Today's winner is! Aadhar Joshi!
Congratulations for winning a free month of PluralSight. I'm E-Mailing you the code right now.
We still have two free months to give away and a great book on the 30th!
Update: Everyone is eligible for the book drawing on the 30th. You can enter your name every Monday for the Pluralsight give away as long as you have not already won one. There are two more Pluralsight codes to give away and the book at the end of the month. Good luck to all who try! Week 1 only had one person competing. Week 2 had six people.
User Groups
There are multiple user groups around the country online and offline. I'm mostly going to concern myself with the offline user groups for a moment. A great place to find them is to go to the SQLPass site.It's a great place for a few reasons.
Training
Who doesn't love free training!? Well... some people I'm sure. But seriously, user groups are fantastic ways to get free training. Depending on what's going on, you can get very involved in the discussions. User group meetings don't have to be boring presentations only. The OKC SQL user group even hosted a Jeopardy style presentation with prizes. Even with the ice on the ground, the turnout was amazing.
Networking
I know, you love your job. I've heard you talking about how much you love your boss and all your co-workers. Have they stopped reading? Good. Not all jobs are permanent. I'm not saying quit... I'm saying it's good to know what's around and who's looking. Maybe they need a DBA, but after talking to them you find out they just have a simple problem you can fix over the weekend. Who doesn't like a bit of quick consulting money? If nothing else, building a network will help you when you decide to start looking.
First Time Presentation
So you think you can dance? Well let's not jump to the big stage right away. Here's where you can shine and get some good pier review before you end up on YouTube. These are people who have presented before or just starting out who need to learn. It's a great place to open up some 101 information. You do not need to present internals and talk about MCM level items just to get some light. Let's keep the community strong and get our friends trained. You may know something they don't.
Preparation for SQL Saturdays
Do you want to start becoming a national or even international speaker? User groups are a great way to prepare to speak at a SQL Saturday. They're great to debut a new presentation you want to get out into the world. Do you know who you need to talk to about SQL Saturday? I'm guessing your local user group has some information for you. ^.~
Prizes
We all love prizes. Most user groups at least have some prizes to give away. Why not go for a free PluralSight card or some books. If they have no prizes... at least you win free training!
Don't have a user group?
Contact someone in the community to help you set one up! If you're really interested, getting sponsorship is easier than you think. If you need help setting one up, I can try and get you in contact with some good people.
Showing posts with label Training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Training. Show all posts
9.12.13
Backups and Giveaways! Day 1
We have 16 days until Christmas. Since I started this blog, I've posted every day Monday through Friday. I am going to make it my goal to post a new update every workday from now until the 25th regarding day to day operations and what's made my life easier. I plan to follow that up with a post every weekday from the 26th to the end of the year regarding things I would like to see done more often either in myself or the community as a whole. I'm going to start off with something more general.
First, contest giveaway!
I have 3 more 1-Month memberships to PluralSight to give away. Any comments on the Monday's post will be reviewed Wednesday night and a winner will be drawn out of a hat all the way until Christmas week. only caveat is that I have to be able to get an E-Mail address from the post. How else can I give you this prize?
On the 30th I'll be giving away a wonderful book called Professional SQL Server 2012 Internals and Troubleshooting.
I decided to start a blog to help how I could. I figure I can help out a little bit more with some special prizes. Good luck to all!
Backups
We all like a little peace of mind. If your database goes down at 2 am and your job is dependent on keeping downtime minimal, how soundly are you sleeping? Personally.. I looove sleep. It's a simple thing to ensure your back up is running. Please do it for your own sake.
Recovery plan
Do you have one written up? I'd get one in line just in case something horrible happens like a squirrel crawling in and chewing on the power lines. I'd get one on the books and if nothing else, you've proven intent. Don't be the guy remembered for killing his whole business just because one server didn't get backups for a month.
Test, Test, Test
I can't express this enough. When's the last time you've tested your backup? Have you tried failing over recently? If so, you'll remember that you had a few bugs. Maybe it was only permissions that didn't come across, maybe the other server didn't power up. What ever the case was, I'd suggest yearly testing of your whole plan, weekly for your backups. If you have a staging server, Test more often if you're bored. It's never a bad idea.
First, contest giveaway!
