At the start of the year I decided to get seriously back into playing with electronics after a long haitus. I agonized about where to blog about all this stuff (as I like to blog a *lot*, as you all well know) and I initially thought it would be cool to have everything intermingled on this blog. Then I started to play and realized that I have a *ton* of stuff I want to blog about around electronics and microcontrollers - photos, videos, code - and that it would really interfere with the purpose of this blog - disseminating SQL Server info. Couple that with the fact that this blog is picked up by lots of SQL Server blog aggregators, and I started to worry that people would get a little miffed by *lots* of non-SQL stuff coming from this blog.

Soooo I decided to create a completely new blog on the site today, with a new 'theme'. I now know lots about CSS style sheets, ASP.NET, IIS, and BlogEngine.Net - probably way more than I really wanted to. But I have a nice shiny new blog dedicated to my electronics adventures. I've deleted the two posts since 1/1/10 about electronics and re-posted on the new blog (sorry to the 3 people who'd commented!). There's a link to the new blog at the top-left of this one - feel free to subscribe, drop in from time to time, or ignore it completely :-) 

You can get to the new blog at Paul's Electronics (in homage to the name of the electronics kit my Dad made me when I was 10).

Normal service will be resumed here very shortly...

Yesterday I was discussing life-direction-changing-events with Kimberly and our great friend Libby and I thought it would be interesting to find out from people how their lives brought them to where they are today. I'm often tagged in these kinds of blog posts from other people, so today I'm going to start one of my own (I feel the power tingling through my veins!!! Er, ahem).

I'll go first. There are three very clear events/decisions in my life that brought me to where I am today.

Event #1 is the single most important one, as it shaped the way I developed my intellectual interests forever. On my tenth birthday in 1982, my wonderful Dad gave me an electronics kit and an electronics book. The book was Simple Electronics, a British Ladybird series book from 1979, aimed at helping kids build little electronics projects. Now that in itself wasn't wonderful, but Dad actually made me the kit from scratch over a few weeks in his shed (think 'shop' if you're in the US), including a cool box to keep the book, my wooden circuit boards (with screws to hold the components in place), and all the components, sorted in little bags and boxes with labels on. I think this is the best present I've ever been given - thanks Dad!

Pictures of the book and the box are below (with this blog post in the background - click for bigger images):

Sadly the book isn't the original one he gave me, but I bought one on Ebay a couple of years ago for posterity. The box, of course, is the original one that I still treasure. This kit changed my life completely - I became totally absorbed in electronics (see my recent blog posts here and here for the start of the revival), leading on to 8-bit computers, and my engineering degree in computer science and electronics from the University of Edinburgh. This birthday present put me on the course to being an engineer. But I almost didn't go to college. That happened because of event #2.

Event #2 was what stopped me joining the Royal Navy as a Weapons Electronics Officer. With my Dad having been in the Royal Navy as an engineer (he used to teach nuclear reactor theory and control electronics at the Navy's engineering school - H.M.S. Sultan - smart guy - the person I look up to most in the world), our family life was entwined with the Navy and it's way of life. I loved it and planned to follow my Dad's footsteps. I was in the Navy Cadets at school and did all kinds of summer courses with the Navy. Then when I was 17, I spent a week on H.M.S. Glasgow, a Type-42 Destroyer that saw serious action in the 1982 Falklands War, sailing from Edinburgh, around the top of Scotland through the Pentland Firth and The Minch, down to Glasgow on the opposite coast.

Here's a picture of H.M.S. Glasgow (click for a bigger image):

This *is* the original one, but sadly *isn't* mine. Lot's of scope for rampant megalomania with one of these to play with :-)

It was a fantastic experience but I discovered that I get badly seasick (and that lots of the equipment was pretty old and battle-hardened (i.e. 'simple')) so that put paid to my plans to join the Navy. Off to college...

Event #3 happened quite a bit later, and was my decision to accept a job offer from Microsoft, move to the US from Scotland and start being a SQL geek instead of a VMS file-system geek. The story behind that is explained in the first few Q&As in an email interview I did last year with Tom LaRock (twitter|blog). Without that decision, I'd never have been into SQL Server, started presenting, met Kimberly, etc etc and you wouldn't be reading this blog post.

So, those are my three life-changing events. What do you think are yours? It's not what got you to be a DBA, it what got you to where you are in your life.

