Tech News

Mike Walsh invited us on March 1st 2010 to write about I/O. This abbreviation stands for Input / Output, and is often used as shorthand for persisted storage. Given the breadth of the topic I decided to write about RAID levels, but I must state outright that RAID is not a backup. A Redundant Array-> Continue reading T-SQL Tuesday Retrospective #004: I/O The post T-SQL Tuesday Retrospective #004: I/O appeared first on Born SQL. The post T-SQL Tuesday Retrospective #004: I/O appeared first on SQLServerCentral.

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. Today’s tip is to change your normal routine today and notice how you feel. It’s PASS Virtual Summit week, and I have some commitments for the talks I’m doing. However, my talk today is in the afternoon, so I have some time this am. I’m going to change things up and go for a morning walk and get some exercise, then come in an work later into the evening. We’ll see if I like the chance. I typically prefer to work early and stop, but I’ll try something new today. The post Daily Coping 11 Nov 2020 appeared first on SQLServerCentral.

Tuesday notes! Today I’m in Execution Plans in Depth by Hugo Kornelis. Notes: Today the presenter is using the Cadmium/EventScribe platform instead of GotoWebinar Started off with a lot of people not being able to hear the presenter, that was fixed quickly Being able to see questions and comments is nice. Not much traffic there outside of audio and one other item The other item was a password protected download hosted outside the meeting software. It needed 7zip to make it all work and that wasn’t obvious, so that was the 2nd batch of questions. Definitely would be nice to have that all ‘in the environment’ for things like this and maybe also get that up on the screen before things start. Hugo is on webcam overlaid on the deck and he’s been having to shift the position from bottom right to bottom left because it obscures some of his graphics (fair to note that he realizes this) – speakers, block off some real estate if you’re going to do it this way. He also mentioned struggling a bit with the mirror image problem, he’s pointing the opposite way we expect sometimes There is a pause button (I don’t think Goto has that?) which is really nice. I had to get up to answer the door, hit pause, came back and resumed and caught up going into the lunch break. Class is longer chunks today and that’s a struggle for me, I’m so used to 50-60 minutes. I’m watching at my desk at home and because I use a 43? 4k monitor I can also watch from a more comfortable chair to mix it up It’s also nice to be able to get fresh coffee and healthy snacks compared to hoping you can find either during breaks Couple more notes from Monday: Itzik was great about putting up the countdown timer every time we want on break, I’d like to see everyone do that I did the pre-con eval last night as soon as class was done. There’s a daily raffle out of people that do the eval if you need motivation, but speakers really appreciate feedback and it’s worth trying even if you can’t state it perfectly Related to both pre-cons, the recordings are going to be available for 72 hours. I can appreciate that’s important to speakers to protect their investment in building a day long class, but given the classes are right before the Summit I suspect few will have time or energy to go back to re-watch parts of it vs trying be to engaged in the Summit (though logically, that’s backwards given the Summit content will be online for longer than 72 hours!). The Welcome Reception is at 8 pm and then some “networking bubbles” at 8:35. I’m going to try to be on for both of those, but I’m far less enthused than I would be if this was all in person. Continuing to explore the Summit site, I see there are Microsoft focus groups but they are after the Summit. Maybe that’s good, doesn’t take time away from learning? If you go to “Who’s Attending” there is an A-Z list of those who allowed their name to be published, but the search bar up top seems to be faster. That said, the “attending” page has a button for “Show Only My Chats” and that’s the only place I could find messages I sent or received to people that allow chats. I’m hoping there are notifications I just haven’t found yet, because that is not obvious. [Found them on the mobile app!] The post Notes on the 2020 PASS Virtual Summit – Part 3 appeared first on SQLServerCentral.

