Rick Heiges

Today is that awkward Sunday between the AFC/NFC Championship games. The hype is continuing to escalate.

If you are starving for some football info, I have some news that is SQL Server related.  Back in August, SQL Server Central started a Fantasy Football League that I was fortunate to get in.  I've been dabbling in Fantasy Football for about 5 years and never really did well enough to brag.  This year, I was able to win 2 of the 4 Fantasy Football Leagues that I was involved in.  My team was titled “Order by Pts Desc”. The other league I won was my neighborhood  league; I have already gloated about my winnings to my neighbors, but not out here in the SQL Server Community.  So I thought this week, I'd talk a little football and gloat a little.

Superbowl Prediction:  Patriots over the Eagles 27-17.  I will be routing for the Eagles.

I am a Steeler Fan.  I was very happy with the season and the play of Big Ben.  I heard that shortly after the Steeler loss last week to the Patriots, there were some knuckleheads calling for Bill Cowher's resignation.  All Bill Cowher did this year was lead the team to a 15-1 (16-2 overall including playoffs).  Talk about a “What have you done for me lately” syndrome.....

I know that the Express Manager has been out since December, but I didn't have the opportunity to explore it until now.

First, the good:  It is Fast, lightweight, and clean.  I can see this tool being used by developers who want to get in quickly to a DB and get some info and pop back out.  The line numbers are nice too.

The Opportunity for Improvement:  Help is not really there.  Environment is not “tunable” to fit your needs.  It also seems to be missing just a little “something”.  I'm not sure how to describe it other than it isn't there yet.

Obviously, this is the first cut of this tool.  It is much better than MSDE's tools. ;-)  It really can't have a whole bunch of features in it, or it wouldn't be fast / clean anymore.  There is room for iprovement, and I'm sure that it will happen.

On Jan 18 at the Westin Galleria in Dallas, better than 950 SQL Server professionals attended the 1-day free event at the Westin.  Bill Baker gave the keynote and said that SQL Server 2005 would ship this Summer and to also consult the calendar on when Summer officially ends.

I attended breakout sessions on Security, Data Warehousing Enhancements, High Availability, and Internals.  Of course, there was a strong marketing message from Microsoft, but not all of the speakers were MSFT employees.  The main focus was 2005 and the neat features coming your way.

Perhaps the thing that I enjoyed the most was catching up with some folks that I have not seen in a while.  Networking with other professionals is perhaps the biggest benefit of events like these.  Thanks to everyone who dropped by the booth to say “Hi“.  I enjoyed meeting you.

There were about 12 exhibitors.  SWAG was OK.  It seems like most exhibitors are going for the one big giveaway instead of the everyone gets something approach.  This is OK, but I'd like to win sometime. ;-)

As a reminder, PASS will be at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine this September.  Hope to see you then!

Microsoft is hosting a FREE 1-day SQL Server event called the SQL Server Summit on Jan 18th at the Westin Galleria Hotel in Dallas, TX.  Go to MS Events to sign-up!

Bill Baker will be dooing the Keynote with break out sessions the rest of the day focusing mainly on SQL Server 2005.  SQL Server 2000 will of course still be discussed.

They are expecting around 700-1100 folks at this event.  If you attend, stop by the Scalability Experts booth in the partner pavillion to say “hi”.

BTW - I have also disabled comments on postings due to spam.