In the great spirit of the SQL Community, I'm going to tag a few of my friends to have a go next who I think will provide interesting answers in an entertaining way (no pressure!) - if you blog in this series, please link back here so I can make sure I read them.

• Kimberly
• Brent Ozar
• Andrew Kelly
• Buck Woody
• Tom LaRock
• Kalen Delaney
• Kevin Kline

Enjoy!

(This is my last blog post for 2009 - thanks to everyone who reads my blog and takes part in the SQL community - hope you have a Happy and Prosperous New Year!) 

Every so often you have to challenge yourself with a goal that actually stretches your abilities and tests your stamina. At the start of 2009 I set myself the goal of reading 50 books during the year. By the time January was over I'd already read 18 books so I upped the goal to 100, thinking it would be easily achievable. How wrong I was!

I'm very proud that I stuck with this through the year and met my goal, finishing the 100th book on December 29th. I deliberately chose the final book to be Scotland: The Story of a Nation, by Magnus Magnusson. He used to be the host of the UK quiz show Mastermind (that I loved as a teenager), and his catch phrase was "I've started, so I'll finish!". An appropriate statement on my undertaking this year!

If you held a gun to my head and forced me to pick from all the book's I've read this year, my #1 favorite book is Cormac McCarthy's The Road (no, I haven't seen the movie). Incredibly powerful, haunting, and ultimately sad book - I get a lump in my throat just thinking about the story and it's ending. If you only read one book next year, read that one.

Overall, it was an excellent experience and I recommend everyone to try something similar at some point in their lives. Many people have expressed an interest in seeing the complete list plus my favorites for the year, so this blog post is my summary for you all (and as a neat way of getting closure for me too). It's divided into three parts: data, top-10, and the complete list.

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I've enjoyed putting it together, and it inspires you to try some of these books, or even to set yourself a reading goal next year. Do let me know what you think. And I'll leave you with the saying that's governed 2009 for me:

In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro!

Analysis of What I Read

I read a total of 39674 pages, or about 109 pages on average every day, and a book every 3.65 days. Of course some days I didn't read anything and some days I read 500 pages, depending on what I was doing. You might ask - how the hell did you make the time for that with everything else you do? Well, I flew 138000 miles during the year and spent quite a few days sitting by pools in hot places getting on time zones before teaching classes, mostly in India (2 trips) and Thailand (4 trips) - that's a lot of time right there. I made time when at home, reading pages here and there while cooking, taking a break from work, in bed, etc. It also helps that I love reading, and I read quickly (I don't speed-read, or skip sections, every word is read and digested).

Several people through the year poo-poo'd my goal, saying I must only be reading small books, or 'fast reads'. No. I picked a general range from my library (I've got 900+ books - I don't like electronic readers, and one of my favorite past-times is buying books). Here are two charts: the first shows the number of pages in each book, in order that I read them; the second shows the proportion of books in each genre I read.

The average book length was 397 pages, and as you can see, I'm a huge history buff, so 42% of all books were either hard history, or historical fiction. Make fun of me for producing charts if you want, I don't care :-)

The Top-10 

Now on to the top-10. I tried very hard get down to 10 and couldn't - so you get my top-11. It's just impossible for me to order them so I'll present them in the order I read them, along with a little picture of the cover, and my mini-review from my Facebook page (I always post a little review when I finish a book, the first 3 I read before Facebook got it's evil claws into my psyche). The fact that only one hard history book is on the list does not imply that the others I read weren't good - they almost all were excellent, but just not as hugely entertaining or enthralling as the fiction I read.

  #25 The Kite Runner; Khaled Hosseini; 400pp; Fiction; February 14th (From what I remember: My first exposure to life in Afghanistan. Follows the life of a kite-flying boy and his friend in Kabul as it's torn apart by conflict between the Taliban and other warlords. Very well written and highly recommended, as is the sequel A Thousand Splendid Suns that became my #38.)

  #29 The Road; Cormac McCarthy; 287pp; Fiction; February 26th (From what I remember: Follows a father and son heading west through post-apocalyptic USA and their encounters with other survivors. As I said above, my favorite book of the year. Incredibly powerful - a masterpiece. Go read it.)