The election for the next PASS Board of Directors starts today, with a slate of 7 for three spots. I asked them for their vision last week, I’ve read the few statements published, and I attended the AMA on Twitter yesterday (Tuesday).  I wanted to see what the candidates had to say and then decide. Tl;dr Here are my endorsements, reasoning to follow. Steph Locke Joey D’Antoni Hamish Watson I wrote the rest of this first, thinking through things and then provided my result above. Things that Matter There are some things that matter to me, and I’m voting for someone that represents me. So, these are the important items I look at. Communication I am big on communication and transparency. We’ve often had to write and disclose plans ro how we are changing SQLServerCentral over the years. I need to provide justification, even if it’s hard or I get criticism. I also believe that explaining yourself doesn’t mean people agree, but they can understand your rationale. I see too little of that from the PASS org. The communications are also careful and couched to avoid commitments, limitations, or disclosure in advance. Not enough debate and discussion in the public sphere for things that aren’t secret/financial/HR related. I have had discussions with Steph Locke, and I’ve seen her publish, blog, and debate specifics for events and business. I have seen that from Joey this year as well, with his posts on PASS. Like them or not, agree or not, I think this sort of public thought is important. In the last year, I counted up blog posts on the PASS blog from others. I found Lori – 5 Hamish – 1 Roberto – 1 Jose’s site is down, but I didn’t see a statement or other item. So, for that, Lori leads for communication. Diversity I want diversity in a board, to present different views and help push others to make informed and thoughtful decisions. The current BoD is: 4 women, 8 men 6 US, 3 non-US 4/11 non white There is an open seat, but this is a fairly diverse group. However, I think more minorities help with different thoughts. I also think more variety of business experience matter, as well as different culture/geographies. With that in mind, I like Lori as a women with a different perspective. I like Steph, Joey, Roberto, and Hamish as independent business owners. I like Roberto, Jose, and Hamish as non-US citizens. Quite a toss up here for me. I lean towards non US people here. PASS needs to grow outside the US. Or, I think it should. Need is probably the wrong word. Business Acumen Pass is a not-for-profit business. Not a non-profit, but their aim isn’t money, or at least, not a lot. Here’s a definition I found Not-for-profit organizations are types of organizations that do not earn profits for its owners. All of the money earned by or donated to a not-for-profit organization is used in pursuing the organization’s objectives and keeping it running. (emphasis mine) I did see a definition that not-for-profits are run by volunteers, which would mean that PASS can’t hire someone. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that PASS tends to make money to keep PASS and the Summit going. Not a lot else. Some other things, but really, it’s a bit of a treadmill. Is that the best use of money? Should 360Sales cost $400k to make $460 (round-ish numbers)? I don’t know, but I want more business savvy people, not corp employees thinking about this. There is a difference. I’ve worked for a lot of people and owned a business. You view things differently and it’s not an easy skill to acquire. Steph is my top person here, though I also think Roberto, Hamish, and Joey are people I consider. Conclusion At the end, as I work through this, Steph and Joey check a lot of boxes for me. They were easy choices. The last one is harder. Hamish is on the board, and has diversity of thought and business experience. However, I haven’t seen a lot from him this past year. Same for Roberto. I don’t know Jose, and honestly, am not sure Matt brings something different from Joey. I like Lori, and I appreciate her comms. I also think a diversity of gender brings different thoughts. In the end, Hamish has only had a partial term, and when I doubt, I tend to be a “vote them out” person. The diversity and passion he brings are outstanding. The communication and engagement less so, but he gets my vote and endorsement. I’m also going to be a thorn in his paw during the next year to engage more with the wider community. The post PASS 2020 Board of Director Endorsements appeared first on SQLServerCentral.

Ann Ho Senior Product Manager, Tableau Tanna Solberg November 10, 2020 - 4:58pm November 10, 2020 Take a look at what you have in your music library. You’ve got songs from different albums, artists, and even genres. You probably have music for different moods, activities, or times of day. Just like with songs, the data you use isn’t always contained in the same project on your Tableau site. And you might have trouble remembering where to find the assets you don’t use regularly. With our new collections feature, you can gather the data from across your site and organize them to fit how you use them—just like playlists!  If you’re a Tableau Online customer interested in getting an early look at collections, you can sign up to join our Tableau 2020.4 Collections Limited Preview Program. We’ll reach out to enable collections for your site so your users can try it out. Organize your data the way you think about your data Many customers model their Tableau sites and projects after their organizational structures: by departments, regions, or a nested hierarchy of both. But when it comes to using data, most people collaborate with other teams and departments. Often, this means navigating in and out of different projects to get to the right data and content.  Collections introduce the ability to curate content from across various projects—helping users navigate and find the content they need in the context of how they need to use it. You can promote specific content to help new users find relevant data, align content to workflow processes for easier reviewing or archiving, and even use collections in meetings and quarterly reviews to ensure everyone is referencing the same dashboards.  Collections function as lists—you aren’t making copies of your assets, moving them in or out of their project folders, or changing any security permissions. You can keep a collection private just for you, or make it public so others can search for and use it, too. And the same content can be added to different collections, helping keep data conversations centered around a single source of truth. Getting started with collections Once collections are enabled for your Tableau Online site, you’ll see a new option in the left navigation for collections. Here, you’ll find all the collections you have access to—the ones you own and the ones in your site that have been made public. You can also see the collections you own on a tab in My Content. As long as you’re a licensed user on a site, you can create a collection! Click the New Collection button at the top of the collections page to create your collection and edit the default name. As you browse through projects, add content to your collection right from the item’s action menu. Or, select multiple assets and use the multi-select action menu to add them all to a collection. You can add many kinds of data assets from your site to a collection, including workbooks, Prep flows, and even data roles. Currently, you can’t add a collection to another collection, or add custom views, databases, and tables. Sharing collections Just like playlists, you can share collections and help others find the data you’ve curated for specific projects, meetings, or tasks. By default, collections are made private so that only you (and administrators) can see them. To share a collection, you’ll need to change its permissions to public—this allows anyone on the site to browse and find it. You can also choose to send a note to let your colleagues know about the collection. When you use the Share button to send a link to your collection, the recipients will get an email. Plus, the collection will appear in their Shared with Me channel on the Home page in Tableau Online to make it easy for them to find again. Even though the collection is public, the security permissions for each of the items within it won’t change—people will only see the data they have access to. Try collections for yourself—join our limited preview! We’re excited to release this new feature to all of our customers, but first we’d love to hear from you! If you’re a Tableau Online customer and are interested in getting an early look at collections, you can learn more about how to use collections and sign up to join our Tableau 2020.4 Collections Limited Preview Program. We’ll reach out to enable collections for your site so your users can try it out. Your feedback is important to us to better understand how you engage with data so we can build experiences that serve your needs—so thank you! We can’t wait to see all the great ways you’ll use this new feature.

