Friday, November 25, 2005
T+35 - ?? Nov 7 – Nov 25
As you can tell by the length between posts, I've been very busy the past 3 weeks. Two trips home, one for turkey day and otherwise lots of work. My project is winding down well, though there's going to be a lot of stuff happening the next two weeks. I have my second brown bag session I'll be doing, finishing up my product eval and writing up the results. Not a whole lot extra happening besides just work. I've learned about a few corporate policies that may make for an interesting post some time down the road. We'll be in Plano Dec 14-16 giving our presentations and I'll be back home the 17th. My dad is gonna meet me in Dallas. Haven't seen him for a while so that will be a good thing.
Lots on the personal side but that's not what this blog is about. Family is wonderful, isn't it?
Lots on the personal side but that's not what this blog is about. Family is wonderful, isn't it?
Monday, November 07, 2005
T+31 - 34 Nov 3-Nov 6
The rest of this week I was in SQL Soft training on new features of SQL Server 2005 which should be GA on Nov 7. With all the stuff crammed in there now, it's difficult to call it just a DBMS now. Queues, XML support, Subscriptions and more make this product more than just a data manager. And now that you can include procedures in.NET languages, it's almost Access-like in that your entire solution could be wrapped up in a data base.
Also spent a lot of time after hours completing the 2nd product eval and writeup. Saturday we went to the seattle auto show, lunched at Ivars and then took the rest of the weekend off.
Spent some time listening to web casts of previous MSDN events related to my evaluation. I recommend most of them for anyone wanting to learn more about my topic.
Also spent a lot of time after hours completing the 2nd product eval and writeup. Saturday we went to the seattle auto show, lunched at Ivars and then took the rest of the weekend off.
Spent some time listening to web casts of previous MSDN events related to my evaluation. I recommend most of them for anyone wanting to learn more about my topic.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
T+24 – 30 (Oct 27 - November 2nd)
Forgot to mention the Microsoft visit in my last entry. We took an all-day trip to the campus and suffered slow death by powerpoint (just kidding actually) as some of the senior product team leads gave us overviews of what's going on. They're focused 2-4 years out in most cases on N+2 or N+3 technology. Pretty interesting stuff.
On my project I have finished one evaluation and am making progress on #2. In a company this size, there's bound to be someone who's already using the products, if they're any good. So I asked the vendors for contacts. I've talked with some of my fellow workers in various spots around the globe. Another interesting benefit of this position.
The "big deal" this past week was delivering the first draft of our presentation. We all thought 15 minutes would be hard to fill but it turned to be hard to limit to that little time. All went pretty well, except of course the Sun guys. We are FAR better than all of theirs!
Now polishing the presentation based on feedback from the coaches and director to make them look like a single work of art. Next week we do round 2 with 30 minutes of time to chew up.
This week I am in SQL Server 2005 class, learning about some of the new cool stuff. As usual, SQL Server is adding features that have been available for a release or two in Oracle. Stuff like "partition by" and Row_Count(), synonyms and schemas. Also lots of XML support as well as being able to write stored procedures in the .NET language of your choice. Class runs through Friday. So after hours, I have to do my real project work to stay on schedule. The real excitement was that exactly at 5:00 p.m. a lightning bolt struck a power station in the area and blacked out most of Bellevue. We thought it was the instructor's way of telling us it was time to go home.
Also this week, we toured Microsoft's House of tomorrow. Lots of cool stuff. Lots of neat ideas. We also exited "brown bag" mode, delivering our 1st required brown bag sessions. My Wingman delivered his canned presentation. And I learned that if 160 people RSVP as attending, then about 50 of them will show up. Or 1/3rd.
Finally, last night was call-sign night. Over pizza, beer and bowling we now have lovingly assigned code names. Super Size, Magnet, Miner, Sniper, Hurricane, Bont, Seahawk and Pointman are the Q405 Band of Brothers.
On my project I have finished one evaluation and am making progress on #2. In a company this size, there's bound to be someone who's already using the products, if they're any good. So I asked the vendors for contacts. I've talked with some of my fellow workers in various spots around the globe. Another interesting benefit of this position.
The "big deal" this past week was delivering the first draft of our presentation. We all thought 15 minutes would be hard to fill but it turned to be hard to limit to that little time. All went pretty well, except of course the Sun guys. We are FAR better than all of theirs!
Now polishing the presentation based on feedback from the coaches and director to make them look like a single work of art. Next week we do round 2 with 30 minutes of time to chew up.
This week I am in SQL Server 2005 class, learning about some of the new cool stuff. As usual, SQL Server is adding features that have been available for a release or two in Oracle. Stuff like "partition by" and Row_Count(), synonyms and schemas. Also lots of XML support as well as being able to write stored procedures in the .NET language of your choice. Class runs through Friday. So after hours, I have to do my real project work to stay on schedule. The real excitement was that exactly at 5:00 p.m. a lightning bolt struck a power station in the area and blacked out most of Bellevue. We thought it was the instructor's way of telling us it was time to go home.
Also this week, we toured Microsoft's House of tomorrow. Lots of cool stuff. Lots of neat ideas. We also exited "brown bag" mode, delivering our 1st required brown bag sessions. My Wingman delivered his canned presentation. And I learned that if 160 people RSVP as attending, then about 50 of them will show up. Or 1/3rd.
Finally, last night was call-sign night. Over pizza, beer and bowling we now have lovingly assigned code names. Super Size, Magnet, Miner, Sniper, Hurricane, Bont, Seahawk and Pointman are the Q405 Band of Brothers.
