home links tools blog about
home

September 03, 2009

Power Up with SQL Server

On September 15th I'll be presenting a 3 session event entitled Power Up with SQL Server. This is a FREE training event hosted by SQL Server Magazine/Windows IT Pro, so if you'd like to learn about whether or not you should virtualize your SQL Servers (and how to best do that), ways to improve database availability, or how to get a grip on performance tuning, then be sure to sign up. Right now there are over 1,000 people registered for Power Up with SQL Server, and there's also an event scheduled in EMEA in November (with different speakers) as well.

Overview
Here's a snippet stolen from the links above. But if you're interested in learning more, go check out the Agenda – which provides a better overview of the three sessions we'll be covering.

Don't wait any longer! Stop merely using SQL Server and start unleashing it to maximize its full potential! Make plans to attend "Power Up with SQL Server," an interactive live virtual event produced by SQL Server Magazine.
Join SQL Server expert, consultant, and author Michael K. Campbell in a clear, insightful, and independent look at ways in which your business can better take advantage of SQL Server capabilities to decrease management costs and improve reliability, uptime and performance.
In just three hours, directly from your own computer you will:

  • See how virtualization and consolidation benefits apply to SQL Server and understand why there's never been a better time to virtualize SQL Server deployments.
  • Learn how to best virtualize SQL Server in order to optimize provisioning, uptime and consolidation without allowing virtualization to impair workload throughput.
  • Understand the benefits and limitations of each of SQL Server's native high-availability options, and learn how to evaluate each option based upon business needs, network latency and other real-world considerations.
  • Learn the difference between High-Availability solutions and disaster recovery solutions and ensure that both critical concerns are handled in the best way possible.
  • Gain insights into what causes SQL Server performance problems and learn about the best ways to profile, load-test and tune SQL Server workloads rather than just throwing more and more expensive hardware at each problem as it is encountered.

Free Subscription to SQL Server Magazine
As a bonus, anyone who registers for this event gets a free 1-year digital subscription to SQL Server Magazine. You can't beat that.

Posted on September 03, 2009 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 04, 2009

ASP.NET MVC 2

As if the ASP.NET MVC weren't awesome enough (I will NEVER go back to webforms), Phil Haack just updated the MVC Codeplex site with a roadmap of upcoming goodies.

In addition to some planned new helpers, and (of course) integration with VS 2010, there will be improved support for Areas, Asynch Controllers, and som Caching improvements – among others.

Go check out the details yourself.

Posted on June 04, 2009 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

April 22, 2009

Hyper-V Unleashed

If you're interested in learning more about what Hyper-V brings to the table, and whether or not it's ready for prime-time, make sure to check out Hyper-V Unleashed – a free Web Seminar from WindowsITPro.

The event will be on July 21st, and I'll be presenting the 'Hyper-V In Depth' session. Registration is free, and there are some great goodies/freebies available for registrants – in addition, of course, to the content.

Here's a recap of the Agenda:

11:00 a.m.

Hyper-V In-Depth

This session would provide detailed information about Hyper-V. We will begin with the Hyper-V architecture and a discussion of the differences in the Hyper-V role and Hyper-V Server 2008 standalone edition. We also would cover storage and networking options; installing and managing Hyper-V on Server 2008 and Server Core; and advanced topics such as offline VHD access, backup and recovery, high availability options, and management.
12:30 p.m.

Partner Technical Presentations

1:45 p.m.

VMware ESX vs. Microsoft Hyper-V

This session would compare ESX server and Hyper-V, showing the differences between their architectures. We would look at the different features and management interfaces and compare the performance of the two products. In addition, we would look at the more advanced enterprise management capabilities offered by VI3 and SCVMM.
3:00 p.m.

Highly Available Hyper-V

This session would present the different high-availability features offered by Hyper-V. We would cover setting Failover Clustering at both the Hyper-V server and guest level and provide an overview of Live Migration, discussing how Live Migration works and then showing how to set up and use Live Migration with Hyper-V and Server 2008 R2

Posted on April 22, 2009 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 26, 2009

SQL Server Consulting

Ironically, with as much self-promotion as I do on this blog, I just realized that I've NEVER mentioned my SQL Server Consulting business here.

So, here goes: If you're looking for top-notch SQL Server help and consulting, make sure to check out SQL Server Audits.

So if you're in the market for some professional SQL Server consulting help, make sure to check out the site and feel free to contact me – as my initial consultations are free.

SSA_1

Referral Bonuses
If you know of someone who needs help, send them my way.

Just make sure to give me a heads-up when you send someone, as I'm happy to pay a $50 referral fee for any client that books over 5 hours of consulting help.

And, if you send yourself, just let me know and you'll get a half-hour discount.

Posted on March 26, 2009 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 11, 2009

ASP.NET MVC and Search Engine Optimization

If you're interested in ASP.NET MVC and Search Engine Optimization, check out one of my recent articles/newsletters up at WinDevPro.com on ASP.NET MVC and Search Engine Optimization.

I've been using this approach now for a while, and I've been very happy with the flexibility and results it offers.

Posted on March 11, 2009 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 13, 2008

SQL Server Videos

www.sqlservervideos.com launched a few months ago to provide the world with free, top-notch, videos and training resources to help developers, reluctant DBAs, analysts, and IT managers learn about SQL Server.

