Applied Team System

More Pictures From the Richmond Heroes Happen {Here} Event!

andy — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 17:22:00 GMT

Susan presents SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services.

Awesome introduction about installation, configuration, and security! Thanks Susan!

Tickets! Get your swag tickets!

Can you see the clock cycles? Well? Can you? I can.

Who let this guy in? I thought there was a sign-up sheet...

Thanks!

This has been an awesome, awesome day! Thanks Steve Fibich for taking point and leading the organization effort. Thanks Ron Deskins for your tireless efforts on behalf of the Richmond Developer Community. Thanks to Susan, Steve, and Kevin for sharing your knowledge in outstanding presentations. Thanks Kevin, Justin, Harper, Bob, Bruce, and everyone else who came out to participate - adding to the knowledge exchange with your excellent questions and interaction.

Great work team!

Special thanks to Brock Barnett and the great team at MaconIT (Carin and Gregg)! Every time we have an event in the Richmond Developer Community, MaconIT always steps up to support us, without hesitation or question. I love you guys (and I'm including you in "guys" Carin - no offense...)! the subs were awesome!

Solid Quality Mentors provided breakfast (Panera Bread - mmmmm....) and a voucher for training at an upcoming Solid Quality Directions event! Special thanks to Solid Quality!

Microsoft - as always - is our rock for these events. The big reason for this - at least in Richmond - is TBDDEOTP (The Best Damn Developer Evangelist On The Planet): G. Andrew Duthie, aka DevHammer.

:{> Andy

Live (sort of - 16 Aug 2008) From The Richmond Heroes Happen Here Event!

andy — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 15:31:00 GMT

16 Aug 2008

Today we're holding the Heroes Happen Here Event in Richmond, Virginia!

Susan Lennon is presenting on SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services (SSRS). Kevin Hazzard is presenting on Visual Studio 2008 SP1 changes. Steve Fibich is talking about SQL Server 2008 and Powershell during lunch. And I just finished talking about Change Data Capture and SQL Server 2008 Integration Services (SSIS).

Here are some pictures from the event (so far):

Lots of folks in attendance!

See? I told you there are lots!

Steve Fibich following Kevin Hazzard's presentation...

James is enjoying himself!

Kevin presenting. Emma thinks Kevin looks like Santa Claus - he does have a beard. :)

Bruce enjoys Kevin Hazzard's presentation!

"Have you seen this boy?" This is Justin!

KevDaDev, the legend, the man, chillin' in the back of the room!

Steve Fibich presents Powershell.

:{> Andy

Hotel Monitor

andy — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:03:00 GMT

Now this is cool! The hotel in Baltimore where I'm staying has a six foot VGA patch cord in the desk drawer and a patch panel mounted on the side of the LCD television stand facing the desk - all to allow me to connect my laptop to the 32" LCD!

I gotta get me one of these for my office!

:{> Andy

Bill Baker's Departure From Microsoft

andy — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 02:00:00 GMT

Introduction

If you work with Microsoft Business Intelliegnce technology there was a huge announcement this week. Yes yes, there was the new release of SQL Server 2008, but that wasn't the big news. The big news is:

The Visionary Has Left The Building

This was my one-line response to an internal email circulated among the Technical Brain Trust at Solid Quality. (My name was mistakenly added to this list and - so far - no one has caught on! Shhhhh...)

The Choir

If you've read anything I have to say about business or developer communities, you already know I'm a huge fan of teams. I go so far as to advocate Leadership Teams for large projects and user groups. Why? Because of a fundamental engineering concept: fault tolerance.

If one of the leaders (or a family member) becomes ill, or get sent out of town, or just needs a personal day off from leading the endeavor; things can still proceed without a hitch.

I refer to a post by Eric Sink - one of my blogging mentors - entitled My Comments on "Hitting The High Notes"; which was, in turn, a commentary on a post by Joel Spolsky - another of my blogging mentors - entitled (you guessed it) Hitting the High Notes.

Eric makes great points about teams (the choir). Joel makes great points about gifted individuals (soloists). Even I commented some, here.

