Todd's Blog

OttawaSQL.net User Group Event – Thursday February 12th, 2009

posted on February 6, 2009

Thursday, February 12^th 5:45 – 8:30 PM

Free Evening Event @ Microsoft Ottawa

Feature Session: You can do *that* with Entity Framework?, Julie Lerman

OttawaSQL.net in partnership with the Ottawa .NET Community is proud to announce Julie Lerman’s session on the ADO.NET Entity Framework.

The ADO.NET Entity Framework is Microsoft’s new data access technology that can change the way you perceive and work with your application’s data. Julie will present a very high level overview for newbies then dive into some of the not quite so obvious things that can be done with Entity Framework such as adding business logic to entity classes, writing generic (reusable) code, taking advantage of Entity SQL and working directly with foreign key values.

Speaker: Julie Lerman, The Data Farm

Julie Lerman

Julie Lerman is an independent consultant and .NET Mentor who has been designing and writing software applications for over 20 years. Julie is well known in the .NET community as a Microsoft MVP, ASPInsider and INETA Speaker. Julie lives in Vermont where she runs the Vermont.NET User Group.

Julie is the author of O’Reilly’s “Programming Entity Framework” (available for pre-order at Amazon.ca). You can read Julie’s blog at www.thedatafarm.com/blog. She is a prolific blogger, a frequent presenter at technical conferences around the world and author of articles in well-known technical publications.

Product Showcase: RedGate Software’s SQL Refactor, David E. Myers

SQL Refactor is an excellent choice for any SQL developer’s tool kit. David will demonstrate the ‘Layout SQL’ feature that increases productivity by formatting T-SQL code quickly and consistently across the development team. He will also show the capability for applying changes to database objects while effortlessly keeping dependant objects in sync.

Speaker: David E. Myers, Upper Canada District School Board

David is a DBA and SQL Developer and is the OttawaSQL.net Executive Director for 2008. He primarily works with SQL Server but is increasingly working with the SharePoint Business Data Catalog and Microsoft BI technologies. David recently presented at Tech Days Canada 2008 in Montreal and Ottawa.

David E. Myers

Location:

Microsoft Ottawa, World Exchange Plaza

100 Queen Street, Suite 500, Ottawa

Registration:

RSVP: http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=135501

Arrival: 5:30 PM to 5:45 PM

Product Showcase: 5:45 PM to 6:00 PM

Feature Session: 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM

Refreshments: Pizza and Pop

Event Sponsors:

SQLTeach Special Event: BI Boot Camp, March 9^th to 10^th in Ottawa!!!

Use our group’s rebate code OT00SQLNET to register and save $100 off the $999 registration!

Business Intelligence is one of the topmost IT priorities and is increasingly pervasive within organizations large and small. Business Intelligence touches many aspects of our daily lives, from enhancing our online and retail shopping experience to the healthcare we receive. BI also impacts the quality of decisions that business leaders make.

The 2 day (March 9-10, 2009) boot camp has been designed to give you a head start in Business Intelligence practice. You will acquire fundamental knowledge of Business Intelligence and dimensional modeling along with understanding on how to use the various Microsoft technologies to implement a BI solution.

OttawaSQL.net is a community group of Ottawa area developers and IT professionals. We share an interest in Microsoft’s data technologies especially: SQL Server, SharePoint, PerformancePoint, Workflow Foundations, LINQ, ADO.NET and Entity Framework.

Exam 70-646 – Preparations for My Next Exam

posted on February 6, 2009

I am preparing to start studying for my next Microsoft exam. The exam I am working on will be 70-646, PRO: Windows Server 2008, Server Administrator. In my preparations, I am going to use the MCITP Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-646): Windows Server 2008 Administratorexam preparation book to study for the exam. I bought this book last fall from Amazon.ca, as with the OWSUG study groups, we always used the MS Press books and found them to be the best resource for subject material when preparing for the exam. I also find that its definitely less expensive to get my books from the online stores versus a physical brick and mortar store.

When I read the books, I find that writing out brief points about what is covered in each section helps me remember what I read. I will take my notes and put them up on my blog; probably post dating them so it works out that 2 chapters a week get posted to the site. My plan is to write the exam next Thursday, but I may move that date out another week if I don’t get a chance to get a good solid study in over this weekend.

Windows 7 – Changes to Run As

posted on February 5, 2009

David Myers has a great post today on the changes to Windows 7 when using Run As.

For those that don’t know. David and I spent many hours together driving back and forth from the Certification Study Group in Ottawa for a couple of years and we both did our Train the Trainer course for our MCTs together back in 2007. While the certification groups are on a hiatus right now, we still do stuff together through the user groups, OWSUG & OttawaSQL.net.

David has accounts that he uses for SQL Server that he needs to run commands as. With Vista, he had to create batch files for programs that he needed to run as the SQL account. Now with Window 7, he just holds shift when right clicking on the program and now another option shows up, Run As Another User. I never would have noticed this as I have my domain user account that I use for my day to day stuff, and the system will prompt me for the domain admin account to load drivers, apps, etc. I don’t have a need right now to run stuff as different domain user account.

Go check out his blog at DavidEMyers.com and have a look what he’s discovered new in Windows 7.

Great work pointing out that new feature David.