Category Archives: Training
T-SQL Tuesday #41 – Why I Love Presenting
T-SQL Tuesday
This month’s T-SQL Tuesday blog meme is brought to us by Bob Pusateri (blog|twitter) and the subject is “how did you come to love presenting?“
For me I am not sure that I am at that point. I love being a presenter, I love going to the speaker dinners for SQL Saturday events, I love meeting other speakers and talking about presenting, but in all honesty I am not sure that I am in love with presenting. But I am getting there. Presenting still terrifies the hell out of me, but it is a fear that I set out to conquer last year as a goal in my personal development plan.
For a long time, if an activity involved a public speaking component I avoided it like the plague. Seriously. I am not kidding here. I coached Dixie Youth baseball and Pop Warner football and every year I had to give a first practice speech. I would spend a couple of sleepless nights and I would vomit several times before muttering something from my note cards and then quickly move on to begin the practice. The last few years I stopped doing it all together and went around to the parents individually and this worked much better for me. Crisis averted. Problem put back on the shelf for a later date.
After several SQL Saturdays, I started to think that I could do this again. Some time ago, I was a consultant that also provided week-long training courses in addition to programming and DBA work in Progress 4GL RDBMS, but all of the material that I presented was created by a team (similar to a Microsoft training course) of professionals. Whenever I got nervous in those courses, I could always go back into the material as it had notes on the slides. It was fool-proof, and after doing them over and over I was a pro at it. But after not doing this for twelve years, the fear took over again.
After presenting a lightning talk in Pensacola, a couple of user group meetings and a few SQL Saturdays, the fight or flight reflex has lessened and the vomiting is non-existent. I can do this, I am doing this, and I will conquer this. I can proudly say that I brushed the fear back and now think that I am getting better at this. I am starting to love presenting, it has a foothold in the depth of my being. What about you?
Looking for Humorous Backup/Recovery Stories
While preparing my newest presentation, I thought the best way to teach backup and recovery is through humorous stories revolving around horrific backup and/or recovery incidents. I have a couple, but I thought I would open this up to the SQL community and see if there were some really outrageous ones out there. I can cite you (or not if you choose to remain anonymous) in my presentation and tell your story to help teach the world about SQL Server Backup and Recovery. You can simply e-mail me at Ed at SQLGator.com or comment on this post.
Thanks for your help.
Jacksonville SQL Saturday
In less than a month from today, I am honored to be presenting a new session called “Backup Strategies are for Losers!” at SQL Saturday #215 in Jacksonville, Florida. This is a new session and the first session created after attending Buck Woody’s (B|T) workshop on how to be a better speaker. If you came out and saw some of my earlier sessions over the last year, then please come back out and let me know what you think.
If you haven’t registered yet, what are you waiting for it is free training! See you there!
Primary Key versus Unique Key
SQL Schoolhouse!
Recently, I was asked the difference between a primary key and a unique key and this seemed like a good topic for a blog post.
First of all, the primary key is the key that will uniquely identify the record and enforce entity integrity. By default this will create a clustered index on the column or columns selected. The unique key, like the primary key, will be unique, however it creates a non-clustered index by default. The unique key will also allow one NULL record where the primary key will not allow any.
In addition, there is only one primary key per table, whereas you can have multiple unique keys. Enjoy!
SQL Saturday 192, Tampa Has Come and Gone But Left Its Mark!
This past weekend was SQL Saturday 192 in Tampa. Being my home user group event always makes this event special, however this was the first time I spoke at my home SQL Saturday and that made it an event that I will always cherish. In addition, this year, I took in a full day pre-con training on Friday with Buck Woody (b | t) and quite frankly it changed my life. How many times can you say that about a SQL training, let alone a $99 training?
I know what you’re thinking, believe me I do. How can a one day training change your life? I have spoken at two SQL Saturdays prior to this event and a couple of times at a couple of user group meetings so to say that I was a speaking novice would be an accurate term in my eyes anyway. In addition, I have had no formal training in public speaking except for the semester speech class that I nervously tried to avoid and almost vomited every time I stood up in front of the class.
This journey began in 2011 as I resolved myself in Andy Warren’s Professional Development Plan session at the Tampa BI SQL Saturday. I wanted to conquer this fear of public speaking and give back to the community. It seemed pretty simple. I had no idea how hard it would be and with my fight or flight instincts many times I wanted to just run away, but I did not want to embarrass myself in this community and that held me accountable.
After taking Buck’s class entitled “Creating Your Best Technical Presentation: A Speaker Workshop,” I now feel that I have the skills necessary to put together a decent presentation and deliver it without embarrassing myself. The presentation this past Saturday went well considering that I did not rewrite it, I also did not want to run or vomit and those are great things in my book. Now I have to go back and rewrite my presentation with the skills that I have learned. If you ever get the opportunity to take this class at a local SQL Saturday near you, do it!
Enjoy!
SQL Saturday #192 Tampa in a Few Days
We interrupt our series on replication, to remind everyone that this Saturday is SQL Saturday Tampa. Our Tampa user groups are proud to present a stellar lineup and three pre-con trainings this year focusing on DBA, BI, and professional development. The pre-cons are as follows:
- For the DBAs: SQL Server Internals from the practical angle by Dmitri Korotkevitch
-
For the BI enthusiasts: Taking the Next Step with Reporting Services by Jessica Moss
- For Professional Development: Creating Your Best Technical Presentation: A Speaker Workshop by Buck Woody (Come sit with me in this session with all of the cool kids!)
