Active August…Summary
For those who were not aware Active August was mostly SQL Server DBA’s and many others who are Twitter friends and comrades.
Twitter trend/search: #ActiveAugust
You’ll see many of the Active August participants making Blog posts today, which is what I’m doing now.
This is my own summary; you can read the others via links on Twitter.
Congratulations to each and all, if you made any effort toward being a better self you are headed in the correct direction.
For those of you who missed August, how about Active September and Active October?
Let us know. As for me…I’m in. ;-)
Summary:
1) I’m 5 feet 11 inches. Born in Detroit, 1961.
2) At the beginning of August I weighed 184 pounds and my goal/target weight was 178 pounds.
At the end of August I'm 176 pounds. (I focused on muscle definition.)
Not Earth shattering but as you know that last 5 pounds can be the toughest.
3) During all of August I spent a lot more time on my Unicycle, until it hurt. An awesome and fun way to keep fit.
4) My other regular exercises were biking and running.
5) Wanting to get more definition in my arms I hand carried 16 ton of Flag Stone.
(Over the years I’ve been known as a Rock Monster…It’s the secret to my arms and shoulders.)
I did move all 16 ton but I also did some damage to my left arm. Found out a few days ago that I ripped tendons.
6) My diet during all of August was absolutely perfect. This has always been easy for me; I have no problem thinking of food as fuel.
(I do not eat any candy, fast food, colas, alcoholic beverages, pork, red meat, catfish or tuna.)
7) Looking back I would have been more careful with my left arm, the elbow was rebuilt with metal back in 1980, I just do not baby it.
And the one thing I would add to make this more extreme next time will be to spend a lot more time with my 3 children.
http://msftwise.com/assets/WhackyWisecarverKids.jpgAll three of them are active in Soccer and I can’t think of a better routine than to practice with them.
Think about it for a second and you will have to agree this is an excellent idea.
What better way to improve yourself than with your community? I love the idea.
The entire month can be summed up with these two words: Ooh Rah!
All the best,
Mark Wisecarver
http://twitter.com/msftwise
Somasegar posting some very cool news regarding changes for both VB and C#.
http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2009/08/19/vb-and-c-enhancements-in-vs-2010.aspx
i.e. (Many of us have begged for this)
Visual Basic
The Visual Basic team focused on adding productivity features to the language so developers can get more done in fewer lines of code. The most common customer request for Visual Basic is to remove the underscore (“_”) character when breaking a code statement across multiple lines in most cases. Visual Basic 10 introduces implicit line continuation, which removes the need for the underscore character in most cases.
Function Filter(
ByVal customers As List(Of Customer),
ByVal orderCount As Integer
)
Dim query =
From c In customers
Where c.Orders.Count >
orderCount
Select c
Visit the futures sites for more.
VB Futures site and C# Futures site
By the way, play with it now: download and install Visual Studio Beta 1
Woohoo! Yup partners, this is exciting stuff!
OK…most of you know I’m a Technical Evangelist/Webcaster for Shared Hosting.
(Specifically the award winning Microsoft Gold Partner DiscountASP.NET)
That being said I will admit that I do not use Microsoft’s awesome Azure cloud SQL Server services for anything other than, well, fun.
Yes fun/personal things like my Bing Harley: http://msftwise.com/bing/
DeepZoomPix: http://deepzoompix.com/Album.aspx?alias=wisemx&album=1
SeaDragon: http://seadragon.com/view/5h
How can I be such a long time fan of Microsoft unless I have some fun, right? ;-)
Here’s the exciting part…
Using SQL Management Studio 2008 with SQL Data Services (SQL in the Cloud)
I’ve been playing around with the new SQL Data Services this week and came across a common issue with how do you work with the databases you’ve created. For those of you who, like me, are not fond of SQLCMD (a command line query tool) you can use SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) query window capabilities, even if the object explorer doesn’t work. The trick is to accept that you don’t have to be connected to the object explorer to open a query window.
You can use SSMS 2008 if you don’t use the object explorer…simply cancel on the connect to server when you start SSMS, then open a new query window. It will prompt you to enter your credentials, which should include the server name, your user account (with the @servername as part of the user name) and password. On the connection options tab select the target database and click connect. You’ll get a message that ANSI_NULLS aren’t recognized, but then it opens the query window and you should be good to go.
1. Cancel connect to server for the Object Explorer window (which opens by default when you open SSMS)
2. Click the “New Query” button to open a new query window
3. Enter your server name & credentials…make sure you use the server name you got when you registered your token…also make sure to use the username@server format for your user name
4. To connect and work with a database you’ve created in SDS enter the database name in the “Connection Properties” window…you can get to advanced properties by clicking the “Options >>” button.
5. Clicking connect will then open the query window, but you may get prompted with an error message that ANSI_NULLS are not recognized…you’ll find that you can ignore this message and begin to work with SDS within a query window in SSMS 2008.
And you should be good to go with all the goodness of a great SQL Development environment where you can leverage tools & utilities like the Template explorer to help with writing great Transact SQL.
Enjoy!
Published Wednesday, August 19, 2009 10:58 PM by benko
http://blogs.msdn.com/benko/archive/2009/08/19/using-sql-management-studio-2008-with-sql-data-services-sql-in-the-cloud.aspx
Note: People keep asking so I’ll post it again…6 months free when you SIGN UP with DiscountASP.NET if you use this promo code: WISEMX