From a purely engineering point of view, teams allow for more dynamic leadership. "Dynamic" is a fun word. We tend to think of dynamic as positive and, for the most part, it is. Here are some non-positive examples of dynamic:

"I just had a dynamic flight."
"My doctor's visit was dynamic."
"My finances are going to be dynamic for a dynamic amount of time until I find a new job."

The Soloist

Soloists are leaders. They are gifted and talented individuals. For whatever reason other people follow them. In fact, that's the best clue that they're leaders: people follow them.

To continue the theme in the last section, this does not make them all good people. Some examples of good leaders who are not good people:

Adolf Hitler
Charles Manson
Jim Jones

Leaders can accomplish great things but - in engineering terms - the model has a single point-of-failure: If the leader is removed from the picture for any reason (I prefer the win-the-lottery reason over the hit-by-a-truck reason... I'm a glass half-full kind of guy...), things quickly grind to a halt.

What Does This Have To Do With Bill Baker?

I'm glad you asked.

Mr. Baker is a visionary leader who (soloist) inspires and builds leadershp teams (choirs). He did it at Microsoft. I bet he did as much of it as he could at Oracle before he came to Microsoft, and I'd be willing to bet he's going to continue to do so at Visibile Technologies.

This combination is the best of all worlds. Mr. Baker is a leader who can manage. He's a team builder. He's inpirational. And his leadership model scales very well.

So Why Is He Leaving?

I honestly don't know.

One thing is certain - and has been certain since Bill Gates announced his plans to step down as Microsoft's Chief Software Architect two years ago: things at Microsoft are... dynamic.

It was bound to happen. No matter how well one plans succession, no matter how much time is alloted for the transfer of ownership and responsibilities, some things change. And change is a dual-edged sword.

Some of the changes I've noted: SQL Server 2008 was released three days ago, a mere 161 days after the launch event in San Francisco.

Select DateDiff(dd, '2/27/2008', '8/6/2008')

I don't know of a single SQL Server professional who was happy with this decision. And while I don't think it ruined or harmed SQL Server 2008's reputation in any way, it did leave a lot of geeks scratching our heads and asking "Why are they doing this now?"

It's a visible tip of an iceberg, to be sure, but it signals a difference in the way Microsoft operates, and that difference is a trend towards a more marketing-think.

Is Marketing Bad?

No. Let me make that perfectly clear. I say that because I believe it in my heart of hearts. I also say it because I believe it in my stomach of stomachs. Marketing pays a lot of my bills. They do a bunch with Business Intelligence, and I work in the Business Intelligence field.

More than that, marketing is really a communications vehicle. It lets us know about cool stuff coming down the pike and in the pipe at companies like Microsoft.

What Is Bad?

Anything out of balance. That's bad.

So Is Microsoft Out Of Balance?

I don't think so. You have to remember I'm an outsider looking in. Although I'm an MVP and have some visibility into a team or two, I'm not privy to much more than anyone else outside the company.

I think things are dynamic. And we've already discussed that dynamic is good and bad.

So What Do You Think?

I think Microsoft has lost an incredibly talented and gifted visionary, leader, and team builder named Bill... Gates. I think they lost another one named Bill Baker. And if I were a betting man, I'd wager they will lose more talent in the months ahead.

At the same time, I think they have been attracting and recruiting the next Bill Bakers and adding some of them to the fold. I have knowledge of some of these efforts and applaud them.

These folks have joined or will join Microsoft. They will engage, impact Microsoft technology, and probably leave when they feel so inclined. Lord willing, I will be writing about their departure in 2018, and still wondering about why they left!

Conclusion

Attrition is a function of entropy. It is going to happen whether we like it or not. This is the #1 reason I advocate Leadership Teams in Developer Communities.

All in all, it's good for the software ecosystem, even if some teams - particularly those who lose their awesome leaders - are impacted, even temporarily. Change is inevitable. And Microsoft manages change well - they've demonstrated as much a dozen times.

I'm sad to see Mr. Baker leave Microsoft. I applaud his efforts, vision, leadership, execution, and style; and wish him success in his new position.

