SQL Relay National and Local Prizes

Today I found out what a great prizes are being offered at SQL Relay..

If you come along to one of the local events (running between 3rd to 5th October: In Birmingham, Manchester, Farnham, Kent, Bristol, London, Hatfield, Leeds, Southampton, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Exeter, Cambridge, Essex and Maidenhead)

Not only will you have the chance to go home with one of the following prizes. 

• Red Gate shirts
• Wrox book / stickers
• SQLBits 10 Friday ticket
• 1 PASS 2010 DVD

But you will also be entered in a draw for the following prizes;

• Red Gate SQL Developer bundle
• A collection of Wrox books
• SQLBits 10 Conference Pass
• 1 PASS 2010 DVD

Its an amazing list of prizes!

The SQL Relay ‘Finishing line’ event on the 6th of October where Itzik Ben-Gan will be speaking is very close to being fully booked!

So register now before its too late!

 

A big thank-you goes out to all the companies that have sponsored the SQL Relay.

SQL Relay Swag from Red Gate

Another day, another parcel...
This time an intriguing small box from Red Gate.

I could tell it was from Red Gate.. the red box, the Red Gate logo.. all clues..

Inside...
Two Red Gate t-shirts and two Red Gate pens.

So two lucky people are going to get Red Gate t-shirts at the next Southampton SQL Server User Group.


The SQL Community in the UK will be hosting its first SQL Relay, a series of events culminating in Itzik Ben-Gan (SQL Server Author and MVP, Co-Founder of SolidQ) presenting at Microsoft’s London HQ, Cardinal Place on the 6th October.
Southampton's SQL Relay event is on the 5th of October, Justin Langford (Coeo) will be talking about SQL Server Denali and Nicholas Colebourn will be discussing designing tables for scale.

SQL Relay Swag from Wrox

When I got in from work today there was something waiting for me… 
The swag from Wrox for the SQL Relay…

Coasters, key rings, pens, stickers and a copy of Professional SQL Server 2008 Internals and Troubleshooting.  Justin Langford one of the authors will speaking at Southampton SQL Server User Group’s SQL Relay event on Wednesday 5th of October. [I will see if he will sign it! The book is staying in its plastic covering until the SQL Relay event]
SQL Relay is a series of SQL User Groups happening up and down the country between the 3rd and 6th of October,
Events are happening in: Birmingham, Manchester, Farnham, Kent, Bristol, London, Hatfield, Leeds, Southampton, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Exeter, Cambridge, Essex and Maidenhead..
See you there!!

SQL Relay–Filling up fast.

The SQL Relay events are booking up fast; over 239 people have registered so far.

So register as soon as possible to avoid disappointment!!

If you know you can’t make it, unregister – it will mean someone else can go in your place.

The London (finish line) Event is 70% booked already!

SQL Relay is part of the National SQL Server Week, which starts with SQLBits on the  29th of September and finishing with Itzik Ben-Gan presenting at the finishing line event.

For details of the SQL Relay visit http://www.sqlserverfaq.com

SQLBits + SQLRelay = National SQL Server Week

National SQL Server Week

From the 29th of September to the 6th of October, it’s the first National SQL Server Week in the UK.



SQLBits + SQL Relay = National SQL Server Week

29th September - Day 1 - Thursday - SQLBits Training Day

30th September - Day 2 –Friday - SQLBits Conference Day

1st October - Day 3 –Saturday - SQLBits Conference Day (Free)

2nd October - Day 4 - Sunday – Rest, Ahhh....

3rd October - Day 5 – Monday - SQL Relay Day 1 - Birmingham  ~   Farnham, Surrey  ~   Kent  ~   Manchester  (Free)

4th October - Day 6 – Tuesday - SQL Relay Day 2 - Bristol  ~   Hatfield  ~   Leeds  ~   London  ~   Maidenhead  (Free)

5th October - Day 7 – Wednesday - SQL Relay Day 3 - Cambridge  ~   Cardiff  ~   Edinburgh  ~   Essex  ~   Exeter  ~   Southampton  (Free)

6th October - Day 8 – Thursday - SQL Relay Finish Line - London - Cardinal Place  (Free)



Where else can you get 7 days of SQL?

Essex, Cambridge and Maidenhead…

What do Essex, Cambridge and Maidenhead all have in common?

Yes – you guessed it!

