Friday brought some really great sessions, starting with David Campbell's keynote and his discussion of improving the customer experience. I've spent a lot of time in the MSDN forums this year and the Microsoft presence there is strong, and he's responsible for that.
Brad McGehee of SQL-Server-Performance.com gave a very detailed presentation about performance, but it was hard to hear him. After lunch I attended Matt Zito's presentation on Zen and the Art of Database Automation, which was interesting. Matt's a great speaker and I jotted a lot of ideas down to implement when I get back. Peter Ward actually did a great job of presenting SMO at an introductory level, but he started with examples of using first DMO then SMO using VBScript, and I learned a while ago you can't manage your servers using SMO and VBScript. You can manage your local default instance but you can't define a server to connect to.
Chuck Boyce had asked me to stop by early in the week to do a podcast, and I kept forgetting, so I joined him at his ad hoc studio, and he had Louis Davidson and me interview each other. It was fun getting to know Louis that way, and I hope Chuck's happy with the podcast.
After the conference I went out to dinner with my international friends Morten Baden Rohde and Johan Bijnens before turning in for an early night. Tomorrow is the Big Game, my Ohio State Buckeyes dotting the I on that number 1 season against that team up north. The news today about the passing of Bo Schembechler was sad, he was a great coach and a great man, but he would have wanted both teams to put their best effort on the field, and it's time to do that. I'll be watching the game from the Sport Restaurant and Bar in Seattle with the OSU Alumni who gather there every game.
GO BUCKS!
Allen