  #37 Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China; Paul Theroux; 480pp; Travel; March 30th (From what I remember: I love Theroux's travel writing - his knack for portraying people he meets and irreverent appraisals of places he passes through. In this book he explores the Chinese rail network. I'd love to follow in his footsteps on my next trip to China - been twice, but didn't take any trains.)

  #51 The White Tiger; Aravind Adiga; 304pp; Fiction; July 1st (Winner of last year's Man Booker Prize. Excellent story about a driver in India - I can really relate to it after our two trips to India earlier this year being driven around the streets. Quick read - recommended.)

  #59 The Enchantress of Florence; Salman Rushdie; 368pp; Historical Fiction; July 25th (My first Salman Rushdie book turned out to be a real page-turner. Excellent story, steeped in 16th Century history of the Mughals and Florence (a real favorite city of mine - planning a week-long trip next year). Richly told story, great twist at the end. Looking forward to reading a bunch more of his, on a UPS truck towards me already :-) Highly recommended!)

  #64 Shadow of the Silk Road; Colin Thubron; 400pp; Travel; August 6th (Terrific account of following the 4000-mile Silk Road from Xian to Antioch. Central Asia really seems to be "a paradise or hell of mingled ethnicities" with borders that don't really divide the peoples of the area. Very strongly recommended - although the book has engendered some serious wanderlust in this reader!)

  #78 The Name of the Rose; Umberto Eco; 552pp; Historical Fiction; September 21st (I love Eco's works (this is my 4th of his) - they're hugely involved and heavy going to read, with long sections of complex prose. His stories are always involved and erudite, and this is no exception - a murder-mystery set in an early 14th century Italian monastery, amidst the Imperial vs. Papal backed theological struggles of the time. Unfortunately I'd seen the movie so knew the end, but the book was excellent - lots of pithy, syllogistic discussion. Highly recommended, but not for the casual reader.)

  #80 The Elegance of the Hedgehog; Muriel Barbery; 336pp; Fiction; September 29th (Translated from French, this wonderful book concerns a concierge of an upper-class apartment building in Paris. She's low-born but very intelligent, which she hides from the vacuous residents of the building. The other major character is a 12-yr old girl, also hyper-intelligent, but unhappy and suicidal, with startling insights on life. Life changes for them both. Beautiful book, highly recommended.)

  #85 Sea of Poppies; Amitav Ghosh; 560pp; Historical Fiction; October 19th (I've got a real thing going for writers portraying life in India right now. This book follows the stories of a bunch of people around the time of the Opium Wars, who are linked into the trade in India - both Indians and Westerners. Various calamities befall the Indians and they end up on a schooner, the Ibis, heading down to Mauritius. A very compelling story, expertly told and I'll be picking up some more of his novels from Amazon. Highly recommended.)

  #93 The Meaning of Night: A Confession; Michael Cox; 720pp; Historical Fiction; December 7th (Superlative story telling! Been reading this (long) one for a few months on and off. Compelling tale of a man discovering his true origins and trying to win back what is his, with twists and turns along the way - written as a confession from the point of view of the man himself. Dark and brooding, mixed in with life in England in the 1850s. Highly recommended.)

  #100 Scotland: The Story of a Nation; Magnus Magnusson; 752pp; History; December 29th (I deliberately chose my goal-meeting final book of the year to be Magnusson's magnum opus: his 700pp work on the history of Scotland. Extraordinarily well-written and comprehensively researched, I strongly recommend this book to anyone with Scottish roots.)

The Complete List

And now, for completeness, here's the entire list of all 100 books I read, with links to Amazon.com so you can explore further.

