SQL Feather and Quill

Support me and Team #SQLPlunge for the Special Olympics

Andy Lohn — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:00:00 +0000

On March 3, 2012 I will be jumping into a hole in the ice in Lake Calhoun to raise money for the Special Olympics. One item on my bucket list will be crossed off – I don’t think I want to get good at this, but I do want to try it.

The big reason we are doing this is to raise money for the Special Olympics, this has always been one of my favorite charities. I love sports and competing in anything – this organization gives people with disabilities the opportunity to experience the thrill of competition and the fun of learning a skill and working on a craft.

This is where you come in. I need your help raising money. If you wish to donate to the cause, you can do so here.

Here are the facts about the event:

Who - Tracy McKibben* (B/T), Jason Strate (B/T), Afroza Ahmed and I make up Team #SQL Plunge

Here is Team #SQLPlunge’s page

*denotes team captain

What – Jumping in a hole in the ice.

Why – I’m still not sure, Tracy tweeted something about not knowing if he should do it this year, I responded that with these temperatures, this would be an easy year to do it. The next thing I know…

Where – Lake Calhoun, Minneapolis

When – March 3rd, 2012

Here is more info on the Minneapolis Polar Plunge.

Other Info – My alma matter participated in an event this year – Gusties Support Special Olympics Minnesota

This is just cool – not what we are doing, but just too cool not to share.

Updated – February 2012 PASSMN Meeting – Geographic Visualizations Using Maps in SSRS

Andy Lohn — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 04:32:35 +0000

Sponsor

Meeting Details

Location: 3601 West 76th Street, Suite 600 Edina, MN 55437
Date: February 21, 2012
Time: 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM – Later Time than normal
Live Meeting:
- URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups/join?id=R9352R&role=attend&pw=QqGKDQ7%5Bp
- Meeting ID: R9352R
- Entry Code: QqGKDQ7[p

Please click here for meeting details and to RSVP

Geographic Visualizations Using Maps in SSRS

Brian Larson, Superior Consulting Services

This session will explore the many and varied uses of the map report item in Reporting Services. From providing geographic analytics to diagramming locations on a warehouse floorplan, the map report item – when combined with SQL Server spatial data types – can be used in a variety of ways to create spatial representations of your data. We may even look at a game or two created using the map report item.

Brian Larson, as a contract member of the Reporting Services development team, contributed to the original code base. Brian is the Vice President of Technology for Superior Consulting Services. Brian has presented at national conferences and events and is the author of “Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services: 3rd Edition” and “Delivering Business Intelligence with SQL Server 2008: 2nd Edition” both from McGraw-Hill Professional.

SQLQuill – Link Round Up – February 2012 Edition

Andy Lohn — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:55:00 +0000

Here’s the links I’ve tweeted in the last month – hope it is useful/entertaining/etc. (I’ve been using buffer, ifttt and instapaper.com to manage my lists). Here’s last month’s version. Without further ado – here’s the list:

SQL

Time Management/Productivity

Tools/Tips

News

Entertainment

Humor

Sports

Sports Humor

Running/Workouts

February 2012 PASSMN Meeting – SSRS to Address Business Cases

Andy Lohn — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Sponsor

Meeting Details

Location: 3601 West 76th Street, Suite 600 Edina, MN 55437
Date: February 21, 2012
Time: 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM – Later Time than normal
Live Meeting:
- URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups/join?id=R9352R&role=attend&pw=QqGKDQ7%5Bp
- Meeting ID: R9352R
- Entry Code: QqGKDQ7[p

Please click here for meeting details and to RSVP

SQL Server and SSRS to Address Business Cases

Srinivasan Prasanna, CSM – North America

Leveraging the power of SQL Server and SSRS to address our business case, CSM – North America implemented a WMS (Warehouse Management System) to address the following:

Compliant – We want to be compliant of the (Bio Terrorism Act of 2002) for food manufacturers and distributors.
Improve inventory accuracy
Improve productivity
Improve Customer satisfaction and increase our service levels.

