Monthly Archives: October 2007

Community, Developer Events, SQLBits-10/2007

SQLBits – post-event


SQLBits, the sponsors: Microsoft | Idera
Quest Software | Solid Quality Learning | redgate

I attended the first DDD-style SQL conference held in Reading last Saturday: SQLBits. It was an excellent event, well organised and very slick. Some really nice touches too, like coaches from Reading railway station to the venue at Microsoft’s Thames Valley Park campus (it was held on a Saturday, so the free bus wasn’t running). And there was a super bowling event laid on as part of the after-event entertainment!

I was given the job of room monitor, which isn’t an onerous job, but one that is very much required. Speakers often need somebody to remind them that they have to wrap up, sometimes they need a 15 min, 10 min or 5 min warning as their session reaches its conclusion. Anyway, I was able to sit in on some interesting sessions, those noted below. I did jump between sessions in the other slots – I was also podcasting too, so didn’t sit in on other sessions in the entirety. Here’s the first podcast: 029 – SQLBits – Richard Fennell on SQL Server Unit Testing

I was amused when Sutha said words to the effect “everybody hates writing documentation, right?” I couldn’t resist replying with “speak for yourself!” – it got a good laugh in the room. Of course, everybody really does hate writing documentation!

Handling early arriving facts 200 BI
Sutha Thiru
How do we handle early arriving facts? If you are an experienced DW developer you would have come across this many times, if you are a novice you are certain to face this challenge in the near future. Each organisation makes decision to handle this scenario as suited to them. I have handled this scenario in one of these 3 categories. 1. Ignore early arriving facts all together? Is that the right way to do it? 2. During load process populate the dimension table with the Natural Key and default values and map surrogate key to the incoming fact record. 3. During fact load map default surrogate key and load those records into the “Rejected” table. I would be conducting a demo for point 2 and 3. In depth analysis on what happens to the records in the Rejected table and what do I propose to resolve these records? What is Business Intelligence Service Centre (BISC) and their involvement is going to mission critical for the success of your BI project?

Getting Started with SQL Server Reporting Services 200 BI
Tim Leung
SQL Server Reporting Services provides a powerful mechanism for generating reports. This session provides an introduction to the many features and capabilities of Reporting services. Topics covered will include installation, managing reports and security. The session will also show you how to author reports using the Business Intelligence studio. Highlights include using Stored Procedures as data sources, passing parameters into reports and running conditional logic inside reports. Tips and tricks are included throughout the session to help you on your way.

Daves Top 10 SQL Keywords 200 DBA
Dave McMahon
‘Top of the Pops’ might be dead, but Dave will give you his own countdown of his 10 most useful/favorite SQL keywords. No secrets to giveaway here, suffice to say that you will know some of them (but maybe not used this way) and some may be unfamiliar to you. The whole ‘Countdown’ will be demoed and Dave will explain why they make his top 10. This is a session for people who use SQL regularly as Developers, know the standard DML but maybe never had the chance to peek around the corner to see what else was there! Both SQL 2000 and SQL 2005 syntax will feature, so this is stuff you can take away and use today …

Catch the end of Dave’s “Top of the Tops” styled session over here.

Related Podcasts035 – SQLBits – Simon Harriyott – On SQLBits and Dave McMahon in a wig…
034 – SQLBits – Liam Westley, Matt Barrett discuss SQLBits and Dave McMahon
033 – SQLBits – Colin Mackay on SQLBits and events in Reading
032 – SQLBits – Martin Cairney on Securing SQL Server
031 – SQLBits – John Van Hoof
030 – SQLBits – Attendees Jane Dallaway and Jim Shilling tell us what they think
029 – SQLBits – Richard Fennell on SQL Server Unit Testing


Dave McMahon, podcasting


Recursive photography?


Dave’s pre-session nerves are showing now


Thank you Solid Quality Mentoring for the sustenance


Hey, Rich, look, it’s an XBOX 360 – you should’ve come along and tried to win it! One lucky person won this, meaning that Quest Software went home with less than they arrived with.


Fernando (blog and blog) and Helen on the Solid Quality Mentoring stand


The boys from Idera had “iPods” as prizes!