1. Mademoiselle Boleyn; Robin Maxwell; 355pp; Historical fiction; January 2nd
2. Ghostwalk; Rebecca Stott; 368pp; Fiction; January 7th
3. The Old Patagonian Express:By Train Through The Americas; Paul Theroux; 404pp; Travel; January 8th
4. Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West; Tom Holland; 464pp; History; January 9th
5. Eternity; Greg Bear; 416pp; Science fiction; January 10th
6. Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England; Alison Weir; 512pp; History; January 11th
7. Our Dumb World: The Onion's Atlas of Planet Earth; The Onion; 256pp; Humor; January 13th
8. Dead Reckoning: Tales of the Great Explorers 1800-1900; Helen Whybrow (Editor); 576pp; Travel; January 15th
9. If You Liked School, You'll Love Work; Irvine Welsh; 320pp; Fiction; January 17th
10. The Professor and the Madman:A Tale of Murder; Insanity, and the making of the O.E.D.; Simon Winchester; 288pp; History; January 18th
11. Isaac Newton; James Gleick; 288pp; History; January 20th
12. Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book1); Stephanie Meyers; 544pp; Fiction; January 21st
13. New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2); Stephanie Meyers; 608pp; Fiction; January 22nd
14. Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture; Ross King; 208pp; History; January 24th
15. Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, Book 3); Stephanie Meyers; 640pp; Fiction; January 25th
16. Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4); Stephanie Meyers; 756pp; Fiction; January 27th
17. The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn; Robin Maxwell; 281pp; Historical Fiction; January 29th
18. Brideshead Revisited; Evelyn Waugh; 368pp; Fiction; January 31st
19. Signora da Vinci; Robin Maxwell; 448pp; Historical Fiction; February 1st
20. Chasm City; Alastair Reynolds; 640pp; Science Fiction; February 6th
21. A Short History of Byzantium; John Julius Norwich; 496pp; History; February 9th
22. Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life; Alison Weir; 441pp; History; February 11th
23. To The Tower Born; Robin Maxwell; 320pp; Historical Fiction; February 12th
24. Virgin: Prelude to the Throne; Robin Maxwell; 243pp; Historical Fiction; February 12th
25. The Kite Runner; Khaled Hosseini; 400pp; Fiction; February 14th
26. Hellboy Library Edition, Vol. 1: Seed of Destruction and Wake the Devil; Mike Mignola; 278pp; Comics; February 21st
27. The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium; Robery Lacey; 240pp; History; February 22nd
28. Accelerando; Charles Stross; 415pp; Science Fiction; February 23rd
29. The Road; Cormac McCarthy; 287pp; Fiction; February 26th
30. The Last Apocalypse: Europe at the Year 1000 A.D.; James Reston Jr.; 336pp; History; February 28th
31. The First Crusade: A New History: The Roots of Conflict between Christianity and Islam; Thomas Asbridge; 448pp; History; March 1st
32. Hellboy Library Edition, Vol. 2: The Chained Coffin, The Right Hand of Doom, and Others; Mike Mignola; 278pp; Comics; March 3rd
33. Lighthousekeeping; Jeanette Winterson; 252pp; Fiction; March 4th
34. Marvel 1602; Neil Gaiman; 248pp; Comics; March 8th
35. Eternals; Neil Gaiman; 256pp; Comics; March 8th
36. The Absolute Sandman, Volume 4; Neil Gaiman; 608pp; Comics; March 13th
37. Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China; Paul Theroux; 480pp; Travel; March 30th
38. A Thousand Splendid Suns; Khaled Hosseini; 432pp; Fiction; April 1st
39. The Complete Memoirs of George Therston; Siegfried Sassoon; 656pp; History; April 12th
40. A Tale of Two Cities; Charles Dickens; 544pp; Historical Fiction; April 21st
41. Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling; Ross King; 384pp; History; April 28th
42. Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor; Anthony Everitt; 432pp; History; April 29th
43. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World; Jack Weatherford; 352pp; History; May 9th
44. The Killer Book of Serial Killers; Tom Philbin; 352pp; History; May 13th
45. Why We Suck; Denis Leary; 240pp; Non-Fiction; May 23rd
46. Holy Terrors: Gargoyles on Medieval Buildings; Janette Rebold Benton; 140pp; History; May 28th
47. Knights Templar: The Essential History; Stephen Howarth; 321pp; History; Mat 31st
48. Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown; Paul Theroux; 496pp; Travel; June 17th
49. The Thirteenth Tale; Diane Setterfield; 432pp; Fiction; June 27th
50. A Short History of Nearly Everything; Bill Bryson; 560pp; History; June 30th
51. The White Tiger; Aravind Adiga; 304pp; Fiction; July 1st
52. Anil's Ghost; Michael Ondaatje; 307pp; Fiction; July 2nd
53. Time Bandit; Andy Hillstrand; 240pp; Non-Fiction; July 3rd
54. The Sea; John Banville; 195pp; Fiction; July 4th
55. The Glassblower of Murano; Marina Fiorato; 368pp; Historical Fiction; July 5th
56. The Book of Unholy Mischief; Elle Newmark; 384pp; Historical Fiction; July 8th
57. The Bookseller of Kabul; Asne Seierstad; 320pp; Non-Fiction; July 11th
58. The Forge of Christendom: The End of Days and the Epic Rise of the West; Tom Holland; 512pp; History; July 18th
59. The Enchantress of Florence; Salman Rushdie; 368pp; Historical Fiction; July 25th
60. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time; Mark Haddon; 226pp; Fiction; July 28th
61. The Gathering; Anne Enright; 260pp; Fiction; July 29th
62. Saving Fish From Drowning; Amy Tan; 528pp; Fiction; August 1st
63. The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama; Thomas Laird; 496pp; History; August 3rd
64. Shadow of the Silk Road; Colin Thubron; 400pp; Travel; August 6th
65. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; Junot Diaz; 352pp; Fiction; August 8th
66. The Cloud Forest; Peter Matthiessen; 320pp; Travel; August 12th
67. Redemption Ark; Alastair Reynolds; 656pp; Science Fiction; August 17th
68. Year of Wonders; Geraldine Brooks; 336pp; Historical Fiction; August 18th
69. Orpheus Rising; Bateman; 480pp; Fiction; August 20th
70. The Catholic Church through the Ages: A History; John Vidmar; 384pp; History; August 24th
71. Edward the Confessor; Frank Barlow; 408pp; History; August 28th
72. The Places In Between; Rory Stewart; 320pp; Travel; August 30th
73. The Forever War; Dexter Filkins; 384pp; Non-Fiction; September 5th
74. Mogadishu!; Heroism and Tragedy; Kent DeLong; 144pp; Non-Fiction; September 10th
75. The Temporal Void; Peter F. Hamilton; 736pp; Science Fiction; September 14th
76. One Hundred Years of Solitude; Gabriel Garcia Marquez; 448pp; Fiction; September 15th
77. Slaughterhouse Five; Kurt Vonnegut; 288pp; Fiction; September 17th
78. The Name of the Rose; Umberto Eco; 552pp; Historical Fiction; September 21st
79. People of the Book; Geraldine Brooks; 400pp; Historical Fiction; September 27th
80. The Elegance of the Hedgehog; Muriel Barbery; 336pp; Fiction; September 29th
81. The Lost Heart of Asia; Colin Thubron; 400pp; Travel; October 2nd
82. So Young, Brave, and Handsome; Leif Enger; 272pp; Fiction; October 4th
83. The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana; Umberto Eco; 480pp; Fiction; October 7th
84. A Time of Gifts: On Foot To Constantinople; Patrick Leigh Fermor; 344pp; Travel; October 10th
85. Sea of Poppies; Amitav Ghosh; 560pp; Historical Fiction; October 19th
86. A Conspiracy of Paper; David Liss; 480pp; Historical Fiction; October 23rd
87. Breakfast of Champions; Kurt Vonnegut; 303pp; Fiction; October 27th
88. Dogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors; James Reston Jr; 400pp; History; October 27th
89. A Spectacle of Corruption; David Liss; 396pp; Historical Fiction; November 5th
90. Absolution Gap; Alastair Reynolds; 704pp; Science Fiction; November 15th
91. Spawn Collection, Volume 4; Todd MacFarlane; 480pp; Comics; November 27th
92. Parallel Worlds; Michio Kaku; 448pp; Non-Fiction; December 1st
93. The Meaning of Night: A Confession; Michael Cox; 720pp; Historical Fiction; December 7th
94. Fine Just the Way It Is: Wyoming Stories 3; Annie Proulx; 240pp; Fiction; December 8th
95. The Shadow Lines; Amitav Ghosh; 256pp; Fiction; December 10th
96. The Lemon Table; Julian Barnes; 256pp; Fiction; December 16th
97. Jackson Pollock; Leonhard Emmerling; 96pp; Non-Fiction; December 21st
98. Fire and Steam: How the Railways Transformed Britain; Christian Wolmar; 384pp; History; December 22nd
99. The Bedford Hours: A Medieval Masterpiece; Eberhard Konig; 144pp; History; December 23rd
100. Scotland: The Story of a Nation; Magnus Magnusson; 752pp; History; December 29th

