My #SQLSaturday presentation on networking is viewable online #SQLSatAlbany #SQLSat961

I recorded my SQL Saturday session from this past weekend. If anyone is interested in checking out my presentation titled: "Networking 101: Building Professional Relationships," it is now viewable online! If you have an hour to kill, click here to see my presentation!

Impressions of a virtual #SQLSaturday — the debrief #SQLSat961 #SQLSatAlbany

Yesterday, we (our local user group) hosted SQL Saturday for the seventh time. As many of you know, I love SQL Saturday. It's one of my favorite events to attend, and I credit SQL Saturday for boosting my career in a number of ways. I've also made many friends through my involvement with SQL Saturday. …

#SQLSaturday #961 Albany — TOMORROW! July 25 #SQLSat961 #SQLSatAlbany

IMPORTANT!  If you are attending SQL Saturday, you MUST register on the SQL Saturday website (NOT Meetup or Facebook) at https://www.sqlsaturday.com/961! This is a reminder that tomorrow, July 25, CASSUG will host Albany SQL Saturday for the seventh time!  And for the first time, Albany SQL Saturday is going virtual! We will have a full day of great …

Don’t overlook your references #JobHunt

This morning, I had a conversation with a friend -- a former coworker from a previous job -- whom I listed as one of my references. He told me that he had a good conversation with a gentleman with whom I recently interviewed (whether or not I get the job remains to be seen). This …

#PASSSummit 2020 #SQLFamily

It's that time of year, when aspiring PASS speakers find out whether or not they're speaking at PASS Summit. I was fortunate to be selected to speak last year, and I had the time of my life! If you want to read more about it, check out my synopsis of it from last year! I …

Coming up July 25 (a week from Saturday): #SQLSaturday #961, Albany #SQLSatAlb #SQLSatAlbany #SQLSat961

On July 25, a week from Saturday, CASSUG will host SQL Saturday #961, Albany! This is a daylong conference covering a variety of data, technical, and professional topics! And this year, we are going virtual, so you don't have to be in Albany to attend! To register for the event, and for more information, go …

#SQL101: Create tables from CSV flat files

With my previous article about getting into REST applications, I figured it would be a good idea for me to set up a data source so I could practice. Besides, I had reinstalled SQL Server 2019 on my machine, and I needed to import some data so that I could brush up on my SQL …

#REST101: Pardon me, I’m RESTing

As my job hunt has progressed (or stalled, depending on what the case may be), I see a lot of programmer and developer jobs that look for REST API experience. While I do have object-oriented programming experience, a lot of it came about before REST became a widespread term. And since I've been out of …

Notes are not documentation

Since I speak frequently at SQL Saturday, much of my audience is usually made up of data professionals. So whenever I do my presentation about technical writing or talking to non-technical people, I always ask the following question: do you understand the difference between data and information? For those of you who don't understand what …

Ghostwriting — the art of writing for someone else

One of the new projects I've taken on is ghostwriting 'blog articles for one of my clients. While I have plenty of technical writing experience -- where I take a topic or application that isn't mine and try to write about it -- ghostwriting is an entirely new experience for me. Not only is it …