Another full session


Super Simon Sabin struts his stuff (here’s Idera’s Super Simon)


Uh oh. Quiche. Developers. The two don’t work. For real: look here, here and here.


Dave tells us who he is to a packed room


Martin Cairney: can bowl.


I so nearly won with 140. Liam came back from 127 to win with 142.

Technorati Tags: ,

Community, Developer Events, Podcasts

029 – SQLBits – Richard Fennell on SQL Server Unit Testing

1 Comment


SQLBits, the sponsors: Microsoft | Idera
Quest Software | Solid Quality Learning | redgate

Test driven development is one of the current hot topics in software development, but how far can these principles be applied in the world of SQL? In this session I will look at the principles of TDD and other testing options using both freeware tools and Microsoft’s Visual Studio Datadude.

SQLBits was another fine piece of event engineering, huge congratulations to Tony, Simon, Martin and Chris on the success of their first DDD-style SQL conference.

In this, podcast#29, I’m chatting to Richard Fennell about his session. I’ve known Richard for a few years now, as the photograph above confirms (regular followers will know that maroon shirts were issued to speakers at DDD3!) I was pleased to be able to catch up with Richard and talk about his session before he delivered it. Richard was talking about unit testing SQL Server (using tsqlunit), which certainly caught my attention being an avid TDDer.

Podcast feed – subscribe here!

This podcast: http://www.craigmurphy.com/podcasts/029-SQLBits-Richard-Fennell.mp3

Related Posts
SQLBits – post event

Resources
Data Dude
Richard’s Blog

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , ,

.net, Community, Developer Events, Development

db4o – an object database, for .NET (and Java)

2 Comments

JimPaterson

Last night, I was lucky enough to attend a Scottish Developers meeting in Glasgow.  It worked out rather well actually: upon arriving in Glasgow I had beer and a burger with top bloke and colleague Alan.  Then the event itself.  To finish, a beer with fellow Scottish Developers Colin, Frank and with SQLBits organiser supremo Martin.  All in all a great trip, and a great event – you should have been there!

Anyway, the session itself was impressive stuff.  Whilst I had thought that the session was going to be all about an object database in Java, it turns out that db4o has a .NET implementation too.  And it supports the .NET Compact Framework, i.e. mobile devices.  Speaker Jim Paterson did a really good job of explaining db4o, its use, its positives and its negatives.

Of course, the first thing I did today was go off and download db4o and set about a simple “hello world” style example.  True enough, everything that I saw last night worked like a charm.  In fact, here’s the C# that I threw together in about 5 minutes:

[code lang=”C#”]
using Db4objects.Db4o;

namespace db40Ex
{
public partial class Form1 : Form
{
IObjectContainer db;

public Form1()
{
InitializeComponent();
db = Db4oFactory.OpenFile(@”D:\data\_test\db4o\data.db4o”);
}

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
myRecord mr = new myRecord();
mr.Name = “Frank Butcher”;
mr.Telephone = “123 456 789”;
db.Set(mr);
}

private void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
myRecord mr = new myRecord();
IObjectSet res = db.Get(mr);
listBox1.Items.Clear();
foreach (myRecord s in res)
listBox1.Items.Add(s.Name);
}

private void button3_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
myRecord mr = new myRecord();
mr.Name = “Butcher Frank”;
mr.Telephone = “123 456 789”;
db.Set(mr);
}
}

public class myRecord
{
public string Name;
public string Telephone;
}
}
[/code]

Object databases aren’t without their pitfalls, I will use db4o in a “real” project – I am sure it’ll perform perfectly well.  Expect to see a more detailed follow up post here shortly.

Technorati Tags: , ,

Community, Developer Events, Podcasts

028 – MIX07 – Turning The Pages – 3D Books


Michael, Mark and Alex

Designing and delivering 3D solutions on the Web
Having a widely deployed full 3D platform which can be hosted in the browser allows for a new range of internet accessible applications. The British Library’s implementation partners (Armadillo Systems and Shaxam) built the next-generation treasure book reading experience to the web with the launch of Vista. This session will discuss the designer-developer workflow that was used (from 3D models in Lightwave to Expression Blend to Visual Studio and then deployment into a live server-farm implementation). It will also cover their use of Silverlight to drive wider platform adoption as well as the decisions they made and the things they learnt along the way.