:{> Andy

Riley's Birthday and Christy's New Camera

andy — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 08:22:00 GMT

Happy Birthday Boof!

I'm a little late blogging this - Riley's first birthday was last Sunday!

Here we are on the big day:

We wore our spiffy new orange-ish colored shirts and khaki pants to church Sunday morning to celebrate. Why orange-ish? Not sure. Christy dressed Riley and I matched him. Manda gave me a Hokie-colored polo shirt for Father's Day (have I mentioned that every day is Father's Day around here?).

One of Riley's first "words" (a sound really, but he made it a lot) was "boof". He would look at me when he was a couple months old and say "Boof," to which I would respond, "Are you calling me Boof?" And he would laugh. So I sometimes call him Boof. Hopefully that won't stick as a nickname...

We had Boof's Big Birthday Bash (B4) the day before. A lot of the family made it over for a cookout and it was a nice day - the humidity settled down some and we enjoyed a consistent breeze on the deck. Here's Mom and Jimmy Lee:

Here's Mark (Merdoc), Sandy, and Alison:

Here's Jason and Kim:

And here's Manda, Tim, and Penny:

Riley scored way too many toys and enjoyed playing with them and the wrapping paper and bags they came in.

Christy amazed everyone (again) with her awesome culinary skills. The bacon-wrapped BBQ chicken bites didn't last long at all! And the mini-cupcake pops were a huge hit:

The evening didn't end until late, after a marathon Rock Band session courtesy of Jason and his kewl game console. I got to be the drummer. Yay. For the record: Most bands are composed of a singer, one or more musicians, and a drummer.

Here's Emma rockin' out on lead in her princess PJ's - it was definitely past her bedtime:

After almost everyone had left, I inflicted my singing on the those remaining and the hostages (kids). I actually pulled off a 98% (Medium) on Synchronicity II - without going falsetto. Take that.

We had fun!

Christy's New Camera

On another note, Christy is working on a cool new project that I cannot publicly talk about yet. But I can tell you it's new. And it's cool. And it's a project.

She needed to take better pictures as part of it so we picked up a Nikon D80 digital SLR camera for her. The most important thing about her getting a new camera is that I get the old one.

Christy's been reading up on digital photography and snapping pictures around the house like crazy. As of this writing we're still waiting on one lens, an 18-70mm. Nikkor lenses are tough to find for some reason. She bought the last 50mm / 1.8f in southern Virginia on Thursday - and had to check stores in Roanoke and Lynchburg to find that one.

Here's a few of her shots - included in this post for comparison with the old (my new!) digital camera.

Emma:

Riley:

Riley hasn't been drinking. Well, not that we know of... He was coming down with a nasty sore throat when this was taken. Hence the read eyes and flushed cheeks. Stevie is starting with it now, and I plan to catch it when I leave town tomorrow to deliver the SSIS for DBAs course in Maryland.

Stevie:

I love this shot. He's in my office. That's my wallpaper in the background - Ward Cleaver would be proud. Stevie Ray's a handsome boy - watch out ladies!

Stevie and Emma:

Here are Stevie Ray and Emma Grace out back on the swingset. They are both on the same part of the swingset and not fighting - making this is a rare photo...

Note: the eyes are not photoshopped - they have their mother's beautiful eyes. I'm no expert on photography (or anything really) but I think these are great pictures! Part of it is having a nice camera. Christy also has a good eye - and it shows! And (grabbing some credit here), we make cute kids.

Here's hoping you are having a great summer. Things are fun here in Farmville.

:{> Andy

Good Friends, Good Food

andy — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:20:00 GMT

I was surprised last night.

Andrew Duthie - aka TBDDEOTP (The Best Damn Developer Evangelist On The Planet) - called me a few weeks back and said "Let's have dinner, and bring your family. In hindsight, I should've suspected something but I didn't. We set up a dinner meeting at Maggiano's Little Italy in Short Pump. Christy and the kids all piled into the LeonardMobile and headed northeast to Richmond, none the wiser to Andrew's masterful plan.