Since launch SSV has had over 20,000 visitors, served up nearly 7,000 videos, and is now to the point where it's consuming about 1-2GB/day in transfer (for downloads). Of course, I'd like to see 10x all of those numbers, but that will come as I add more content.

Speaking of content, when the site launched I only had about 10 videos in two different serieseseseses. I've now got 3 series and 24 videos and I'm hoping to launch a new series on "What's new in SQL Server 2008" within the next few days. (I've already got one of the videos done and two more on the way.)

So, go check out the site if you haven't already done so - or if you haven't checked it out in a while. And make sure to sign up to the site's RSS if you'd like stay up-to-date on new releases as I'll only blog about SSV every few months on this site. (In fact, I'm mostly just blogging about this here today to make sure that search engines know where to find "SQL Server Videos". muhahahaha.)

Posted on November 13, 2008 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 05, 2008

Killer, Free, Visual Studio Plugins

If you like Visual Studio, and you like free, then you need to check out two really killer FREE extensions, or plugins, out on the Visual Studio Gallery.

The first one, Source Code Outliner PowerToy, is a great tool that gives you a full-blown outline of the code in whatever file you're currently using. The best way to describe it is to liken it to a document-outline when working with HTML in something like DreamWeaver, or to contrast it to that nasty-little drop down you get at the top of your code window in VB.NET - only this isn't a drop down (but double-clicking on anything takes you to its exact location in the code). (And, before I get flamed by VB users, I'm NOT saying VB's nasty - i'm saying that little drop down is nasty because it provides GREAT functionality, but I hate that all of the contents are in a tiny little drop down).

The second one, PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2008, is just a motley collection of various power-tools and augmentations for Visual Studio. But it offers over 20 different little tweaks, improvements, and options that will make your life tons easier. Fact is, I'm sure that just about everyone that uses this tool will find 4 or 5 different things that they've wanted their entire adult life...

Best of all, both plugins are not only free, but they're both just a few MBs each, and both have an MSI installer - so you can download them and install them in just seconds.

Posted on November 05, 2008 | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

October 02, 2008

Is this thing On?

No, I haven't given up blogging. Just haven't had much of anything useful to say of late.

I have, however, been busy writing up thoughts and the likes over at WindowsDevPro.com.

So, if you strangely, somehow, feel the need to hear me rant or rave about things, make sure to check out out some of the recent articles.

Blogging here will resume... within a week or so.

Posted on October 02, 2008 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

February 05, 2008

Spot On

Mario Romano nails it:

Let's be clear about it: Google is not a social institution for the defense of civil rights - it is just another corporation, not unlike Microsoft and others.

Seriously. Anyone else sick of the obscene hypocrisy coming out of Google?

Me? I'm hoping that MS manages to pull of their 'buyout' of Yahoo. No, not to get back at Google, and no, not because it would make MS that much more powerful or blah blah blah. My motivation is much more ... sinister.

You see, what with MS being on the warpath with that nasty little thing called a Zune, my hope is that if they can persuade Yahoo to let them take over, that they'll keep Yahoo Unlimited up and running - instead of trying to hand-off those customers to Rhapsody. YU is really built around WMA, and things like 'the Zune'... so hopefully MS can 1) take over yahoo 2) be persuaded to keep it alive.

Which brings me to my real point, which is about why Yahoo is likely hurting so much anyhow. Because they apparently don't know how to make $$. Take me for instance, I'm hooked on Yahoo Unlimited. I'm seriously depressed about the possibility of life without it (I mean, I've got over 25k rated songs/albums/artists with that service - and oodles of playlists). But what's Yahoo up to? Oh, they're apparently going to shunt it over to Rhapsody, where I'll have to pay more for it.

Dear Yahoo: If YU is too expensive to run as is, and if I'm going to have to pay Rhapsody MORE to keep a music subscription, then just LET ME PAY YOU MORE. I don't mind (that much) paying more. I do mind, on the other hand, paying ANYTHING to something associated with Real Networks - to the point where I simply won't.

Posted on February 05, 2008 | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

December 14, 2007

ASPNetEmail - So Easy it's criminal

So, I needed to set up some email alerts from one of my web sites. Doing this with the .NET framework (in the past) hasn't been too incredibly hard - at least in terms of code. But configuring everything and debugging in that magical realm between .NET and CDOSYS/CDONTS has always been a royal pain in the butt. That, and there's nothing like worrying that some service pack to a server someday will shutdown your email functionality - without you knowing about it.

So I went with ASPNetEmail instead. To get it to work on my own dev server I decided to try and set up MailEnable as an SMTP server. MailEnable is free, was easy to set up, and totally did the trick.

Once that was set up, getting things running with ASPNetEmail was so easy I almost felt guilty. Better yet, because I had fat-fingered my allow relay urls in MailEnable I got to see why people won't shut up about how great ASPNetEmail is - as it gave me a very thorough set of exception details that let me know that it wasn't able to properly relay for me.

Best of all, I won't have to worry about my code/email functionality just deciding that it won't work in the future.

Posted on December 14, 2007 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Next »