24 Hours of PASS March Sessions Announced

The 24 Hours of Pass sessions for March 2011 have been announced. Here is an extract from the site.

Hear from SQL Server and BI experts such as Jen McCown, Karen Lopez, Michelle Ufford, Wendy Patrick and Cindy Gross, just to name a few! Check out the great sessions in store and be sure to save the dates. Online registration will open soon; visit the 24 Hours of PASS website often for information updates.

Here is a list of the sessions in the BI Track, DBA Track and Dev Track. Can't wait to register!

BI Track
Session 02 (BI) – Start time 13:00 GMT on March 15
Dashboards Design and Practice using SSRS
Presenter: Jen Stirrup

Session 05 (BI) - Start time: 16:00 GMT on March 15
Cool Tricks to Pull From Your SSIS Hat
Presenter: Julie Smith

Session 09 (BI) – Start time 20:00 GMT on March 15
Multidimensional Thinking
Presenter: Stacia Misner

Session 12 (BI) – Start time 23:00 GMT on March 15
Many-to-Many Dimensions – ETL to Cube
Presenters: Lisa Phillip

Session 13 (BI) – Start time: 12:00 GMT on March 16
Reporting Services 201: the Next Level
Presenter: Jes Borland

Session 17 (BI) - Start time 16:00 GMT on March 16
Tips & Tricks for Dynamic Reporting Services Reports
Presenter: Pam Shaw

Session 19 (BI) - Start time 18:00 GMT on March 16
Intelligent ETL with SQL Server
Presenter: Jyoti Gupta

Session 20 (BI) - Start time 19:00 GMT on March 16
Clever Queries: Crafting MDX Queries to get the Most out of SSRS
Presenter: Erika Bakse

Session 22 (BI) - Start time 21:00 GMT on March 16
What You Don’t Know about SSRS 2008R2
Presenter: Kathi Kellenberger

DBA Track Session 01 (DBA) – Start time 12:00 GMT on March 15
SQL Server AlwaysOn: the Next Generation High Availability Solution
Presenter: Lara Rubbelke

Session 04 (DBA) - Start time 15:00 GMT on March 15
SQL Server Performance Tools
Presenter: Cindy Gross

Session 07 (DBA) – Start time 18:00 GMT on March 15
SQL Server Performance
Presenter: Isabel de la Barra

Session 10 (DBA) – Start time 21:00 GMT on March 15
Bad Plan! Sit!
Presenter: Gail Shaw

Session 11 (DBA) – Start time 22:00 GMT on March 15
Indexes and Execution Plans
Presenter: Kim Tessereau

Session 14 (DBA): Start time 13:00 GMT on March 16
Replication, Log Shipping and Mirroring: Oh My!
Presenter: Wendy Pastrick

Session 16 (DBA) – Start time 15:00 GMT on March 16
All about SQL Server Memory Settings for DBAs
Presenter: Vyshnavi Thota

Session 23 (DBA) - Start time 22:00 GMT on March 16
Index Internals for Mere Mortals
Presenter: Michelle Ufford

Session 24 (DBA) - Start time 23:00 GMT on March 16
TwitterData on Azure (end-to-end demo) – How We Did It
Presenter: Lynn Langit

Dev Track
Session 03 (Dev) - Start time 14:00 GMT on March 15
Spatial Data: Cooler Than You’d Think
Presenter: Hope Foley

Session 06 (Dev) – Start time 17:00 GMT on March 15
No More Bad Dates: Using Temporal Data Wisely
Presenter: Kendra Little

Session 08 (Dev) – Start time 19:00 GMT on March 15
T-SQL Code Sins: The Worst Things We Do to Code and Why
Presenter: Jen McCown

Session 15 (Dev) – Start time 14:00 GMT on March16
Entity Framework: Not as Evil as You May Think
Presenter: Julie Lerman

Session 18 (Dev) – Start time 17:00 GMT on March 16
T-SQL Awesomeness: 3 Ways to Write Cool SQL
Presenter: Audrey Hammonds

Session 21 (Dev) – Start time 20:00 GMT on March 16
Five Physical Database Design Blunders and How to Avoid Them
Presenter: Karen Lopez

SQL Bits Content

I came across this link on SQL Bits where there are about 164 videos on various aspects of SQL Server and sharepoint which I found useful. Altogether there are 215 articles.

Have a look at the compiled sessions and content page.

SSWUG Free Expo Event: SQL Server Performance Monitoring and Tuning -- Jan 14 9 am to 1 pm PST

Today I received an email about the free virtual expo from SSWUG

Here is an excerpt from the email.

Sessions will cover the following topics:

• SQL Statement Tuning with Indexing Strategies (Presented by Kevin Kline)
• Performance Tuning SSIS (Presented by Brian Knight)
• Using DMVs to Diagnose Performance Issues with High OTLP Workloads (Presented by Glenn Berry)
• Implementing Resource Governor (Presented by Buck Woody)

With registration, all attendees will also receive a complimentary month of full membership to SSWUG.org, where they can learn even more about SQL Server and other databases and database technologies through in-depth articles, podcasts, how-to videos and more. All the content will also be able for seven calendar days after Jan. 14, allowing attendees to revisit key portions of information at a convenience.

Please register now to save your place for this information-packed expo!

So register and enjoy!

Shortcut to enable Fullscreen in SSMS

Today I was experimenting with the query results in Sql server management studio and saw this shortcut in he View menu of the SSMS.

So in order to show full screen I tried the shortcut -- Shift + Alt + Enter. The same shortcut works to come out of the full screen mode as well. What the full screen does is closes all the other windows and like object explorer, registered servers etc that you have open and maximises the query and results windows.

Likewise if you want to go to the properties just press F4.
To get the Solution Explorer window the shortcut is Ctrl + Alt + L
To get the Toolbox window -- the shortcut is Ctrl + Alt + X

Hope these shortcuts are useful for you.

Have you heard about BizIntelligence TV ?

Yesterday I came across this blog on MSDN by Bruno Aziza.

Bruno says that Biz Intelligence TV is a new and innovative way to let industry leaders express and gain access to thought-leadership on Business Intelligence. The goal of the BizIntelligence.TV program is to start an ongoing conversation by providing compelling content from peers and industry stars.

Here is the Biz Intelligence TV channel on Youtube

SSIS 2008: Tips and Tricks video by Steve Swartz

Today I listened to this very good informative video by Steve Swartz which I wanted to share with you all.

This is a presentation by Steve Swartz in the Microsoft TechEd Europe 2010. In this presentation Steve says that he desires to teach you how to fish rather than give the fish itself.

Thanks to Steve for posting this.

SSAS Interview Questions

I was looking for some SSAS interview questions and found some very good resources on the web.

The links are below.
SSAS Interview Questions from Siddharth Mehta's blog
Sql Server 2005 Analysis Services Interview Questions
Dave Rodabaugh's Analysis Services interview questions
SSAS MDX Query interview questions
SSAS interview questions for MDX from Learn Microsoft BI
MDX Questions from datawarehousing guide

Hopefully these resources are useful for you as well.

Happy New Year 2011 to Everyone

My first post this year is to wish all the readers here a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

As the new year blossoms, may the journey of your life be fragrant with new opportunities, your days be bright with new hopes and your heart be happy with love!
My main new year resolution is to start the certification process to achieve Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) Microsoft SQL SERVER 2008, Business Intelligence Development and Maintenance.

I have no doubt I will be using all the resources available here on BIDN in addition to getting some formal training in order to achieve that.

I look forward to all the suggestions in order to achieve this from all of the certified professionals in this area.