQLSaturday in West Virginia.   This was a great practice before the game starts on May 1st.

In short I learned that if you have good volunteers it’s actually not too hard to have a great event.  If the event is free there will be people who just don’t show.  I guess mowing their lawn is more important than free training?  People will also leave before the event is over.  I could be wrong but I thought about half of the crowd left before the last session ended.  Finally, if a speaker doesn’t show you could replace the session with speakers panel.  This was a great move and actually was my favorite session of the day. 

SQL Server 2008 for Developers

During the day I also did a presentation on SQL Server 2008 for Developers.  I presented right after lunch and expected the majority of the crowed to have a food coma from the free burritos but this was not the case.  It actually was a nice interactive session. The following are a few quick facts from the presentation. 

About 40 people attended this session and only five of them are currently using SQL 2008.  I know this is a small sample size but it makes me believe that there are a lot of people out there still on SQL 2005 or SQL 2000.

The majority of the people awake (yes,  a few experience the food coma) were really impressed with using the real-time debugger to debug stored procedures, using merge to replace truncate table insert into table and use TVP to pass a data table in as an input parameter.

Follow-up Answers

The following are answers to some questions that were asked after the session.  Thought I would answer them here so others could find them in the future.

Can I create an index to filter based on dates?

Yes, you can.  I believe this is a new feature added in SQL Server 2008.  The following script will execute.

CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX FIBillOfMaterialsByStartDate
    ON Production.BillOfMaterials (ComponentID, StartDate, EndDate)
WHERE StartDate > '20000801' AND StartDate < '20010801';
GO

Checkout this MSDN link for more on Filtering Indexes. 

How can I make my database run faster? 

This is always a fun question and a hard one to answer without looking at the database and the server it resides on.   I recommended that this individual start with the free performance boosts.  This is also known as managing your indexes.   To do this checkout the following great links with video from SQLServerPedia.

• Index Management  (Free Performance)
• Find unused Indexes and Missing Indexes

Can I find the last time database objects were modified?

Yes, check out this link for a script that does the following task

I am glad to announce that SQLSaturday is coming to Wheeling, WV.  This will actually be the first SQLSaturday in West Virginia. The goal is simple, provide a free day of training on  Saturday, May 1st 2010 for SQL Server DBA’s and developers.  This event focuses on speakers, providing a good variety of topics, and making it all happen through the efforts of volunteers.

Below is the following list of submitted topics as of February 3rd.  If you would like to speak the call for speakers is still open until March 15th. We are firm believers in SQLSaturday’s goal to find, grow, and feature speakers that include the next generation of talent.  If you are an MVP or first time presenter we will try to fit you in.

Registration is now open so you can sign-up to attend SQLSaturday #36.  This event will include a free lunch, door prizes and a post training party.  Did we mention that its free?  Below is photo of West Virginia Northern Community College the venue for our event.

We look forward to seeing you in May.  In the meantime you can follow our SQLSaturday blog posts here.

Yes, I know it is already 2010.  I am a little behind but still wanted to officially write down some goals for the new year.   Actually I should get partial credit as I started on the whiteboard in December.  Anyways, this will help hold me accountable for my goals, give me something to review quarterly through the year and also keep my friends on the internet aware of what I am trying to accomplish this year.

• Be a better Husband

  I have to admit there has been several times in my life where I put work, groups and other things ahead of family time.  My most important goal for the year is to change this.  I plan to have at least one night per week where I put the computer down and spend time with the family.  I also plan to make this the year I take Nina to Spain.  Yes, those who know me well know I didn’t complete Spanish a couple times in high school.  Hopefully, we will be able to learn the language of the land together in the next few months.

• Make an impact to improve my community

  I am a young (28 year old)  Database Administrator, Programmer, Information Technology Professional who lives in Wheeling, WV (50 miles down this Ohio River from Pittsburgh, PA). This year I will serve my local community by becoming the President of the Greater Wheeling Chapter of the Association of  Information Technology Professionals and the Region 18 Vice President.  Our biggest initiative of the year will be implementing the first SQLSaturday in West Virginia.  We will provide free conference event that will bring Information Technology professionals to Wheeling to obtain free training on SQL Server,  .NET and professional development.  I am also highly involved with OVConnect the Ohio Valley’s Young Professionals group.  Through this group we will provided several events that connect young minded people together.