By mining the data from SQL Server and with the use of SSRS we have streamlined our requirements and achieved some of these objectives and created reports to address the business needs. The use of SQL Server, SSRS have helped to achieve these in an efficient manner.

A script to create missing default bindings

Andy Lohn — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:47:28 +0000

Today five people showed up in my cube at 5:15 saying that the new development databases are missing defaults. I did some checking and the default objects were there, the columns with default constraints were there, but the columns with bindings to the default objects were missing the bindings. I created a script to run on the source database. The output of this script will be a script to run on the destination database to get things in sync.

Hopefully you won’t need it, with new tools like VS2010 and Redgate’s SQL Compare, but here it is if you do:

Select
     'EXECUTE sp_bindefault ''dbo.' + SO.Name + ''', N''dbo.' + OBJECT_NAME(SC.object_id) + '.' + SC.name + ''''
from sys.columns SC
Join sys.objects SO on SO.object_id = SC.default_object_id and type = 'D' and parent_object_id = 0
Order by SO.Name

Link Round Up – January 2012 Edition

Andy Lohn — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:35:00 +0000

Here’s the links I’ve tweeted in the last month – hope it is useful/entertaining/etc. (I’ve been trying out ifttt and sending all my tweeted links to instapaper.com, then exporting exporting it from there)

SQL

Tools

News

Entertainment

Humor

Sports

Running/Workouts

January PASSMN Meeting – Writing Better Queries

Andy Lohn — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 22:05:48 +0000

Meeting Details

Location: 3601 West 76th Street, Suite 600 Edina, MN 55437
Date: January 17, 2011
Time: 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Live Meeting:
- URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups/join?id=6H3FKN&role=attend&pw=GZSh6-4HH
- Meeting ID: 6H3FKN
- Entry Code: GZSh6-4HH

Please click here for meeting details and to RSVP

Writing Better Queries

Joe Webb (B/T), WebbTech Solutions

Transact-SQL is not a very difficult language to learn. As long as the syntax is correct, it can be quite forgiving. However to truly get the best performance from your SQL Server, careful consideration should be given to the structure and logic of the queries. In this session, we’ll discuss some Transact-SQL tips and tricks that can be employed to help you write better queries, allowing your server to perform better.

Since its inception, Joe Webb has served as Chief Operating Manager for WebbTech Solutions, a Nashville-based consulting company. He has over 15 years of industry experience and has consulted extensively with companies in the areas of business process analysis and improvements, database design and architecture, software development, and technical training.

In addition to helping his consulting clients, Joe enjoys writing and speaking at technical conferences. He has spoken at conferences in Europe and the North America and has authored or co-authored four books including “SQL Server MVP Deep Dives, Volume 2”, “SQL Server MVP Deep Dives”, “The Rational Guide To: SQL Server Notification Services”, and “The Rational Guide To: IT Consulting”.

Joe is an eight-time recipient of the prestigious Microsoft MVP Award for demonstrating a willingness to share his expertise with the SQL Server Community.

Meeting! Vote! Vote! Vote! and Results!

Andy Lohn — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:30:00 +0000

Reminder December PASSMN Meeting

SQL Server 2012 Feature Panel Discussion

December 20th, 3:00 – 5:00 PM

3601 West 76th Street, Suite 600 Edina, MN 55437

All the info is located here:

http://minnesota.sqlpass.org/Meetings/ModuleID/3728/ItemID/144/mctl/EventDetails.aspx

Vote for the DBA in Space!

I can’t include this on other sites, but here I can! Please vote for a co-worker/friend/all around good guy to as the DBA in Space – Mark Johnson is one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. He’s a hard working, smart guy who has his values in the right order.

Red Gate Software has teamed up with Space Adventures to offer one lucky DBA a ticket into space. There are 15 finalists and the lucky DBA is decided by vote, so vote on the DBA you think should go to space. Polls are open through Tuesday, December 13th.

All the info is located here:

http://www.dbainspace.com

2011 PASS Board of Directors elections – Vote!

The future of PASS is in your hands. Voting and candidate campaigning for the 2011 PASS Board of Directors elections are now open and runs through Dec. 20. It only takes a few clicks, so please vote.

All the info is located here:

http://elections2011.sqlpass.org/

SQL Server 2012 Special Ops Tour (kind of a vote)

CALLING ALL SQL Server PROFESSIONALS:

SQL Server 2012 is the most important release ever of SQL Server with its’ mission critical, breakthrough insight and cloud on your terms features. Do your part to bring the SQL Server 2012 roadshows to your city and get on stage with Microsoft! This March, Microsoft is teaming with PASS to bring you the SQL Server 2012 Special Ops Tour – a cross-country roadshow that will take us to 12 cities across America. This is your tour, and we want to highlight you –the SQL Server operative, your company, and the great work you are doing through opportunities to be featured on our media channels, stage time at roadshow events, and exclusive networking session.

Take our survey at www.specialopstour.com today, and help shape our course of action. Familiarize yourself with CTP3 to prep for the Solutions Contest and check back in December for details and how to submit!

ACTION REQUIRED:

- Visit the preview site (www.specialopstour.com) and cast your votes for your city

- Download and get to know CTP3 in preparation for upcoming solutions contest

- Check back for details on how to be featured!

Coming in December: Special Ops Contest

In the coming weeks, you’ll have the opportunity to enter a high-profile contest where we’ll identify 12 SQL Professionals with the best IT solutions on SQL Server 2012. So get ready to share your killer SQL Server 2012 skills.

PASSMN board members for 2012 Results:

Chair – Steve Hughes (B/T)

Director of Program Development – Tim Plas

Director of Membership/Treasurer – Joshuha Owen (T)

Director of Corporate Development – Bill Preachuk (T)

Director of Technology – Andy Lohn – Me!

Director of SQL Saturday – Paul Timmerman (T)

Microsoft Liaison - Ajay Nangia

Powershell Script for SQLSaturdays and Twitter

Andy Lohn — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:30:00 +0000

SQL Saturdays and Twitter go together like peas and carrots. I’ve found the networking page of any SQL Saturday site is very valuable to not only get in contact with people about the event, but also to stay in contact and build long term relationships. Helping plan, organize and speak at SQLSaturday #99, I didn’t want to loose the conncections I had made, so I decided to check out all the twitter accounts of the people who had registered for for it.

What’s the easiest way to do this? POWERSHELL!!!

I stumbled a few times (one time I opened 83 tabs in Chrome and had to stop using twitter for an hour), but here is the script I came up with.

Notes on the script:

This script will open a chrome tab for each twitter account from any (at least all I’ve tested so far) SQL Saturday Networking page.
If Chome isn’t running, the script will open it for you, but it may open multiple instances of it.
You can change the $url for a different SQL Saturday Networking Page
You can set the number of tabs to open at a time – note it’s 0 relative, so 4 is actually 5
This script creates 4 txt files in the “c:\temp” directory, but it doesn’t check for it’s existence.
This script stores a count locally, so you will need to run it multiple times to get all the twitter users
- i.e. if there are 83 users, the script is set to open 5 tabs, you will need to run this 17 times.
To restart or to change the SQLSaturday URL delete the file SQLSatCounter.txt file
Powershell Programming Examples:
- Only get first few lines of array http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee692806.aspx
- Open chrome tabs…http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5668696/how-can-i-open-a-list-of-urls-on-windows
- Add text to every line…http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4952535/add-text-to-every-line-in-text-file-using-powershell
- Remove empty lines from a file …http://secretgeek.net/gc_blank.asp

#--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#Open a tab in Chrome for each twitter account on a SQLSaturday Networking Page
#Created by Andy Lohn - http://www.sqlfeatherandquill.com/
#--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

$url = "http://www.sqlsaturday.com/99/networking.aspx" #Change this for any SQLSaturday Networking Page
[int]$StartCount = 0
[int]$PageCount = 4 #note this is 0 relative, so this plus 1 for number of tabs to be opened

$chrome = (gi ~\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe ).FullName
#This didn’t work on one of my machines, so I just set it to the full path of chrome and it worked.
$webclient = New-Object system.net.webclient
$file1="c:\temp\SQLSatDownload.txt"
$file2="c:\temp\SQLSatList.txt"
$file3="c:\temp\SQLSatListwithAddress.txt"
$TURL = "www.twitter.com/"
$file4="c:\temp\SQLSatCounter.txt"

#Create the files if they don't exist
If (!(Test-Path $file1) )
{New-Item $file1 -Type file}
If (!(Test-Path $file2) )
{New-Item $file2 -Type file}
If (!(Test-Path $file3) )
{New-Item $file3 -Type file}

#Set the counter to keep track for multiple runs - 0 if new
If (Test-Path $file4)
{$SCWork = (get-content $file4)
[int]$StartCount = $SCWork.ToString()}
Else
{New-Item $file4 -Type file
add-content $file4 1
[int]$StartCount = 0}

If ($StartCount -eq 0)  #Populate the local file.
{Clear-Content $file1
$webclient.DownloadFile($url,$file1)

$test = get-content $file1
Clear-Content $file2
Clear-Content $file3
$Tester = $test | Select-String -pattern "http://www.twitter.com/" |
% {$_ -replace "http://www.twitter.com/", ""} |
% {$_ -replace """ class=""noarrrow"">.*", ""} |
% {$_ -replace "http://twitter.com/#!/", ""} |
% {$_ -replace "                    ", ""} |
where {$_ -ne ""}

foreach ($T in $Tester)
{Add-content $file3 ($TURL + $T)}
}
$TestMethod = (Get-Content $file3)[$StartCount .. ($StartCount + $PageCount)]     $TestMethod | % { & $chrome $_ }
Clear-Content $file4
Add-Content $file4 ($StartCount + $PageCount + 1)

#To restart or change url, run this:
#remove-item $file4

This has to be real easy to change for linkedin – I’m more a twitter guy at this point. If you do alter it, to work for linkedin, let me know!

December PASSMN Meeting – SQL Server 2012 Panel Discussion

Andy Lohn — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 21:46:17 +0000

Date: December 20th, 2011

Time: 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM

Location: 3601 West 76th Street, Suite 600 Edina, MN 55437 – Note new location!

Live Meeting:

URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups/join?id=TS4JWB&role=attend&pw=P%7CT%5C%5Bz3%3Ef
Meeting ID: TS4JWB
Entry Code: P|T\[z3>f

Agenda:

3:00-3:15 : Registration / hospitality / networking
3:15-3:30 : Announcements etc.
3:30-4:45 : SQL Server 2012 Feature Panel Discussion
4:45-5:00 : Closing comments/prize giveaways

Panel Discussion:

SQL Server 2012 Feature Panel Discussion

Steve Hughes, Magenic Technologies (B\T)

Steve Hughes is Principal Consultant at Magenic Technologies. His area of expertise is in data and business intelligence architecture on the Microsoft SQL Server platform. He was also the data architect for a SaaS company which delivered a transportation management solution for fleets across the United States. Steve has co-authored two books and regularly presents on SQL Server and data architecture.

Ajay Nangia, Microsoft

Ajay Nangia is a Data Platform Technology Specialist at Microsoft. In this role, Ajay enables customers and partners to develop, deploy, and support solutions based on Microsoft’s Database Technologies. Ajay has a long history of working with SQL Server – from its internals to application and BI development on the platform.

Others

We are currently looking to add a couple of more panel members – for updates, check PASSMN’s twitter feed at http://twitter.com/passmn