Imagine my surprise when I asked to join the "Duthie Party" and we were led to the section containing large tables. I thought "Why are we stopping here? We probably have a booth for the six of us."

Ha.

Andrew had gathered most of the folks involved in the Richmond Developer Community leadership and they were waiting for us when we arrived. Susan and Gary travelled all the way from Virginia Beach, and Robin made the trip in from Roanoke. Kevin Israel was there - fresh off a road trip where his daughter placed 19th in the nation in baton twirling - congratulations Israels! Kevin Hazzard was sitting next to him - both had that we-need-to-get-started-on-Code-Camp anxious look on their faces. Justin Etheredge and I got to hang out most of the night. He got to experience Riley wiggling (it was Riley's bedtime and he'd missed a nap) while I asked him "Do you have kids? Do you want one? Now?" ;) Frank planned to be there (driving all the way from NoVa like Andrew) but was unable to make it due to family stuff.

Frank, I missed you buddy. You let me help out in Richmond and got me started with the Developer Community here. You are my Community Mentor. You taught me how to give back - not with words and definitely not with lectures, but by your actions. I wouldn't be as involved as I am were it not for you. I definitely would not be an MVP. I can't adequately express how much I appreciate you sir. Thank you Brother.

It was a really really cool time. Andrew presented me a cool Red Zune with this inscribed on the back:

How cool!

As I've stated time and time again, the Richmond Developer Community succeeds because of an outstanding team of leaders. I'm honored to be part of the team and proud of the successes we've enjoyed. It's been a privilege to participate and I am going to miss working with these exceptional folks. To these and the other leaders in our community I say: I love you and will fondly remember our good times.

:{> Andy

PS - Andrew, this Zune ROCKS! :{D

For Sale: Pre-Geeked Home Near Farmville, VA

andy — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 17:26:00 GMT

Well it's official. The listing for the house is live.

That's not our house in the background, it's our neighbor's. But that is our driveway.

The house has everything I was looking for when I buy a house:

Close to town but not in town.
Quiet neighbrohood.
Land. This place has 3 acres.
High-speed internet access. I have 10M DSL.
Pizza delivery. (Self-explanatory)
Four bedrooms, lots of storage, large kitchen, large playroom for the kids. (2,258 square feet of living space)
Great yard with just the right amount of 50-80 year old hardwoods trees.
"Charm."
A garden plot. (The tomatoes are planted!)
A large deck.
Did I mention how quiet it is?

In addition to all that, we are located:

Two miles from Briery Creek Lake, one of the best large-mouthed bass fisheries in southside Virginia;
Two miles from The Manor Golf Club and planned resort / conference center;
Less than five miles from the south side of Farmville which includes (on this side of town) a new Lowes (opened Jan 2008), a new YMCA (opened May 2008), and a Walmart Super Center.

I wish I could take a picture of the morning sky out here when I get up to head into Richmond to catch a flight or work some mornings. Regardless of the temperature, I usually spend several minutes "just hanging around" outside before I get in the car to leave. It is spectacular in the mornings, very peaceful and picturesque.

I love that we get all four seasons here. And we're two hours from the mountains and scenic Skyline Drive (which you have to drive one day in late September / early October - no one does colors quite like God). We're also about two and a half hours from Virginia Beach. It's a cool place to live.

Downtown Farmville is quaint. There's a historic downtown district. There's Longwood University and just south of town (less than a mile from the house, in fact) Hampden-Sydney College.

The area is surrounded by historical sites including Sayler's Creek Battlefield (the last major battle of the Civil War) and about 20 miles west is Appomattox (where General Lee surrendered and the Civil War ended).

I look forward to our move to the Atlanta area and seeing Christy fulfill a lifelong dream of attending culinary school. But I will miss this place.

:{> Andy

Replacing the Storm Door (Back)

andy — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:31:00 GMT

I replaced the storm door out back this afternoon. It was my first storm door replacement. I'm happy with it.

We're fixing up the house to sell it so we can move to Atlanta!

