And yes, I just used ask as a noun (I feel dirty), I wouldn’t do that in any other context, but this one. In reviewing my end of year blog metrics, my number one post from last year was a post that listed the list price of SQL Server. I wrote this post because a) […]
Category: business
But What about Postgres?
What About Postgres? Since I wrote my post yesterday about Oracle and SQL Server, I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback (except for one grouchy Oracle DBA) on my post. That said, I should probably stay clear of Redwood Shores anytime soon. However there was one interesting comment from Brent Ozar (b|t) While Postgres is […]
Stupid Interview Questions—Trying to Find the Right Employees
I was driving into the office this morning, and as I do whenever I’m in the car, I was alternating between NPR and Mike and Mike on ESPN Radio (professional sports are an interest of mine). Anyway, Mike and Mike were discussing a recent story about the Cleveland Brown’s asking their potential draft picks questions […]
T-SQL Tuesday—Bad Bets
“The year was 94, in my trunk is raw, and in the rear view mirror was the mother $%^in’ law. Got two choices y’all pull over the car or bounce on the devil, put the pedal to the floor” – Jay Z 99 Problems Ok, so the situation I’m going to be talking about isn’t […]
Backing Up Your SQL Server Database to Windows Azure Blob Storage
So recently, I was speaking at my first SQL Saturday of 2014 in Nashville (great job by Tammy Clark (b|t) and her team to put on a great event!) and due to a weird confluence of circumstances, I couldn’t get to my laptop (it involves my car being in the shop, an emergency performance tuning […]
Sales Reps–Please Don’t BS Me, Alright?
Today is my morning of big data storage events, I’m attending two from two different vendors in about four hours. One down so far, and it was pretty good, until… I’ve bashed sales reps before (on twitter and on this blog), I’ve even offered lists of things not to do. Well today’s presentation was on […]
Vendors, Again—8 Things To Do When Delivering a Technical Sales Presentation
In the last two days, I’ve sat through some of the most horrific sales presentations I’ve ever done—this was worse than the time share in Florida. If you happen to be a vendor and reading (especially if you are database vendor—don’t worry it wasn’t you), I hope this helps you craft better sales messages. In […]
Vendors and Clients, or How not to sell to me
Vendors, Customers, Community I love vendors—I’m heavily involved with the SQL Server Community and the support of Microsoft and the many other vendors in our space makes our community possible. I recommend their software to friends; I know most of their evangelists. I’m not always the best customer, I’ll admit. I have done evaluations of […]
What PASS Has Meant to Me and My Career
On the eve of leaving for my first PASS Summit, I wanted to talk a little bit about what the SQL Server community has meant to me and my career. In my older roles at Wyeth, I was largely an Oracle DBA, but I had always dabbled in SQL Server since the beginning of my […]
Time for Change
As some of you may have seen on my LinkedIn profile, I recently made a job change. This as always was a hard decision, as I really liked the folks I was working with at my old company and getting to work in Europe (Switzerland) was a great career experience. Here’s a little bit of […]