Is your SQL environment prepared for a disaster? There are big and small disasters and depending on your perspective big and small can mean different things. Preparing your environment for these special events by exporting SQL Server Configurations for DR purposes is essential. I am not going to talk about your backup/recovery, HA, RPO, or RTO strategy. My plan is to show you how to protect yourself from the smaller gremlins that might bite your backside when no one is looking. Have you ever deleted a login by mistake from a hastily typed TSQL script or dropped a list of logins because the “Business” said they are not used anymore? Have you ever made a change to a SQL Server Agent job and then it failed on the next execution. What about that time you changed the Database Mail profile on all of your servers and left your personal account in the script instead of the DBA distribution list. While each of these examples is not life-threatening, they will strike fear in you depending on how prepared you are to recover the items in question. Enter the Export-DbaInstance function from dbatools. This function will export key configuration items from your SQL Server to individual script files. List of Configurations Exported All database restore scripts All logins All database mail objects All credentials All objects within the Job Server (SQL Agent) All linked servers All groups and servers within Central Management Server All SQL Server configuration objects (everything in sp_configure) All user objects in system databases All system triggers All system backup devices All Audits All Endpoints All Extended Events All Policy Management objects All Resource Governor objects All Server Audit Specifications All Custom Errors (User Defined Messages) All Server Roles All Availability Groups Wouldn’t you sleep much better at night knowing that every day you were saving this information in case of a Disaster, big or small? Let us take a quick look at how the function works. Export-DbaInstance -SqlInstance "localhostsql2017" -Path "C:DR" As you can see after I run the command I get a nice tidy directory of scripts. This is from a default run with no special parameters. It will go through each category listed above and if there are configurated values will generate a script file.  There is also an -exclude parameter that can be used if you want to omit a configuration from being scripted. Here is an example of the TSQL Script that is created. You can take this script and run it on the server it was generated from or another server where you want to deploy the same configuration. A header is added that shows you when the script was generated and from what server. Then you have all the TSQL you need to get DBMail working again. I hope this sparks some ideas on how you can use the Export-DbaInstance function to save your bacon in the future!!! Related Info Check out the help for Export-DbaInstance The post Export SQL Server Configurations for DR purposes appeared first on GarryBargsley.com. The post Export SQL Server Configurations for DR purposes appeared first on SQLServerCentral.