• Continue to improve my communication skills

  I admit it I am guilty as charged.  While I read several blogs and technical books I don’t dive into non-technical books often.  This year I plan to read six non-technical books during the year and write reviews of them on this blog.

  Speaking of blogging if you are following this blog you know my blogging last year was not consistent.  Therefore, I am going to try to make sure I have at least one new post every two weeks.  I will also try to blog about different things going on locally, personally and with technology.

  Finally, I also plan to do more technical presentations this year.  I hope to do four presentations.  You will be able to catch me presenting at Pittsburgh .NET Code Camp and SQLSaturday in Wheeling.

• Continue the certification path for MCITP SQL Server 2005

  In 2009 I completed the 70-431 exam which makes me a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist on SQL Server 2005.  This year I plan to take the next step and become a Microsoft Certified Technology Professional in SQL Server 2005.  You might be  wondering why would I or you want to do this?  There are a few reasons I will share.  First, a great friend of mine once told me its a great way to polish your skills.  Second, I believe that the certification process forces you to learn topics you wouldn’t learn unless you complete the process.  Third, the objectives of the exams line up with some project goals at work so I can kill two birds with one stone.

• Improve my networking and social networking

In 2009 I  dove into social networking via blogging, twitter (johnsterrett) LinkedIn, and Facebook.  While I have lots of great connections through these networking portals its hard to keep track.  Therefore, I have a simple networking goal for 2010.  I want to build lasting relationships with 7 to 10 new individuals.

Attend PASS 2010 Member Summit

This goal is actually very straight forward.  In fact, I am actually cheating.  I just signed up for the conference and look forward to meeting other DBA’s and SQL Developers at this event.  If you work with SQL Server I highly recommend you do the same.

Hello everyone,  I want to share some cool events going down in Wheeling, WV in December. 

If you like wine or technology I highly recommend catching the Greater Wheeling Chapter of the Association for Information Technology Professionals meeting on December 9th.  This meeting is open to the public. We will meet on the forth floor of Wheeling Central High School at 6pm.  All attendees will have the change to share their 2009 accomplishments while we chow down a pizza dinner.  Dinner will be followed by a wine tasting at the Good Mansion Wines store. Check out the event page to signup for the 2009 December meeting.

Are you a young superstar go getter? If so, OVConnect is the group for you.  The mission is to bring young professionals in the valley together.  This months installment includes a holiday toy drive with a happy hour twist.  On December 17th at 5:00pm we will socialize and get our drink on at River City.  In order to attend all you have to do is signup and bring a toy or make a ten dollar donation.  All donations benefit Catholic Charities.

Bonus Pittsburgh Technology Event

Are you a .NET programmer and interested in what’s going on with MVC?  If so, this months installment of the PGH.NET User Group is a must attend free event.  The PGH.NET meeting is on December 8th. You can find more info here or register here.

Today, I am giving my first presentation at my local SQL Server User Group.  Below are links to the slides.  I will also add some more resource here after todays presentation.

Introduction to Data Warehousing slides

DEMO: Build Your First Cube

Below is the description of the discussion.

November’s presentation will include an Introduction to Data Warehousing with SQL Server presented by John Sterrett, a Database Administrator and Web Engineering Specialist for Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.  If you are interested in learning how Analysis Services, Integration Services and Reporting Services can provide Business Intelligence this meeting is for you.  We will start with the basic concepts of data warehousing including key terms and definitions.  Next, we will cover some sample business cases while we walk through the process of designing a data warehouse.  Once this session is complete you will be able to develop your first cube.

This past weekend I attended the AITP Region 18 Conference in Columbus, OH. This was a great opportunity for me to meet and network with several Information Technology Professionals.  If you have never attended a AITP meeting I highly recommend that you do.

The following was our agenda and a brief afterthought of the topics:

• Ice Breaker – Got to trade name tags and learn a few facts from a new friend.
• Leadership – Caught up on the leadership changes within AITP on the national level.
• VMWare – Learned how VMWare is moving into the cloud.  I was very impressed with the ability to move in and out of the VMWare cloud.
• Cloud Computing – This really makes it easy to do a SaaS startup.  I am looking forward to trying azure out.

Following the technical sessions we had a great dinner and networking session at the Buckeye Hall of Fame.  Unfortunately, it looked like my presence cursed Ohio State.