Several times this week I've been asked about how to become an MVP. A few people have posted on this, but here's my take. 

I think basically what it comes down to is that if you aspire to become something you're not already, you usually need to make changes in your life. Sometimes significant changes. But it's quite easy to prioritize the wrong thing by accident. Becoming an MVP doesn't mean compulsively answering every question on the SQL Server forums, or blogging huge amounts of stuff that others have already covered - but it doesn mean you have to get out there and interact with the community - it's all about the community. Here's what I recommend:

• Starting answering forum questions, but make *really* sure the answer is correct. Make sure you help out on the MSDN forums too, as these are one of the first places the MVP team looks, and aim to become a moderator if you can. This can really become an obsession - you have to ensure you're adding value rather than just answering for the sake of getting your score/reputation/ranking higher.
• Start a blog with regular interesting and informative posts about SQL Server (or whatever you're trying to become an MVP in). But again, don't be obsessive. It's easy to fall into the trap of posting stuff to try to get more people to read or become higher up a list. Check out this blog post I wrote: Are we too obsessed with rankings? And try to make your blog interesting with some entertaining stuff thrown in, for example Just how long should you make character fields? What's the longest word?
• Get on Twitter and join in the community. Get on Facebook or LinkedIn - somewhere that people can see something behind the professional persona. IMHO community isn't just about always providing answers - it's about knowing some of the people there too. Another blog post with more info: How Twitter and social networking changed my life...
• Start presenting. In the beginning this always sucks - it's hard to present when you've never done it before and most people find it terrifying. However, I'd say it's the #1 way to get involved in the community and get noticed. Don't aim for major conferences right away - it won't happen. Start with local user groups, SQL Saturdays, maybe do a podcast. In February I made my traditional Valentine's Day blog post to Kimberly a long description of how to speak in public, as a tribute to her helping me - see Public Speaking: A Primer.
• Find a mentor who's already an MVP to help you out. This is pretty crucial - you need someone who will tell you if you need to change the way you're doing something, maybe obsessing, maybe goals are a little off. I had Kimberly as my mentor, and she didn't hold back on the advice and constructive criticism.
• Be nice. No-one likes a smart-ass know-it-all who puts people down. This is a balancing act - don't be too humble either.
• Make friends with other MVPs. It's a community, right? Get out there and talk to them.

Lastly, take a step back and consider why you aspire to become an MVP. Do you just want the badge so you can show off? Is it something you want to tick off a list of achievements? Do you want to increase your professional standing? Do you think it will make you more attractive as an employee or consultant? Do you want to become a leader in the community?

Not all of these are valid reasons IMHO - I'll let you think which are and which aren't.

PS Great point from @sqlagentman - an MVP isn't something you're awarded, it's something you're formally recognized as already being.

This isn't a SQL Server blog post so doesn't count against my vacation.

Just finished making the Lego model of the original Death Star that I got for Christmas. Took me about 24 hours altogether. Click the photo for a larger version.

No need to grow up when there's Lego to play with :-)

Well - the first half of the year is over and it's been a pretty busy time for Kimberly and I. I only managed to get one day at home in June but I'm at home for whole month of July, and this year I'm taking a proper break. I'm going to be essentially dark through July - no blogging, no Twitter, no forums or newsgroups - so don't expect to hear from me until August.

Hope you have a great summer, and Happy July 4th for those in the US.

Cheers

Quick blog post to celebrate a bit of a milestone and round out the month of May - no blogging tomorrow.

Earlier today I was making a backup of all the content on my blog because I want to make sure I have a secure copy of it if multiple failures happen with site hoster etc. Look, come-on, this is me, I'm about the most paranoid person on the planet in terms of backups, corruption, HA, etc.

Anyway, as I was doing it, I thought it would be neat to count up the number of posts since I started this blog September 1st 2007 after leaving Microsoft the day before to join Kimberly. This is blog post #350 on this blog!

And as I was backing everything up in Word docs, one per month, I counted up the number of pages of 10-point font content on the blog. With the last few blogs posts, there's over 630 Word pages of content. Several book's worth. Which made me realize that I really really like writing and sharing information.

So - thanks for reading, commenting, cajoling, and asking questions. Keep it up and I'll keep it up too.

Vive la communite!

I've just been posting a few links on Facebook and began reminiscing about my days at Edinburgh University. I spent a lot of my 3rd and 4th years there running the Tardis unix cluster, a fantastic experience which fed directly into my addiction for putting things together, taking things apart, and generally dinking about with electronic stuff. But the story of how I got there is very interesting and worth recounting.