They all have new SQL User Groups (UG) and they are all joining in the SQL Relay!  A Four day SQL-a-thon, a series of events culminating in Itzik Ben-Gan (SQL Server Author and MVP, Co-Founder of SolidQ) presenting at Microsoft’s London HQ, Cardinal Place on the 6th October.

Check out the SQLServerFAQ site for details of your nearest community event.

How to write a SQL Server Management Studio Add-in for Denali (CTP3) (Part 2)

In my previous post on writing a SSMS Add-in for Denali I detailed the steps that you would need to take to get the Add-in loaded and running but it didn’t do a great deal.

Now we take it a step further. But not too far(!)

I’ve done a number of things;

• Hooked up to the events class in DTE, so we can get a view on what’s happening inside the Add-in.
• Added some T-SQL code formatting functionality, to show how to access the contents of a query window.
• Added a context menu to the Object Explorer 
• Put all the source on Codeplex under a new project called ‘’SQL Server Management Studio Add-in for Denali (SSMS Addin)” Url: http://ssmsaddindenali.codeplex.com/ Feel free to download or/and join the project and contribute.

 

1) As we all know, SSMS Add-in’s only work because of a deep dark magic, but there are a few ways we can peek inside to see what’s happening.  

The DTE object we get during the OnConnection method has a class full of events – so lets hook them up and see what happens.

 

 

 

2)

  EnvDTE.TextDocument doc = (EnvDTE.TextDocument)ServiceCache.ExtensibilityModel.Application.ActiveDocument.Object(null);

Returns a TextDocument object from which you can get the contents of the window (SQL).

 

3) Just like previous versions add-ins, you use the same code to pick up Object Explorer events.

   1:                 objExplorerService = (ObjectExplorerService)ServiceCache.ServiceProvider.GetService(typeof(IObjectExplorerService));

   2:                  cs = (ContextService)objExplorerService.Container.Components[0];

   3:                  cs.ObjectExplorerContext.CurrentContextChanged += new NodesChangedEventHandler(ObjectExplorerContext_CurrentContextChanged);

Download the source from codeplex, check it out, play with it, check it in!

http://ssmsaddindenali.codeplex.com/

SQL Relay - 3 Countries, 4 Days, 16 Events.

You wait ages for a User Group, then a whole load turn up all at once!!

Between the 3rd and 6th of October, up and down the UK the SQL community is coming together; this phenomena is known as “SQL Relay”.

Events are happening in (deep breath): Birmingham, Manchester, Farnham, Kent, Bristol, London, Hatfield, Leeds, Southampton, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Exeter, Cambridge,Essex and Maidenhead.. {and a partridge in a pear tree}.

3 Countries, 4 Days, 16 Events.

So if you have never been to a User Group or go all the time, have only just heard about SQL or are waiting for Denali to hit the streets – get along to one of the SQL Relay events.

[Updated 7/9/2010]  Itzik Ben-Gan (SQL Server Author and MVP, Co-Founder of SolidQ) will be presenting at Microsoft’s London HQ, Cardinal Place on the 6th October.

And all this right after SQLBits 9 in Liverpool - 3 days of top SQL Server content given by SQL Server Experts from around the world, including Microsoft Certified Architects (MCA), Microsoft Certified Masters (MCM) and Microsoft Most Valued Professionals (MVP).  If you have not already registered, then you better hurry!

Southampton SQL Server User Group is now a PASS chapter

The Southampton SQL Server User Group (SSSUG) has now been accepted as a PASS chapter (The Professional Association of SQL Server).

We are the 5th UG in the UK to become a chapter.

It's really Jonathan Allen’s fault. I saw his User Group up on the PASS site and thought we need to be part of this!

So what is PASS? Well, its mission statement says it all; ‘Empower the global Microsoft SQL Server and Business Intelligence community to connect, share, learn and be inspired through networking, knowledge sharing, peer-based learning, and the ability to influence the direction of Microsoft SQL Server data platform.’

It’s certainly a lot to live up to, but I’m sure we are up to it!!

How to draw a Polygon in SQL Server

In my previous post 'Drawing a circle in SQL Server (almost)' I showed how to plot 360 points to draw a circle. {Well} It looked like a circle, but to SQL Server, it was just a series of points.

We can use a LineString to draw a shape, but the most appropriate type is the Polygon.