T-SQL Tuesday is a monthly blog party in the SQL Community and this month is hosted by Taiob Ali (b | t) and it’s about a topic I could write a lot about because I’ve had to do a lot to be able to cope with the pandemic on three realms mentioned: mental health, physical health, and professional growth.  Given that this darn pandemic doesn’t seem be ending anytime soon this is an excellent topic to tackle to everyone can learn and glean from others and put things into practice that may help them. Mental Health As many in the community know I suffer from mental health issues, I was diagnosed with bipolar II, PTSD, and generalized anxiety disorder a long time ago, over 15 years ago.  Just last December I started presenting on how mental health issues are prevalent in IT in general due to stress, burnout, harassment, and bullying in our work environments.  Shameless plus you can catch the newest form of this session at Summit on Thursday at 10:30 AM EST (unless they change the schedule).  It also has a recorded version on my presentation page that is older.  I recommended attending one virtually so you can ask questions and initiate discussion.  It’s when we discuss these mental health openingly that others benefit and take the stigma behind it and make disappear and make as common to take about as diabetes or cancer. Some things I’ve done to help my mental health (not that it’s been the greatest during the pandemic) is first remember this too shall pass.  You can back and read a blog post where I was all over the place worrying about everything in the world.  Yes, one day this darn pandemic will gone and the world will return to normal (I hate the term the new norm and refuse to accept it).  I’ve also developed closer relationships with several people in the SQL Community that I can talk to when I’m struggling so they can keep me grounded and they can in turn tell me when they are struggling (hopefully, it’s been a good two way street).  Also, I think presenting my mental health session has help remind me of all the things I can do to help myself and the fact that others have said it has help them (except the one rude person in Austin) has given me boost to know that other people are struggling and I’m not alone.  I’ve learned to put my fears about the future in perspective.  I’ve been through a lot in life and came out on the other side, this is just one more thing to go through and persevere (one of my core values).  I’ve also continue to do my volunteer work with foster kids, the mental health council, and the SQL Community which goes with my other core value of making a difference. Due to having existing mental health issues I’ve also had to get adjustment in medications and lean on my therapist for sanity because besides the pandemic, personal issues are never lacking in my life. I truly encourage to catch my session as it will explain better all the things I incorporate to help with my mental health and other things you may be able to do to help yourself.  If you are attending Summit find me if you don’t attend the session and feel free to just talk, I’m open via DMs on Twitter as well. Physical Health My physical health hasn’t neither improved or gotten worse.  Which is good in away.  I’ve gotten lazier (which is worse), I was already working from home before the pandemic, but now I just don’t care about my routines to take care of myself or about what I eat.  So I’ve recently started seeing a nutritionist to start getting back on track with healthy eating habits.  I’ve started trying to get 10,000 steps in a day, with just taking a break every hour from a my computer and traversing the hallways and stairwells in 4 story apartment building and maybe a 30 minute walk outside.  By January, I want to start a program to get ready to run a 5K, only if I can consistently get into walking outdoors 4x a week.  Then build back up to a half marathon and back to my original goal of a full marathon for a 45 birthday which may get pushed out due to the pandemic but getting my nutrition back to where it needs to be will help with all these goals. Professional Growth I’m really a nerd when it comes to goals.  I update a Life Plan** each year, set 10 goals for the year, and use a Full Focus Planner each quarter to help me reach my goals.  But the quarter the pandemic hit man the goals just wanted to run and hide and some just could not be completed.  So after a few weeks of being like this year is going to suck and be a waste of time, I regrouped and decided on new goals for the ones I could not complete.  First up was to write a new tech presentation, which I’ll do another one over Christmas week (yes I know not the way most people would spend a Christmas week off from work).  Next up is what did I want to learn for the year, well I needed Kusto for work, so Pluralsight to the rescue, and setting aside an hour a week to learn it which is still something I need to finish.  I’ve also added getting Azure certified and learning containers better.  So I developed a learning plan for those that I’m slowly going through so I don’t overwhelm myself.  But I do have other areas of my life I’m trying to develop as part of this time where I’m spending more time at home. Summary In summary, stick to your core values*.  Mine are to persevere and to make a difference and hopefully and I can look back at this year and see that I have done that like other years. *I used Brene Brown’s book Dare to Lead to identify my core values. **Living Forward is the book I used to make my Life Plan.  I even got Andy Leonard a few other people in the community to check it out. The post T-SQL Tuesday #132: How Are You Coping with Pandemic? first appeared on Tracy Boggiano's SQL Server Blog. The post T-SQL Tuesday #132: How Are You Coping with Pandemic? appeared first on SQLServerCentral.

When it comes to Microsoft products, the rule of three — at least as far as I’m concerned — is where you can accomplish the same task in three different ways. The go-to example is Microsoft Word, where you can use the ribbon toolbar, a keyboard shortcut, or the context menu to perform the same-> Continue reading The rule of three, SQL Server on Linux edition The post The rule of three, SQL Server on Linux edition appeared first on Born SQL. The post The rule of three, SQL Server on Linux edition appeared first on SQLServerCentral.

Taiob Ali (blog|twitter) is our host for TSQL Tuesday this month and he’d like us to talk about how our year has gone. Specifically what challenges have we had, and maybe overcome with the year (hopefully just the one) of the pandemic. I’ll be honest it hasn’t been that difficult for me. I know that’s an unpopular position. We are all having a rough time and it’s been a terrible year all around for so many reasons. But I’ll be honest, I’ve been ok. And that’s with a few extra special treats 2020 had for me (not that everyone hasn’t had their own fair of special fun). Part of that is who I am. In a lot of ways I am the very definition of phlegmatic. Definition: (of a person) having an unemotional and stolidly calm disposition. I don’t worry often or strongly. I don’t get overly rattled. Honestly unless I’m feeling rushed (a weakness I’ll admit) I’m remarkably calm. I’m also an indoor person who doesn’t particularly like crowds. While I miss my friends at the various conventions I’m able to stay at home, in my house 99% of the time and be just fine. Part of it my situation. I have a good steady job that hasn’t been strongly affected until recently by the pandemic. I work with great people and I enjoy my work. My home life is stable. I have a loving wife, two great kids, and even my in-laws (who live with us) only get to me occasionally. Now don’t get me wrong. I can tell something is wrong. I will look at something and suddenly realize just what an insane year this is. But overall I’ve been good. Which brings me to the exception and my point. The final part of it is who you are. The one time this year when I truly needed support I got it. In spades. Ever since then I’ve had people checking on me, making sure I’m ok and supporting me. Everyone needs a hand. Even those people who seem to have it the most together need to be checked up on. Even those who show no anxiety, no stress, need a hug (virtual right now please) or some moral support. With a bit of luck we can all get by with a little help from our friends. The post I get by with a little help from my friends : T-SQL Tuesday #131 appeared first on SQLServerCentral.

