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Perfecting my presentations

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After a considerable amount of “umming and ahhing” last year I decided to start presenting full hour long sessions. Well, I decided to start submitting sessions to events and see what happened.

I’d presented a few lightening talks at SQL Saturdays and my local user group so I wanted to see if I could actually present a 60 minute long session to a group of my peers.

At first it really was just to see if I could do it. Public speaking terrifies me and I honestly thought I’d clam up and not be able to say a single word. But I started submitting…like crazy.

The first full session I did was at SQL Saturday Iceland and oh boy, was I nervous. I was on at 3pm and I think I spent most of that day wandering around the venue, trying not to freak out.

And then I was on. I was nervous but managed to get through it. All my demos worked, the attendees asked questions at the end (which to me means that I conveyed the topic clearly) and I finished on time, so goal achieved!

As the year went on, it became not just about being able to present my session but being able to present a high quality, thought provoking, well delivered session. I now knew that I could do it, it’s now about how well I can do it.

And that’s what I want to build on this year. I’ve got a couple of new sessions written and I’ll be presenting the first of them at SQL Bits in February.

I’m still working on the demos, I want them to be broken down into easy to understand parts so that each attendee will be able to download and run through with ease. That’s the key part for me.

As long as the demos work, the slides come second. I’m not great at designing slides so I keep them minimal, just with the points on that I’m trying to get across and I practice without looking at them (to avoid the dreaded “reading what’s on the slides” presentation).

So over the next year I’m hoping that I can build on the skills that I already have and be able to deliver the highest quality presentations that I can.

I’m really looking forward to the challenge.

Have a good week!

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Friday Reading 2018-01-19

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It’s been absolutely freezing here in Dublin this week. Been spending pretty much all time wrapped up indoors reading…

Discussing PASS Linux Content with OVA Winner Tracy Boggiano
Tracy Boggiano (b|t) talks to PASS about Linux content in the PASS Virtual Groups

Best newish SSMS feature
Jason Brimhall (t) shows us how to enable the scrollbar map in SSMS

When A Log Backup Does Not Truncate Your SQL Server Log Files In An Availability Group
Edwin Sarmiento (t) explains a situation where logs files won’t be truncated when a database is in an availability group and how you can monitor

Pester 4.2.0 has a Because…… because 🙂
Rob Sewell (t) details the Because parameter in the Pester pre-release version 4.2.0

How I designed my VMware vSAN based Home Lab
Klaus Aschenbrenner (t) goes into detail on the specs of his home lab (v. cool)

A Closer Look at OUTPUT
Mark Wilkinson (t) shows us some interesting ways to use the OUTPUT clause

Have a good weekend!

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Using Windows stored credentials to connect to SQL in containers

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I work with SQL Server in containers pretty much exclusively when testing code and one of my real bug bears is that SQL Server in containers does not support Windows authentication (unless you’re using Windocks).

So when I’m working I find it quite annoying to have to specify a SA username & password when I want to connect.

OK, I can use Get-Credential, assign to a variable, and then reference that in a connection string but I want something a bit more permanent especially as I always use the same password for all my containers (shoot me, it’s local dev 🙂 )

What I’ve setup on my laptop is a stored credential using the CredentialManager powershell module.

Here’s how it works, first I create the credential: –

Import-Module CredentialManager

New-StoredCredential -Target "SqlDocker" -UserName "sa" -Password "Testing1122" -Persist LocalMachine

The -Persist LocalMachine allows me to reference this credential in other sessions as the default scope is session only. I can check this in another session by running: –

Get-StoredCredential -Target "SqlDocker"

So now run a container (using the same credentials as stored above): –

docker run -d -p 15789:1433 `
    --env ACCEPT_EULA=Y `
        --env SA_PASSWORD=Testing1122 `
            --name testcontainer microsoft/mssql-server-linux:latest

And now use the credential to connect to the container. I’m going to drop it into the dbatools Connect-DbaInstance cmdlet to pull information back about the SQL instance within the container: –

# set credential to variable
$cred = Get-StoredCredential -Target "SqlDocker"

# connect to Sql using credential
$srv = Connect-DbaInstance 'localhost,15789' -Credential $cred
    $srv.Edition
    $srv.HostDistribution
    $srv.HostPlatform
    $srv.Version

Boom! Connected to the SQL instance within the container using the stored credential. No more fudging passwords when typing out commands 🙂

Thanks for reading!

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Time to find a new place to live

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Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been looking at various different locations around Dublin as my tenancy in the current flat that I’m in has run out.

There’s a bit of a housing problem in Dublin at the moment so it really hasn’t been easy but I’ve managed to find a place that ticks all the boxes. And you know what was the number one thing I looked at when searching for a place?

Broadband speed.

OK, so I didn’t just look at that. I did take the area, location to local amenities, and the size/price of the property into consideration but on all those things I was willing to compromise, not so with broadband.

I’ve been told that this is “a first world problem” and I agree but due to the industry I work in and my personal commitments, living in a place with terrible (or even worse, no) internet would be an absolute disaster for me.

The next year is going to be critical and I need a place that I can base myself and not have to worry about whether or not the internet is going to be an issue.

Hopefully the place I’ve found will provide that and I can concentrate on what matters. Really looking forward to it if I’m honest (apart from the actual process of moving, that sucks).

So, what’s the one thing that you look for when deciding on where to live? How high up is broadband speed on your list?

Have a good week!

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Friday Reading 2018-01-11

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Phew, what a week! Have been looking for a new flat to live so it’s been a bit mad. Have hopefully found a place, let the paperwork begin!

In between running around like a madman, I’ve been reading…

Free SQL Server Quizzes
Kendra Little (t) has written a whole bunch of tests on various aspects of SQL! Try your knowledge 🙂

RIP Swag Bags (and some other changes for SQL Relay 2018)
Alex Yates (t) drawing on experiences from SQL Relay 2017 and the changes to SQL Relay 2018

SQL Server 2017 CU2 Bug with msdb Compatibility Mode
Tracy Boggiano (t) details a bug with SQL Server 2017 CUs (yep, it’s in CU3 too)

SQL Server Configurations – Back to Basics
I’ve been working on automated checking of SQL config settings. Always good to have a refresher, here’s Jason Brimhall’s (t) back to basics article

Kubernetes Deployments Compared To Docker Swarm Stacks
With Docker announcing support for Kubernetes (it’s out for Docker on MAC), what is the difference between K8 & Swarm? Viktor Farcic (t) discusses

Have a good weekend!