The polygon is a closed [at least 3 sided] shape, i.e. the first point is the same as the same point. If it’s not, SQL will throw an exception. SQL Server will also throw an exception if you attempt to create a polygon with just two sides..

 

   1:  -- Drawing a polygon

   2:  declare @Sides float = 3

   3:  declare @count int = 0

   4:  declare @size int = 10

   5:  declare @firstpoint varchar(400)

   6:   

   7:  declare @sql varchar(8000);

   8:   

   9:   

  10:  set @sql =  'POLYGON((' 

  11:   

  12:  while(@count < @Sides)

  13:  begin

  14:   

  15:  set @sql = @sql + cast(SIN(RADIANS((CAST(@count AS FLOAT)

  16:              /CAST(@Sides AS FLOAT)) 

  17:              * 360)) * @size as varchar) 

  18:             + ' ' +

  19:              cast(COS(RADIANS((CAST(@count AS FLOAT)

  20:              /CAST(@Sides AS FLOAT))

  21:              * 360)) * @size as varchar) + ','

  22:   

  23:  if @count = 0

  24:  set @firstpoint  = cast(SIN(RADIANS((CAST(@count AS FLOAT)

  25:              /CAST(@Sides AS FLOAT)) 

  26:              * 360)) * @size as varchar) 

  27:             + ' ' +

  28:              cast(COS(RADIANS((CAST(@count AS FLOAT)

  29:              /CAST(@Sides AS FLOAT))

  30:              * 360)) * @size as varchar) 

  31:              

  32:  set @count = @count + 1

  33:   

  34:  end

  35:   

  36:  set @sql = @sql + @firstpoint + '))'

  37:   

  38:  print @sql

  39:  DECLARE @g geometry;

  40:  SET @g = geometry::STGeomFromText(@sql, 0);

  41:  select @g

  42:   

Simply change

   1:  declare @Sides float = 3

to be how ever many sides you need.  Simple.

Here are a few examples.

All scripts can be found on my SkyDrive using the link below.

SQL Server in the Evening (3rd Event)

Last night I did my first slot as a presenter.  I’d like to thank Gavin Payne, the event organiser for giving me the opportunity to speak.

So how I did go? Okay, I think.  It is very difficult to know how you go down until you get feedback (so if you attended, please feel free you email me your comments). 

The initial feedback was positive and incredibly useful (Thank-you Christian), its given me ideas of how to structure my next presentation… 

But back to the evening…

My presentation was on Geospatial data types in SQL Server 2008 (r2 Express) – to try and make my presentation more memorable I used props, balls for Points, string for LineString and Polygons –> I hoped that it would be different , not in code or PowerPoint would help the concepts stick..   

If you look really closely you can see the string.. (Thanks again Christian – I took no pictures all evening).

After me, Vilosh (Smart Reporting Solutions) did a demo of his BI product.

Then the buffet,  although I feel the term buffet doesn’t do justice to food.  I was bowled over by the quality and quantity.  The Ramada did a great job.

Then Jen Stirrup presented iPad and PowerPivot- Mobile Business Intelligence in Action.  A really thought provoke presentation on the future of mobile BI and BI in general.  The iPad is a game changer and a great business tool.  Check her previous and next SQLBits sessions out.

Next up was Keith Burns presenting Denali CTP3 - An overview and update.  I was excited about CTP1 of Denali, but it was a bit of a non-starter, yes, it was a new engine and new SSMS, but the cool sexy features, Crescent, Column Store indexes, file table, Juneau etc etc were all missing, but now in CTP3 – they are all there!!!!!!

I feel like it’s time to get enthusiastic about Denali again.  Keith briefly mentioned Feature pack for Denali…Check out the goodies!!

One of the great things about going to User Groups is seeing wonderful presenters talk about subjects they love, but its a fantastic place to meet up with the twitterati – people you only know by cryptic code names are real flesh and blood people.  

I’d like to thank Gavin again for putting on a great evening and I’m really looking forward to the next one.

'Denali' Community Technology Preview 3 (CTP 3) Feature Pack

I was at Keith Burn’s presentation of ‘What’s new in Denali CTP3’ at SQL Server in the Evening (Gavin Payne’s User Group) last night and I heard about Denali Feature pack.

A small about of googling with Bing later, this popped up -  ‘Feature Pack pour SQL Server "Denali" CTP3’

I had a Homer Simpson moment ”Hmmm Feature Pack...”