Keep in mind that we have moved to Hillsborough Community College Ybor Campus to accommodate our recent growth and to allow us to host more speakers featuring eight tracks this year with 46 sessions lined up. Here is a map of the layout so that you do not get lost:
If you have not registered yet, what are you waiting on? Register now and avoid the rush!
SQL Saturday #192 Tampa
We interrupt our series on replication, to remind everyone that next week is SQL Saturday Tampa. Our Tampa user groups are proud to present a stellar lineup and three pre-con trainings this year focusing on DBA, BI, and professional development. The pre-cons are as follows:
- For the DBAs: SQL Server Internals from the practical angle by Dmitri Korotkevitch
-
For the BI enthusiasts: Taking the Next Step with Reporting Services by Jessica Moss
- For Professional Development: Creating Your Best Technical Presentation: A Speaker Workshop by Buck Woody
Keep in mind that we have moved to Hillsborough Community College Ybor Campus to accommodate our recent growth and to allow us to host more speakers featuring eight tracks this year with 46 sessions lined up.
If you have not registered yet, what are you waiting on? Register now and avoid the rush!
SQL Saturday Updates
It is an honor and privilege to be selected to present at SQL Saturday Tampa on March 2, 2013. We will be at a new location this year, Hillsborough Community College in beautiful Ybor City, due to our growth over the last couple of years. In addition, we have three pre-cons this year and I will be attending the “Creating Your Best Technical Presentation: A Speaker Workshop” by Buck Woody (b|t). Hopefully, after this session, my presentation skills will continue to improve before my session on that Saturday. If the winter blues got you down then head down to beautiful Tampa for a warm weekend of SQL learning and register for SQL Saturday #192.
This year I will finally get to attend two other SQL Saturdays that are in the relative vicinities. In the past there was always something going on during those two weekends. As it stands, I am planning on submitting my newest session, Backups: Getting the Most Out of Your Storage, to both of those events. Curious as to what they are?
SQL Saturday Jacksonville (#SQLSat215) will be April 27th and SQL Saturday Atlanta is tentatively scheduled for May 18th. Come on out and join me at all three of those events and maybe one of them will have some SQLKaraoke for the after event! Enjoy!
70-457 and 70-458 Game Plan Part Uno
Being methodical and logical as I am, I have set forth a plan to achieve my Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate as noted earlier in my goals for 2013. Having not found much in the way of preparation material as noted in this post , I decided to rent the 70-462 Training Kit from Amazon and transpose some of the objectives there to fit the 70-457 and 70-458 since I am taking the upgrade exams the materials for the regular exams should suffice in preparation.
Now I have outlined a calendar below and the hard dates to hold me accountable to the task especially since the book has to be returned in June. Let the journey begin!
| 70-462 Training Kit – 70-457 Objectives | |||
| Objective | Chapter | Lesson | Date |
| Install and Configure | |||
| Plan Installation | 1 | 1 | 1/20/2013 |
| Install SQL Server & related services | 1 | 2 | 1/20/2013 |
| Implement a migration strategy | 4 | 1 | 1/27/2013 |
| Configure additional SQL server components | 3 | 1 | 1/27/2013 |
| Manage SQL Server agent | 11 | 1 | 2/3/2013 |
| Maintain Instances and Databases | |||
| Manage and configure databases | 3 | 3 | 2/10/2013 |
| Configure SQL Server Instances | 2 | 1 | 2/17/2013 |
| Implement a SQL Server clustered instance | 8 | 1 | 2/24/2013 |
| Manage SQL Server instances | 2 | 2 | 3/3/2013 |
| Optimize and Troubleshoot | |||
| Identify and resolve concurrency problems | 10 | 2 | 3/10/2013 |
| Collect and analyze troubleshooting data | 9 | 1-6 | 3/17/2013 |
| Audit SQL Server instances | 6 | 3 | 3/24/2013 |
| 70-462 Training Kit – 70-458 Objectives | |||
| Manage Data | |||
| Configure and maintain a backup strategy | 11 | 2 | 3/31/2013 |
|
Restore databases
|
11 | 3 | 4/7/2013 |
|
Implement and maintain indexes
|
10 | 1 | 4/14/2013 |
| Import and Export Data | 4 | 2 | 4/21/2013 |
| Implement Security | |||
| Manage logins and server roles | 5 | 1 | 4/28/2013 |
| Manage database permissions | 6 | 1 | 5/5/2013 |
| Manage users and database roles | 5 | 2 | 5/12/2013 |
| Troubleshoot security | 6 | 2 | 5/19/2013 |
| Implement High Availability | |||
| Implement AlwaysOn | 8 | 2 | 5/26/2013 |
| Implement database mirroring | 7 | 1 | 6/2/2013 |
| Implement replication | 7 | 2 | 6/9/2013 |
SQLSat86 Session Review: Andy Warren's 'Building a Professional Development Plan'
Before we begin, I must first admit that when I saw 'Building a Professional Development Plan' in the SQL Saturday 85 Schedule in Orlando back in September, I was not enthusiastic about attending this session as I thought it was more for consultants or for those looking to start their own business. Quite simply, I was thinking business plan and not individual plan.