This is podcast #28 – I’m talking to the team behind the British Library’s Turning The Page project. These are the chaps who have put many of the books listed below “on-line” with some really impressive 3D graphics. It’s a rather short podcast – the chaps had places to go, etc. I recommend that you watch the You Tube video below and visit some of the web sites that I list below too. It was an awesome demonstration of graphical power…and all served up via the Internet and Silverlight.

Jane Austen’s History of England, Elizabeth Blackwell’s Curious Herbal, William Blake’s Songs of Innocence (in production), Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, The Diamond Sutra, The Golden Hagadah, The Golf Book, James Joyce Ulysses (No. 1 of the first edition), James Joyce Paris and Pola Commonplace Books, James Joyce notebooks used in the creation of Ulysses, Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Arundel, The Lindsfarne Gospels, The Luttrell Psalter, Magna Carta (in production), The Mercator Atlas of Europe, Mozart’s Thematic Catalogue (in production), The Sforza Hours, The Sherborne Missal, Stars of Science, Sultan Baybars’ Qur’an, Vesalius’ De Humanis Corporis Fabrica, The Wellcome Apocalypse, Robert Willan’s On Cutaneous Diseases, WB Yeats Rapallo notebooks (in production)

Podcast feed – subscribe here!

This podcast:

Turning The Pages 2.0, in action:

Resources & Related Posts
Armadillo Systems
Shaxam
British Library
Turning The Pages
Lightwave 3D

MIX in Las Vegas
Scott Lovegrove interviews Danny Thorpe and Angus Logan
NxtGenUG chaps on Mix07, including mentions of Scott Guthrie, Robby Ingebretan, Simon Peyton Jones
027 – MIX07 – Jim McNiven and Chris Hardy – Viral Marketing
026 – MIX07 – Men Of Iron – Michael Foord, Dave Verwer – IronPython, IronRuby, the DLR
019 – MIX07 – Danny Thorpe – on Borland, Google, Windows Live and .NET
018 – MIX07 – Scott Lovegrove on Windows Live Services
017 – MIX07 – Hugh MacLeod – the inspiration behind the Blue Monster

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Community, Developer Events

LONDON ALT.NET User Group?

Ian Cooper has opened up a conversation about a localised version of ALT.NET over at his blog Staccato Signals

Does DDD go some way towards encompassing ALT.NET?

Should a localised ALT.NET (currently codenamed Indie.NET) be brought to the UK?

We would be keen to read your thoughts either through comments here, or preferably through comments over at Ian’s blog. Your feedback is what makes events like this happen, so please, comment away!

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Community, Developer Events, Podcasts

MIX07 – UK – The Event

 

When I wasn’t mingling and being a community “bod”, I was lucky enough to be able attend a number of sessions.  Generally, because some of the web and design content was a little bit outside my developer sphere of awareness, I sat in on some the sessions that were being delivered by the presenters that I wanted to record a podcast with, which prove to be a good learning experience for me.


That’s one lucky winner – an XBOX 360 (watch out, Rich might mug you!), a copy of Microsoft Windows Vista and Expression Studio – can’t be bad!

Keynote
The keynote sessions was a 90 minute affair – somewhat long for a keynote you might think.  However, nothing could be further from the truth – it was an exciting and well-paced session offering industry insights into the real-world use of Silverlight as well as a handful of Microsoft showcases.  If anybody was bored during the keynote, then they couldn’t have been in the room with the rest of us, it was a truly engaging session.

Scott Guthrie delivered his usual top notch session about Building Silverlight Applications using .NET.  If you’ve never seen Scott speak, and you have an opportunity, I can strongly recommend that you attend, he’s a “don’t miss” speaker.


Each bag contained a copy of Microsoft Windows Vista and Expression Studio – a bag for each and every attendee!

Micro-presentations
I snuck into The Phantom Micro-presentations session.  Essentially this was a freeform session with anybody who was prepared to deliver 20 slides getting their 6 and bit minutes of fame!  Except, the 20 slides had to be timed to run for 20 seconds with an auto-transition to the next slide engaged.  This made for an interesting session, even for many experienced presenters, myself included!  I delivered a micro-presentation about Social Networking and Micro-Blogging – except I chose to actually write the session whilst I was sat in on the original session!  Download my micro-presentation here.  Expect to see this micro-presentation at DDD6 in November!