One night in 1992 (I was 20) I was in the James Clark Maxwell Building (the Computer Science building on the King's Building's campus of Edinburgh University). I was playing around with one of the SunOs workstations when I found that when it powered on, it would come up with a boot prompt. At the boot prompt, I tried single-user booting it, and it worked. Suddenly I'm root on this workstation. Cool. So I rlogin'd to one of the usual multi-user servers and to my utter astonishment I was logged in as root. So being young and stupid, I found some of my friends and logged them off remotely as a prank.

Then I tried to figure out what was going on. How could I possibly be root on this server? I look around in the workstation I was on and discovered a .rhosts file in the root directory. For those of you who've never administered a Unix box (yes, I was a Unix weenie at University, then a VMS geek while I worked for DEC, before finally succumbing to the inevitable and winding up a Windows guru when I moved to Microsoft) a .rhosts file is a file that says 'if you're user X on this server, then you can remote login as X to all the servers listed in this file without having to give a password'. They're incredibly dangerous and a massive security hole. And all the workstations had them at the time. So - that's what was going on. I tried a few more workstations and pulled a few more stunts on the servers (being late at night I figured it would be cool).

The next afternoon I come to campus and try to login. "Your account has been suspended, please contact the Head of Computer Services".

Stupid stupid stupid.

I had visions of being kicked out of University and my hopes of a cool career in computers being dashed. I didn't do anything that day. I telephoned my Director of Studies (staff-member mentor through University - don't know what the US equivalent is called) and laid out the sordid details. Of course he knew about this and was very stern. He advised me to go to campus tomorrow and fess up. Which I did.

The Head of Computing Services had that poster of a Bald Eagle on his door that says 'I *am* smiling'. I was terrified. I knocked on the door and went in and his opening words were "You can only be Paul Randal". Oh shit I thought. The only reason he knew it was me was that the security door swipe-card system log displayed on real-time on a little workstation in his office, and my swipe late at night was the last one, and just about to scroll off the monitor screen. Foiled by the old 'use your real credentials to get in the building' and then do something stupid mistake.

Stupid stupid stupid.

They thought they were under a major hacker attack (which unbeknown to be had actually happened two months previously - so they thought that was me too). Once I explained, and convinced him that I was very very sorry, he actually smiled and said it was a neat trick that no-one had thought of. Turns out he really just wanted to know how I did it. He actually became a great friend of mine, was my thesis advisor in my final year, set me up to run the Tardis cluster, and recommended me to DEC. Good results can come from very stupid actions. Very rarely.

Anyway, for all those out there who I've said your advice is bad, or you did something daft, or anything like that: I've been there too. Live and learn. 

PS And Mum & Dad, given that you read my blog, I think this is the first time you're hearing about this, 17 years later. Heh heh <sheepish grin>.

I was reading through some gardening books this morning trying to identify a plant we had last year that died over the winter (I was successful - it was a Tibouchina Urvilleana (Princess Flower)) and thought I'd break out the 50mm and 100mm macro lenses and shoot some close-ups myself. Here's an example:

I've uploaded 30 photos to Facebook and you can see the whole album (without having to register with FB) at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025676&id=1293146061&l=1e71dd80b9.

Enjoy!

In February this year we stopped off in Bangkok on the way to and from teaching in Hyderabad. On one of the days we did some sight-seeing, including the Imperial Palace in Bangkok. I took a bunch of photos of the wall paintings in the outer courtyard and I've posted an album up on Facebook (easier than a big, bloated blog post here). You can get to the album at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2020899&id=1293146061&l=5c4c559fa5 (even if you're not on Facebook).

Here's an example:

Enjoy!

I'm very pleased, and deeply honored, to announce that I've been made a Microsoft Regional Director. This is one of a very small group of people (about 120 worldwide) who Microsoft sees as influencers of, and liaisons between, the Microsoft community at large. Apart from me, the other SQL MVPs who are also RDs are Kimberly and Greg Low.

I looked around for a good description of what RDs do and what the RD program is all about and found two blog posts:

• Microsoft Regional Directors don't work for Microsoft
• Who are the Microsoft Regional Directors?

And you can get the complete list of RDs (I'm not listed there yet) at the RD site The Region.