Anyone want to buy a 4 bedroom cape cod in Farmville, VA sitting on three relatively rural acres?

:{> Andy

INETA - New Cool Stuff!

andy — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:16:00 GMT

INETA is doing some cool new stuff with my friend David Silverlight's most excellent Community Credit website: The INETA Community Excellence Award and The INETA Community Champion Award.

Both awards are designed to recognize folks who are contributing to the developer community. A lot of community work is done by folks who give of their time and talent to make sure events, meetings, blog posts, and newsletters continue without interruption. Sometimes these folks are overlooked (for whatever reason) by the larger and more public award programs. The community people I know are not in it for the recognition, but they sure appreciate it when their efforts are recognized.

I encourage you to check out these innovative programs and, if you feel you know someone deserving of either (or both) honors, nominate them!

:{> Andy

Dad's Day 2008 - Part 2

andy — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:09:00 GMT

I got the coolest Father's Day gift from Christy and the kids - a motherboard clock!

How cool is that?

:{> Andy

Dad's Day 2008 - Part 1

andy — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:57:00 GMT

It's Father's Day 2008 - officially! I feel like every day is father's day. I'm very blessed to have five wonderful children. I'm proud of each one of them, and proud to be their Dad.

Manda, Tim (my favorite son-in-law), and Penny took us all out to brunch this afternoon at a snazzy restaurant on the Appomattox River in Farmville. It was very nice. I scored some cool Dad Day swag as well!

Thanks!

:{> Andy

Pics of All of Us - Finally!

andy — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 05:27:00 GMT

We finally managed to get everyone together for a family portrait!

Penny and Manda are in the back, Christy is in the middle with Stevie Ray and Emma Grace on her right and Riley Cooper between her and some old fat guy with a fu.

What a cool Father's Day gift!

The funniest thing about this next series of pictures (of just my five children) is Riley unwinding...

"This is pretty cool."

"Are we there yet?"

"Check please."

:{> Andy

New E-Book: Mastering Database Edition Volume 1

andy — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:19:00 GMT

My first e-book is out! Mastering VS 2008 Team System Database Edition, Vol 1: Creating and Deploying Database Projects is available at Solid Quality Press.

Volume 1 of the Mastering Visual Studio 2008 Team System Database Edition series focuses on creating and deploying database projects. The goal of the manuscript is to provide the concise and practical knowledge required to build and deploy a database project. Topics include database project creation, database deployment, database development principles and best practices, version control, and database application lifecycle management.

I'm writing Volume 2 now which focuses on Database Testing with Database Edition.

:{> Andy

More Pics of Me and the Boys

andy — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 00:57:00 GMT

More for the "Every day is father's day" category.

Me and the boys...

Riley fading fast...

And my shirt is still wet from bath time!

Every day is father's day.

:{> Andy

Emma's First Fishing Trip

andy — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:55:00 GMT

Stevie Ray and I went fishing today - and this time we took Emma with us.

Continuing a proud family tradition, I told her she needed to "hold her mouth right" to catch fish. This is how she holds her mouth when she's catching fish, she says. She has a Disney Princess fishing pole, and was so excited when I returned from Walmart yesterday with it. She gave me lots of kisses and said "Oh thank you for my fishing pole Dada!"

Every day is father's day.

Stevie scored a new SpongeBob fishing pole too. His Cars pole had seen better days but he decided to keep it for Riley, when Riley's old enough to go fishing with us. He's a good big brother.

Emma and Stevie were practicing in the back yard yesterday. Rufus (our cat) enjoyed the items being pulled across the yard. They thought it was funny when I told them they'd caught a catfish. :)

We didn't catch any fish today - didn't even get a bite. But that's not really the point. Emma watched her cork for about 12 seconds straight at one point, setting a new attention-span record. Then she turned to me and said "Dada, when are the fish coming?" I told her we didn't know, that part of fishing was waiting for the fish to swim by. Stevie told her to have patience - which had to be the most ironic thing I heard all morning. But then again, he's growing up and learning to be more patient so it's not as ironic after all.

Every day is father's day.

:{> Andy