Are you afraid of the Blue Monster?
Hugh MacLeod, of Blue Monster fame, gave a 35 minute presentation about viral marketing, Web 2.0, his own personal thoughts and the notion of cartoons on the back of business cards.  The remaining 25 minutes was filled with audience interaction, it worked rather well.  Hugh’s presentation style, both in terms of slide deck and personal delivery were eye-openers for me – sometimes we need to see a totally new style in order for us to learn and improve.  Podcast here.


Scott Guthrie entertains more than just Phil and Dave during an impromptu coding and demo session in the Community Lounge – this is what community is all about, you should have been there!

Viral Marketing
Jim McNiven, Londoner through and through, discussed viral marketing.  Unfortunately as a result of some minor schedule changes, Jim’s session was up against Hugh MacLeod’s sessions.  I did consider doing what I usually do under these circumstances and “multi-thread it” by visiting both sessions for short periods of time, but that wasn’t really on offer as an option – partly because it would have appeared rather rude to Hugh, whose session I sat in on.  I recorded a podcast with Jim, you can find it here.

Men of Iron
Michael Foord was talking about IronRuby and Dave Verwer (blog) provided a session about IronPython.  Sadly I was elsewhere for both of these sessions, but I did manage to  catch up with both of them over the course of the day.  Podcast here.

Books On-line
Designing and delivering 3D solutions on the web saw a handful of presenters demonstrate a solution that is being developed for the British Library.  This was an truly awe-inspiring using of 3D, rich media and Silverlight.  Imagine being able to take a book, essentially pick it up, rotate it in 3D, zoom in on specific focal points within the current page.  I recorded some video content – expect to see that appear very shortly.  I also recorded a podcast with the books on-line chaps, that will be ready on Thursday.

Technorati Tags: , , , , ,

Community, Developer Events, Podcasts

027 – MIX07 – Jim McNiven and Chris Hardy – Viral Marketing

2 Comments

Welcome to podcast #027. I’m talking with Jim McNiven and Chris Hardy. Apart from discussing the MIX07 event, we discuss Jim’s session about viral marketing.

Podcast feed – subscribe here!

This podcast:

Resources & Related Posts
MIX in Las Vegas
Scott Lovegrove interviews Danny Thorpe and Angus Logan
NxtGenUG chaps on Mix07, including mentions of Scott Guthrie, Robby Ingebretan, Simon Peyton Jones
026 – MIX07 – Men Of Iron – Michael Foord, Dave Verwer – IronPython, IronRuby, the DLR
019 – MIX07 – Danny Thorpe – on Borland, Google, Windows Live and .NET
018 – MIX07 – Scott Lovegrove on Windows Live Services
017 – MIX07 – Hugh MacLeod – the inspiration behind the Blue Monster

Technorati Tags: , , , ,

Community, Developer Events

Write a limerick and win FREE WPF training!

Those boys over at the NxtGenUG want you to get creative! They’re asking you to write a limerick about Guy Smith-Ferrier! The first line has to be “There was an MVP called Guy”…

Here’s my starter for you:

There was an MVP called Guy

Whose book about Internationalization was welcomed in Shanghai.

In the south-west, he created the DotNetDevNet user group,

Which is proving to be a great scoop.

He’s an MVP, of that we can’t deny.

There was an MVP called Guy

Who had an interest in Popfly

Or was it Silverlight?

To be honest, both might overexcite

But I know Guy, he’ll give both a try.

If yours is good enough, you could win a place on this WPF course! Send your entries to enquiries@nxtgenug.net

Check out the meeting details over here.

Technorati Tags: , , , , ,

.net, Community, Developer Events

Free Developer Event – 1900: Tonight, 3rd October, Edinburgh, Astoria and XBAPs

As part of his 4 User Groups in 4 Days, acclaimed author Guy Smith-Ferrier is in Edinburgh tonight – he’ll be talking about Astoria and XBAPs.

Further information can be found here:

http://snipurl.com/astoria_and_xbaps

This event is free, you need only turn up, collect your goodie back, sit back, relax and enjoy the event.

This event has wearable and readable swag being distributed!

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , ,