January 2008 - Posts
Ken Henderson passed away this past week. I found out about it from the MVP forums as well as from Manageability team.
The whole community remembers Ken and we are hoping to hear from his family soon and see if we can hep in any way. Flowers have been sent on behalf of the community.
Ken was truly an inspirationa and remarkable individual in our community. I have heard him speak and been amazed by his knowledge and understanding of SQL Server. His books likewise have taught me a lot over the years.
He will be missed.
I try to be pretty careful about what I write about, and now being an MVP and actually getting information sent to me, on the record, but under NDA, I'm especially careful. It's cramping my style slightly, though more I have to think about whether or now I can actually release something.
I read Mark Cuban's blog, and he had this interesting post about journalism ethics after a reported interviewed him for a magazine, but then used the interview material on his blog as well. After the first post, I wasn't really thinking there was anything wrong with the material being used twice, in print and on a blog. I know there are lots of people that would have blanket clearance to use things on their blogs from work. I know I've always sought permission for the things I've written about here from my employers.
However with part 2, apparently the journalist said he wasn't using this on his blog. So that's unethical from a moral standpoint.
I can also appreciate that Cuban seems like s fun guy, and someone that would pick on you if he had the chance, so if you couldn't take that, you probably shouldn't interview him. I know I'd like to talk with him, even during a Mav's game.
Maybe I should ping him :)
It's Martin Luther King, Jr. day here in the US where we remember the famous civil rights leader. So my kids are home from school, which always makes for an interesting workday. Since I need to get a few podcasts and editorials polished, shot, and edited, this might be a long day for me.
It seems like it's a slow day here on the site, until we checked the system and realized that the newsletter didn't go out. I've rarely done this, but apparently I missed checking the "Approved" box on the newsletter.
Seems like a good place to set up an alert to check and see if it's been approved and if it's sending. Not that I want midnight pages, but with a rushed day yesterday to try and get the newsletter out, I must have missed checking the box.
Michael Coles had an interesting post about a job interview a friend went on. The person answered questions correctly, but the interviewer told him he (or she) was wrong.
It's a good situation to think about and it's probably one I'll editorialize about at some point. And it's something that's happened to me in the past.
I've had this happen in a few places. Once I was being grilled by a panel of 3 DBAs at a company that was looking to add another. It was a Internet-age company, but one that was fairly large and well-known. If I told you the name, you'd know it, but I don't want to point fingers. In any case, they took turns asking questions they'd written down and one even had a book with him, not sure which one, and they asked me all types of questions for an hour or more. There was a point where I answered something and they mentioned that I was wrong. I told him I didn't think so, explained in more detail what I thought and we decided to look it up.
I was right, not that I always am, but in this case I was and the guy took it well. At least he must have because I was offered the job.
In another case I had someone give me a test, tell me that I missed a couple items and I politely asked to know which ones. They person wasn't really thrilled with debating his test, but I had asked somewhat light-heartedly, so he did, we debated it and agreed to disagree.
I think it's ok to tell someone that you think they're wrong. You have to remember the interivew is a chance for you to interview them as much as they interview you. You should ask questions and even be willing to debate things with them. If they dismiss you, do you really want to work there? You might need the job, so I can completely understand someone holding their toungue about something like this, but I encourage you to stand up for something if you believe in it. Be polite, civil, but firm. It's an art, and practice arguing with someone you know, asking them if you're crossing the line and getting belligerent.
I'm sure there's things that I've told people or believed that are wrong. Maybe I've even asked someone in an interview. However the thing that I often find is that someone who thinks they are always right, or won't let you argue a point, is probably not someone you want to work with.
It's also very likely in a DBA interview that you know more than they do. It's rare that I find smart DBAs interiewing for the position. Often it's managers or developers that think they know more than they do.
My first MVP chat was today, a monthly hour long session where we have a Microsoft representative and we all call in to chat about whatever. I'm not completely sure what we're supposed to be doing as we went through a few bugs, things we hear about in the community, and more. I have to think about what was said and what might or might not be covered in NDA there.
It was interesting as we debated some topics. The people that are MVPs are, for the most part, very smart people that think about problems and what makes sense with regards to SQL Server. I enjoyed it more than I expected and look forward to them in the future.
