I had to check out Brent’s LinkedIn account to see just how long he had been at Quest. Wow, 2.25 years. It was only about a year ago that I became aware of Brent’s presence. I actually can’t remember if I stumbled across his blog first or heard his name mentioned in a conference call. Ahhh, as I type this, I now recall how I ‘met’ Brent. Via Twitter. @BetsyLM had compiled a list of…

After waiting nearly six weeks to receive my Incredible, I can honestly say it WAS worth the wait. Updated: Friday, July 16, 2010 Two Weeks Later… I have had very few problems with the phone and have been able to successfully navigate around them. The very first problem was with activation. Phone would not activate on its own. First Verizon support guy would not activate my phone. Second Verizon support guy, Chris, did activate it…

Tradeshows, user groups, conferences, seminars are all used by vendors to meet with customers and hopefully increase the chance of a sale in the near future. I have been working these types of events since 1999. In that time, I have never seen a vendor resort to playing a feature length movie on the big screen in order to draw customers into their booth. For the past 2 hours I have been watching Avatar in…

This is not a volley in the RDMBS wars. This is a quick cheat sheet for getting started using Toad for SQL Server if you are already used to using Toad for Oracle. Pages not Windows Toad for Oracle is a classic Windows application that utilizes a classic MDI presentation. Toad for SQL Server uses ‘Document Tabs’ for each ‘Window’ you have open in the application. Object Explorer vs Schema Browser Of course a ‘Schema’…

Updated 3/16/2014, Full disclosure: I picked up a 13″ MacBook Air this week I’m not sure I want it anymore. No, I do still want one, but the annoying voice in the back of my head has all but shut up. I know what you’re thinking, somewhere an angel has just lost it’s wings because I’m being selfish. As a professional geek, I’m supposed to buy this stuff and talk about it to everyone I…

Time. I finally have some ‘free’ time. I have chosen to spend this time wisely. Instead of being reactive to e-mails, phone calls, IMs, tweets, pokes, etc, I am going to get serious about my book. The book has been inside my head for several years now, and I feel comfortable enough with the story to put it into words. My goal is to have it available freely to any and all people who need…

So for the past two days I’ve been taking a group of about 15 people through the paces of Toad and working with SQL Server. These folks are coming from an all Oracle environment to a completely SQL Server one. Tangent: Yes, they are actually migrating an entire application over. They are in year 3 of this process, and I’m sure the money they are saving on infrastructure and licensing costs more than makes up…

The circle of people I follow in the IT world have recently been blogging about their travel habits. It’s no accident – companies are investing large amounts of money in business travel now. Hopefully if you meet someone face to face, they will listen to you next time you randomly call and ask for their attention in some matter. Yes, I know, that’s a bit blunt, but you’re naive to think a vendor is coming…

We went from ‘Full of Food, Myself, and _______’ to ‘140,000 Characters or Less’ – hopefully an obvious tongue-in-cheek reference to Twitter. I’m not 100% happy with this title either, but I also recognize the futility of spending multiple brain cycles trying to come up with something catchy, and probably at the end of the day do nothing to bring people to my blog. So, I’m going to focus on content, content, and whatever makes…

You know the drill: an email from your manager is inviting you to attend a dog-and-pony show for the latest widget some company has added to their best software product ever. The invite goes into your calendar and don’t think about it again until your screen starts flashing 5 minutes prior to start time. So, you head over to the conference room/LiveMeeting/WebEx/GoToMeeting, sit down, and prepare to zone out for the next hour or so.…

My friends, family, and colleagues are frequently asking me why I do Twitter. Or to be honest, when I ask if they are on Twitter, their response is less than enthusiastic. In fact, the most frequent response I get is either Rolling of the eyes, OR “I don’t need to tell people what I had for lunch yesterday.” I originally signed on to Twitter because I was morbidly curious. You can only hear something about…

I think it’s safe to say that the Twitter hashtag #SQLHELP has been an unqualified success. Why do our SQL Server friends have such a vibrant community on Twitter while us Oracle folks seem to be a bit resistant to all of this Web2.0 stuff? That’s largely a rhetorical question, although my gut tells me it’s a generation/age gap issue… Anyway, I’m making it my personal mission to bring a similar construct to the Oracle…

It might seem to the casual observer that I’m new to this whole blogging thing.  Here it is almost half-way through 2010 and this Jeff Smith joker is just now starting his blog. I’ve been blogging since July 2007, and you’re more than welcome to read my old posts on my old home if you’d like to catch up. I suppose I should explain why I’ve decided after almost 3 years to start my own…