This year, 2020, has been crazy. What started as a normal year for me, including a sabbatical, turned into a crazy, shutdown, lockdown, stuck at home pandemic around the world. My world changed a lot, as I cancelled a trip at the beginning of March, and all subsequent ones. Coaching volleyball stopped, and most events were cancelled, big changes for me. At the same time, my daughter came home from college and spent the rest of the semester with us and my oldest switched from teaching in person to being at home and finding a place he could virtually teach. This month, Taiob Ali asks us how we are dealing with these changes. Coping At first, I was coping fine with things fine. I live on a large ranch, my wife works from home, and I’ve been doing so for nearly 20 years. I have an office and am used to working here regularly. We are healthy and financially secure, and mostly it was a pain dealing with the changes in the world. As part of the Redgate Community Circleww, we started to think about how to help others, and came up with different ideas. One of mine was to publish some coping tips. At first, I was trying to help others, but over time, I found these to be invaluable to me. I get these from Action for Happiness for the most part, though I add some myself. I work through these in my life, often a few days in advance, and then write about them. I was thinking to stop these after June, but many people responded they liked them, and I’ve continued ever since then, which seems like a long time. I’ve also found these help me. During August, I struggled with the length of the changes, and the fact that looking forward another 6 months, I couldn’t see an end to the pandemic. The weight of the length of this weighs on me. Physical Health I’m in my 50s and exercise regularly, usually doing yoga or going to the gym 20+ days a month. My diet is OK, probably better than average America, but not great. Still, while my routine was interrupted in March, with less stuff than I’d like: I got better in April and was in a good routine through June. Mostly life was good until the end of October. I had a trip planned to visit family, but cancelled. My wife got sick, then I did, then my daughter. A week later one of my sons got sick. We had been diagnosed with COVID, and it was both scary and hard. The symptoms weren’t that bad, but all of my energy was sapped. I spent most of two weeks in bed or with very light chores around the house. Since then, I feel better, but there are still some gaps in my health. I have no worry of dying, but I am worried about long term physical ability. Wear a mask, try not to get it, and if you don’t believe in masks or the disease, you’re a moron. Don’t leave me a comment on what you believe as a non-epidemiologist or non medical professional. Pardon my language, but fuck off. Mental Health I’ve struggled. Despite working at home for a couple decades, I’m used to changing my environment, going to see others, traveling, and more. Seeing my children depressed from school changes, not seeing the kids I coach, not getting to the gym, not going to restaurants and movies, it got to me. The longing for a change of environment, and not seeing the same four walls of my office weigh on me. The struggles I see on the news, especially from so many people losing jobs, businesses, and more are hard. I have a lot of empathy and realize I am incredibly blessed. I’ve made an effort to chat with others. To reach out at times, and ask for support from my wife and a few close friends. My mental health as suffered, even as I try to cope. I continue to work on this regularly, talking more, and trying to find the good things in my life as much as I can. Professional Growth I had hoped to do more learning, expecting that this pandemic would be less than six months. On one hand, I greatly underestimated the struggles of being at home all the time. On the other, I got some things done. I’ve had different goals this year, and I have spent some time learning more about Power BI, DAX, and visualization. I’ve read more business/non-fiction books this year than in the past. I’m making progress on goals. Not as much as I’d like, but some. The post T-SQL Tuesday #132 Pandemic Coping appeared first on SQLServerCentral.