I watch the Geekbrief update a few times a week, partially to see new gadgets and partially to see how they do the filmmaking. I haven't incorporated their stuff, but it's interesting to see how they do things. They're more Mac focused in some ways and so they went to MacWorld to cover the event and see Steve Jobs keynote. Their plan was to use CoverItLive, a live blogging tool for journalists and I was curious as I wouldn't mind giving it a try.
So I connected into the Geekbrief servers, they had a little control on there from CoverItLive that refreshed every minute or so. However at about 9:05PST, when the keynote was starting, I couldn't connect. It didn't refresh and timed out.
So I went to CoverItLive, thinking the Geekbrief servers might be dieing and saw this (see the JPG). How nice is that, we suck, we didn't plan well enough, we'll try next time, but oh yeah, buy our servce.
Might as well start laying people off now or get some more capital and really add capacity.
Over the last few weeks I've seen a few posts about the new Hot-Add CPU feature in SQL Server 2008. I think it's pretty cool and I've been wanting something like this for years. I managed a large IBM server at one point with AIX (manager managed, not technical managed) and we had the ability to move resources in and out of both AIX and DB2 without restarting the server. It was pretty cool and we had a hyervisor that handled all virtual machines to make this possible.
I've been wanting this on Windows, and SQL Server, for some time. I'd like to see memory management as well, but one question I had was whether or not there was "hot subtract" as well. If I move more CPU resources over, presumably using some hypervisor/virtual machine technology, can I then get them out of there if my load decreases?
No one's given me an answer, though maybe I'll learn something at the MVP Summit in April.
I finally got set up to access the MVP newsgroup server today while I was working on some other projects. There are tons of projects in a newsgroup/Usenet type format, mostly for every technology for which there is an MVP. I subscribed to the SQL Server one as well as a few of the general non-product specific ones.
A few people had recommended I get set up and told me not to be intimidated. After all, these are some of the smartest people working with SQL Server. Itzak Ben-Gan, Kalen, and more all post in there. I noticed a few of the other new MVPs introducing themselves and getting lots of congratulations, so I did the same. MVP #4 for me, the fourth person to do so this year. I checked again tonight and got a bunch from MVPs around the world, kind of neat for a Sunday. I also posted a question and got a couple answers, related to SQL Server.
As I flipped through the messages that were out there, I noticed a few things. First the messages are fairly complex, with no easy questions or simple fixes given. Mostly these are hard, complex issues, often bugs, that the people that are really good at working with SQL Server can't figure out. The other thing is that there's a low noise level. People are friendly, polite, even joking with each other, but they're really looking to help others. I was especially interested in the MVP author group. Some interesting questions in there.
I'm not sure how much I'll contribute back to the groups, but I do look forward to a few debates and meeting fellow MVPs in April.
I awoke this morning, rather later than usual after a small get together with some friends, and came down to check email and make sure the site was still working. Sitting down with coffee and breakfast and checking email is a regular event with me, probably close to 350 or so days a year. The volume of email was light, as expected, but there was one surprise.
I got an award letter from Microsoft, notifying me that I'd been awarded MVP status for 2008! How cool is that?!!!?!
I've been a little skeptical of the MVP program for some time. Especially because I've never been picked and many people, including myself, think I'm one of the biggest advocates for SQL Server out there. However I've never been too concerned about it since I'm not a consultant of any sort and it wouldn't necessarily benefit me too much. But it's always surprised me and many people I meet that I've never been selected. It's kind of made me question their criteria, which isn't spelled out too well, but I didn't want to be accused of any "sour grapes" for not being selected.
I'm not sure what it means for me. I guess I get an MSDN subscription, which will carry me past May when my TechNet runs out. I also get to go to the MVP Conference in April, which is pretty cool. It will be exciting to see what's in the pipeline, though I'm not sure to what extent I can actually disclose stuff.
It should help with me getting more timely and informative articles ready. At least now I should have a little notice before things happen and can at least get editorials or articles written and edited for release rather than the last minute scramble that I sometimes have to deal with now.
It's definitely an honor to be selected. Even with the program being a little hazy on the requirements, it's nice that they've recognized me as a SQL Server professional. Guess my New Year's Resolution to work more with the community really needs to be kept :)