I have 3 more 1-Month memberships to PluralSight to give away. Any comments on the Monday's post will be reviewed Wednesday night and a winner will be drawn out of a hat all the way until Christmas week. only caveat is that I have to be able to get an E-Mail address from the post. How else can I give you this prize?
On the 30th I'll be giving away a wonderful book called Professional SQL Server 2012 Internals and Troubleshooting.
I decided to start a blog to help how I could. I figure I can help out a little bit more with some special prizes. Good luck to all!
Backups
We all like a little peace of mind. If your database goes down at 2 am and your job is dependent on keeping downtime minimal, how soundly are you sleeping? Personally.. I looove sleep. It's a simple thing to ensure your back up is running. Please do it for your own sake.
Recovery plan
Do you have one written up? I'd get one in line just in case something horrible happens like a squirrel crawling in and chewing on the power lines. I'd get one on the books and if nothing else, you've proven intent. Don't be the guy remembered for killing his whole business just because one server didn't get backups for a month.
Test, Test, Test
I can't express this enough. When's the last time you've tested your backup? Have you tried failing over recently? If so, you'll remember that you had a few bugs. Maybe it was only permissions that didn't come across, maybe the other server didn't power up. What ever the case was, I'd suggest yearly testing of your whole plan, weekly for your backups. If you have a staging server, Test more often if you're bored. It's never a bad idea.
29.11.13
Free Friday: Training
There are a number of good sites that offer free training and free E-Books. The community around MS SQL is amazing! If I forget anyone, please add an update. I'd like to have a complete list if at all possible. Let's break it apart for a second.
Before I start, I want to make sure you all are aware of the PASS Chapters.
There are local chapters in your community that gather and learn as a group. If there isn’t one, contact me or anyone at pass. We can help give you the foundation you need to set one up.
There are Virtual chapters that are free and not locational specific. They are divided by the training they provide. They have 15 separate Virtual Chapters to choose from. This is a lot of free training just going to waste if no one signs in!
Free Video Training? Are you the type that only learns with audio and visual stimulation? Are you just bored and there's nothing on TV or Netflix? Well... There's a number of good sites with great video archives!
Videos
This Technet section offers a number of great videos with pointed training. 70 videos if I counted correctly.
This is Brent Ozar and crew's site. They have a fantastic archive of their weekly broadcasts and other videos they've made just to help out the rest of us. While I'm here, I'd like to mention that they do have very reasonably priced higher level training that can be purchased... but the link will take you to the free side.
Sean and Jen McCown run this site. There is a whole collection of videos that are free to download or stream. They also have a rather funny webshow on Fridays at 2300(11 PM) Central. It's a great way to unwind after a bad week.
Pass is the main hub for SQL Server training in America. Or at least the main one I've found. Once a year they have a summit that is rather pricey but I've never heard one person come back saying it was a waste of time or money. They offer the previous year’s training for free. You can purchase the current year if you wish. This is a great professional networking opportunity.
Similar to SQLPass, this is a large and free conference that gives great training.
RedGate offers a really good training site and conference that’s been growing in popularity as of recent. This is another one that if you look through, you can find archived videos.
SQL Saturday is an event done in many different cities worldwide. This is the step above your local user group. It’s a great place for new speakers to stretch their legs and for people to connect with other professionals all over the region. In OKC alone we had people coming in from all over the country. These are huge networking opportunities.
How about blogs in general?
SQL Server Central is a great hub for multiple blogs to be posted. It’s a great forum for people to gather and get answers in a timely fashion. That being said, don’t risk production down time waiting for an answer. People do sleep.
Below is a quick list of blogs in no particular order. These are all good places to hit on a regular basis. Of course I threw mine in there too. ^.^
Blogs
How about the interaction you’ll be missing just internet stalking people and watching them in archives? Well we do have webcasts for you!
Webcasts
Brent Ozar, Kendra Little, Jeremiah Peschka, Jes Schultz Borland, and new comer Doug Lane host this consulting crew and they present a free webcast every Tuesday at 11:30 AM Central. It’s a lunch break for some free training.
Sean and Jen McCown run the Midnight DBA webshow every Friday at 2300 (11PM) Central. It’s more laid back and recently a lot more based around personal development and normal ethics based ideas than technical talk… but it does spring up. Don’t miss the preshow and post show both offset by 30 minutes.
PromaticWorks also hosts free training every Tuesday and Thursday at 11AM EST. This could make for a busy Tuesday.
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