Writing most of this Monday afternoon while on lunch break. I’m attending the Advanced T-SQL Querying and Query Tuning pre-con by Itzik Ben-Gan. You access pre-cons via the Virtual Summit web site or app, but in this case (idk, may all pre-cons) it’s presented via GotoWebinar. Quick notes on the experience: All users muted due to 100+ attendees 75 minute blocks followed by a 15 minute break I’m on the east coast, so for it’s noon to 8 pm and the “lunch” break at 2:45 pm (I ate during the 1:15 pm break and went for a walk during the lunch hour) Attendees can’t see questions or interact with each other. Sometimes the moderator will break in, but more its Itzik checking the question queue as he goes. At one point he tried dragging the question pane on his view over where we could see it, that sort of worked. It’s definitely a little different when he poses a question and usually you’d have people raising their hand or calling out the answer, you just wait and see what he reads back to you It’s the usual goto experience, not much to figure out or deal with Using Paint as the whiteboard, works ok Content wise, it is of course fine. As is often the case if you’re not a beginner the trick is to not zone out during the stuff you know so you don’t miss the stuff you don’t know. So far I learned three things, not bad. I suspect as it gets closer to 8 pm it’s going to be harder to stay attentive. I went back to the Summit site and visited all the sponsors. A very varied experience. Quite a few raffle options, one ebook, one that has free training (Red Hat), and of course opportunites to get free trials and demos. I’d encourage all the sponsors to look at what the other sponsors did. Most are vanilla and the pattern tends to encourage that, but it’s a bit of downer to see no sponsor prize or click a link that just takes you to a landing page. Still, I appreciate the sponsors more than ever this year and I’ll do my best to read whatever email they send me (the first couple anyway). There is a “grab bag” section which is, well, not exciting. There is a “comic poster” section that has stuff from various vendors. It’s worth a quick look. You can get them as a PDF, but I don’t see an option to order/buy one. Maybe this could be something, not sure, but would be a lot more interesting as a printed poster. Could also be more interesting if this was opened up to attendees (or even non-attendees) to contribute, though I don’t know that I’d want to be the one reviewing them. There is a section where you can find scheduled live demos from sponsors. I like that, it’s clear that it’s product focused. Looks like they are scheduled for an hour. I tagged one each day, will see how my schedule looks when I get there. Also, I might be on Twitter a bit this week. Definitely missing the people part of the Summit. Finally, I tried the information desk and couldn’t get audio to work, probably because I was logged in to gotowebinar, but was able to chat and found out they had 9 visitors and 10 questions so far on Monday, so people are finding it. The post Notes on the 2020 PASS Virtual Summit – Part 2 appeared first on SQLServerCentral.

This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by my good friend and data platform MVP Taiob Ali. Taiob’s challenge is very relevant to current season – he asks to blog about how we are coping with what life has dealt us during this time. I really wondered where to start on this..because this year has stuck me with so many challenges that I never imagined I would face. I have been blessed with reasonably good health, longevity and good health in my family and a relatively low stress life other than periods which passed soon. But this year was not meant to be that. Clearly I had lessons to learn that I haven’t, and the universe decided it was time I did. My issues started well before the pandemic, around February or March, with some health challenges that seemed minor – some dental issues, digestive issues and female health related. I went through my annual physical, which came back good, and my doctor sent me home with some antacids, and also advised me to consult an orthodentist for my jaw related problems , which I had had ten years ago. I am relatively new to the Raleigh area, so had to look up a good orthodontist here, and that took a bit of time. I was still going to work as usual and coping, with the help of some OTCs and researching dentists as I went along. By March, Coronavirus had been declared a pandemic and our office decided to let us telecommute full time by mid April. I still recall the day – I had tuned a difficult stored procedure and taken off early. I was doing some shopping at Target when my boss messaged me to ask if I could come in and look into some timeouts the said procedure was causing on production. So I decided to purchase the (expensive) purse I was looking at (that purse will remain with me for a lifetime, as it was the last in-store shopping i would do for months). I went back in to work, fixed some issues on the procedure and headed home. It would be my last visit to the office for a long time. We were asked to work from home the next day onwards, and are on telecommute since then and will be for an indefinite period of time. Going to work was an activity i enjoyed – the office is literally one block from where I lived, the people and environment was very fun to be around. I started to feel really low (in addition to the general depression the pandemic was causing) being stuck at home all the time. I spent too much time dwelling on this and forgot all about the orthodontist search, which did not serve me well. By June, the jaw problems had escalated seriously and I could not eat anything without severe pain and distress. I was put on a jaw appliance and advised no solid food. I lost 10 lbs in two weeks and with great difficulty managed to find an odd combo of things to eat which did not hurt the jaw and provided some degree of nutrional support. The pain subsided in five weeks but only subject to the jaw appliance being in place. I am seeing another orthodontist to get further advice. But the combo of all this has led to a ton of health issues, esp digestion related. I won’t say much on that except that am getting treated and it will be slow but surely heal. In the meantime -I lost 3 beloved relatives to Covid. I am not good with emotions in general, and being stuck with so much was unbelievably stressful. Thankfully, the amazing therapist I had in Louisville who helped me cope with my mom’s untimely death was available on telemedicine. I was able to process some emotions and grief with his aid. I can’t say am still through with it but am able to manage and be functional. I can write a few more pages on my own story, but I think this is enough for people to get an idea. My lessons are as below..these are not things that I did not know but now I know really well and hope other people will consider: 1 Your body and mind are your vehicles to living and well being. Make it #1 priority to take care of them. Having a fun job that you enjoy does not mean you are doing this – a lot of us as techies think being absorbed in work means we are having a great life – what we neglect in the process can hit us hard, especially as we get older. Force yourself to log off when you are done, get that annual physical/exercise/dental appointment/nutritionist appointment in.2 Stay in touch with family, especially elders – make the best of the time you get with them, even if it is virtual. We don’t know how much we have left and it is good not to have any regrets around this.3 If you are going through chronic pain/discomfort, develop ways to focus on something – whatever gives your mind a way away from it. I take short walks, look at picture books with scenic pictures, old photo albums and various. 4 Get a therapist or a friend to do a healing visualizing meditation – there are lots of such meditations available but a personalized one , with scenarios that you want to happen are very helpful. I use the one my therapist made for me every day and it helps me, a lot. Some people who are religious may also be able to use prayer in this manner.5 Last but not the least, stay safe through it. This means a lot of stress in of itself. I know several friends and family membes who have gotten the virus, including some who are very healthy. Nobody thinks of it as trivial. Mask up and limit exposure to any place with people. ‘THIS TOO SHALL PASS AWAY’…is a wise line that has helped me many a time. It is a line to ponder repeatedly. We will get through, it will all be fine. Peace be with everyone. The post T-SQL Tuesday 132: Coping with a pandemic appeared first on SQLServerCentral.

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. Today's tip is to add the word "yet" when you feel you can't do something. This is good advice because telling yourself that you can't do something before you even try is a self-fulfilling prophesy.  Accomplishing most goals require figuring out what's needed. Do you want to run a marathon, but you've never really run before? Set a smaller goal of running a 5K or even a mile.  If you make a good plan and follow through, you have a shot at that bigger goal.   The post Daily Coping 10 Nov 2020 appeared first on SQLServerCentral.

Andy Cotgreave Technical Evangelist Director, Tableau Tanna Solberg November 9, 2020 - 5:51pm November 9, 2020 Phew! It’s November. Welcome back to Best of the Tableau Web, where I share some of the best community content I’ve seen in recent times. And since we’re right on the heels of our first ever virtual Tableau Conference(ish), there’s a lot to highlight!  For this segment, three themes come to mind.  First: Iron Viz is the ultimate data competition and it was a privilege to host this event with Keshia Rose again. Going virtual this year presented challenges, but also many new opportunities. As I write, we’re in the midst of releasing special episodes of our weekly livestream series, If Data Could Talk, with all three finalists. In each one, we’re pressing play on their 20-minute Iron Viz build and getting the inside scoop on all their data decision making. I’m really excited about these episodes because there’s a huge amount to learn from them for data viz enthusiasts of all skill levels. You can watch the episodes live for free on all our social media channels (no sign-up needed!) so make sure to follow Tableau on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook. Watch the episode with Alex Jones here. Watch for upcoming episodes with Simon and Christian, coming up on the 12 and 19th of November. Christian has also done a fantastic recap of his experience on his own blog if you want a sneak peak. Second: Let’s talk Tableau Conference(ish)! It’s always a pleasure reading people’s recaps of Tableau Conference for specific learnings, key themes they take from the event, and above all else, inspiration around the Tableau community. I particularly enjoyed these thoughtful perspectives from Adam Mico, Sarah Bartlett, and Dustin Wyers.  The third and final theme is yet another focus on what must be the most revolutionary feature we’ve added to desktop in years: Set and Parameter Actions. These features continue to open up new paths to interactivity that astound me. Keith Dykstra explains how to simplify them, Spencer Baucke provides an overview of Set Controls, Ethan Lang shares ways to use them with secondary data sources, Steve Wexler applies them to survey data, and Andrew Watson uses them to build some great Viz in Tooltips. This functionality seems to have endless possibilities: I say keep ‘em coming.  As always, enjoy the list below! Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn as I try and share many of these throughout the month. Also, you can check out which blogs I am following here. If you don’t see yours on the list, you can add it here. Tips and tricks Andrew Lang Building a Relationship with Scaffolding Andy Kriebel #TableauTipTuesday: Four Methods for Creating Dots on a Map Jim Dehner FAQ Series - Fiscal Years Rosario Gauna Write-back for Everyone: Parameter Query Language for Tableau (Part 1) Anthony Smoak Understanding Tableau Context Filters Jess Hancock Full Outer and Inner Joins with Multiple Inputs: The ‘Join Multiple’ vs ‘Manual’ Method Inspiration Spencer Baucke Data + Love Podcast Brandi Beals Advance Your Career with Tableau (for FREE) Formatting, Design, Storytelling Rajeev Pandey 30 Best Design Resources for Your Next Tableau Dashboard Beth Kairys Virtual Event Recap: The Good and Bad of Dashboard Templates Matthew Whiteley Tableau 2020.3: Best New Features for Dashboarding Jeffrey Shaffer Dashboards Done Right: Insurance Dashboard by Ellen Blackburn  Matthias Think twice – is it important, is it attractive? Luke Stanke KPI Design Ideas for Tableau Tamas Varga Creating Charts within a Hexmap Calculations Eric Parker Nested IF Statements in Tableau Daniel Caroli Tableau Date Calculations: When Close is Good Enough Igor Garlowski Interactive Date Comparisons with Tableau Parameters James Goodall Tableau Bitesize: Buffer Calculations Prep Spencer Baucke Tableau 2020.3 – Write to Database in Tableau Prep Igor Garlowski Local Scheduling and Flow Refreshes with Tableau Prep Server Mitchell Scott Switching from Core to Role-Based Licensing in Tableau Server Rowan Bradnum Increasing Tableau Server User Adoption: Five Ways to Earn Quick Wins Timothy Vermeiren Tableau Server Webhooks, REST API and Slack: a learning experience Carl Slifer Increasing Tableau Server User Adoption: Improve Data Quality & Content Set and Parameter Actions Keith Dykstra Simplified Parameter Actions in Tableau Spencer Baucke Tableau 2020.2 – Set Controls Ethan Lang How to Use Secondary Data Sources for Tableau Parameter Actions Steve Wexler Set Controls and survey data – how to compare responses for this group vs that group vs overall Andrew Watson Use Set Action for Viz in Tooltip Grand Totals Tableau Conference(ish) Adam Mico The (ish) Experience: My 1st Tableau Conference  Sarah Bartlett Tableau Conference….ish #Data20 Highlights The Datum Podcast S3 E9: Byte: Tableau Conference 2020 roundup Dustin Wyers Tableau Conference 2020: Highlights from Devs at Desks

I’m in learning mode this week, scheduled for two full day pre-cons plus the Summit. I’ve been to a couple of virtual events already this year, but they were ones where I had never been to the in-person version so it was hard to compare things. For the Summit my goal is to try to experience as much as the UI allows just to see if there are things that really work or really don’t work. This post focuses on what I’ve seen so far, before any of the presentations start. If you haven’t checked in yet (or aren’t able to attend this year), you can get a good sense of how it works by watching this four minute video Anika did: Credentials were emailed, just your email address and a registration id that serves as the password. I don’t see an option to change the password. Not great, but not the worst issue either. You can login via the web, or via the app (https://cdmcd.co/Jx578w) which is EventScribe and seems to allow you to take notes as text or drawing. Logging in via phone worked fine and seems to be a similar UI to the web. On login you can update your profile, add a photo, add various ribbons, and choose from any or all of three sharing options: Share your contact information and profile with other attendees? Share your information with Sponsors/Exhibitors you interacted with? Share your favorites with other attendees? Living large, I said yes to all three! I then reviewed the main event schedule and favorited (clicked the star) quite a few sessions that I might attend. I didn’t try to build out a fully packed schedule as I don’t have to worry a session being at capacity (or so I assume!). The ones you favorite then show up as ‘your schedule’. Looking at the available sessions there are some interesting things: You can see if the slides are available All times are in EST (I’m assuming that’s because I’m in EST) There is video icon if the session is recorded (or will be?). Not all of the sessions are delivered live, and some are replays of a session delivered live earlier in the event. There isn’t an obvious signal that some sessions are given more than once. You can figure it out by clicking on the speaker name and that will show all of their sessions. Would be nice to see that in a simpler fashion when you’re making your scheduling choices. For recorded sessions speakers are supposed to be online for the final 15 minutes to take questions. I’m interested to see how that goes. There is a virtual exhibit hall. Here it is as of Monday morning: And here are a couple of examples: For the sponsor booth giveaway Redgate has a puzzle you have to figure out to be entered into a drawing. Quest will mail you a t-shirt if you enter your info and are one the first 500 (well, 499 now, since I entered for one). They have chat hours, you can see some slides, all the basics. I’m going to try to visit all of them, both for the experience of seeing how various vendors do things and to try to help them have a successful event. I can imagine it’s more than the average leap of faith to hope a virtual event proves as useful to a sponsor as an in person event. The pattern seems usable and one that seems like we could (and should) add to SQLSaturday. There is only one community hosted event listed so far this year, the SQLRun. That’s about as far as I’ve explored so far on the attendee experience. I’ll be the moderator for Continuous Integration with Local Agents and Azure DevOps at 1030 on Friday, presented by my friend Steve Jones. Last week I went to moderator training and got to see how it looks behind the scenes a little. Basically presentations are done via a Zoom call with the speaker, moderator, and some support staff. Attendees can submit questions or chat with each other via the ‘Discuss’ tab. Attendees can upvote questions. The moderator can answer questions, mark them as rejected, or hold them to try to give to the speaker at an appropriate time. The tricky part (and the unpleasant last minute surprise for all the live speakers) is that the presentation is captured in Zoom, sent to Cadmium (the streaming/conference platform) and from there delivered to users, which adds up to to a variable delay of 20 to 90 seconds. I suspect most attendees won’t notice because the questions are queued, but for speakers that had planned a highly interactive session it’s going to be a challenge. Registration is still open for the Summit at https://www.pass.org/summit/2020/. The post Notes on the 2020 PASS Virtual Summit – Part 1 appeared first on SQLServerCentral.