Time for a few drinks tonight!

The first of the long-promised photo posts (with lots of Wikipedia links) - click on photos for larger versions.

Over the holidays Kimberly and I went to St. Lucia in the Caribbean for a well-earned and highly-anticipated break - sun, relaxation, and scuba diving for a few weeks. St. Lucia is almost at the far south-eastern end of the Caribbean, so we were only a couple of hundred miles away from the coast of Venezuela. We almost didn't make it - Seattle was hit with a foot of snow the day before we were due to fly out and the airport closed 12 hours after our first-leg flight left for Charlotte. It was very hot, being only 13 degrees north of the equator - great for lying around and reading books, which was basically what we did when we weren't diving.

We stayed in a cool hotel called Jade Mountain (first picture below), which had great views of the Gros and Piti Pitons (the mountains in the second picture below - 2000+ ft high volcanic plugs). The hotel is part of the larger Anse Chastanet resort, built in the grounds of an old plantation on the north-west coast of the island, and includes a top-notch dive centre. Unfortunately the sun rose behind the hotel and went down behind a headland, but that still made for some fantastic sunrises and sunsets.

Every so often a cruise ship of some kind would come by and anchor at the nearby town, Soufrière, where Napoleon's Empress Josephine spent much of her childhood. In the last week we were there, two of the coolest ships in the world came by on the same day. The one on the top-left below is called The World, and is basically a floating set of luxury condos that cruises endlessly around the world for those wishing a nomadic lifestyle (and with lots of money!). The second ship is my favorite - it's called the Maltese Falcon, a 289-foot racing yacht owned by billionaire Tom Perkins. We saw it first in San Francisco bay last October while we were there teaching a workshop, and we were amazed to see it in St. Lucia while were there. If you click on the link, one of the features on the ship's website is Tracking - click that and it'll show you where in the world the ship currently is (at time of writing it was in English Harbour in Antigua). It's one of the most sophisticated yachts ever, with computer controlled spars and masts, all resting on giant gimbals. The sail plan is also controlled by computer and can push the yacht along at over 17 knots - an amazing hull speed for a yacht that size. The ship on the bottom-right is the 140-foot brig Unicorn, a replica of an 18th century pirate ship that was used in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies - it's docked in the harbor of Soufrière.

Just outside Soufrière in the cliffs is a bat cave where the majority of the bats on the island live. The whole bay and surrounding town is part of giant volcano caldera and in the hills you can get right up into some of the active sulphur springs - the top-middle photo is boiling mud. The next four photos are flowers in the excellent botannical gardens.

For once Kimberly didn't have her monster underwater camera gear with her so I figured I was experienced enough (57 dives at the start) to cope with a camera and good buoyancy and rented one for the last 8 dives we did. So now I'm as hooked on underwater photography as Kimberly! Below are nine of the best photos I took. The first three below are (left to right) - a crinoid in a barrel sponge, an octopus that was unusually calm and playful, and a pair of banded coral shrimp in the hold of a sunken cargo ship (my first wreck dive).

The next three below are (left to right) - a largescaled scorpion fish, a very large lobster, and a sea turtle that we accidentally woke up.

The last three below are (left to right) - a spotted moray eel snatching an yellowline arrow crab, a long-spined Caribbean sea urchin, and I'm not quite sure what the last one is although she looks familiar...

As I said above, when we weren't diving we were reading. I'm a pretty voracious reader and finished 12 books while we were away, all of them very good:

• Revelation Space. Start of a very good set of sci-fi books by Alastair Reynolds - I've since bought all his other books.
• I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell. Nasty, nasty book - debauched and horrifying. Hugely entertaining though!
• Basilica: The Splendour and the Scandal: Building St. Peter's. The story of the various popes and architects who replaced the 1000-year old wooden church built by the Romans, finishing in the late 1500s.
• Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade. Just as the title says.
• The Secret of Lost Things. Good debut tale by Sheridan Hay - kind of wordy but a worthwhile read. Picked it up because its about a bookshop and I love books.
• Eon. Vintage sci-fi by Greg Bear - hadn't read it in 15 years.
• Mademoiselle Boleyn. Robin Maxwell's portrayal of Anne Boleyn's early years in the French court - she's one of our favorite authors of historical fiction.
• Ghostwalk. Strange story, but lots of info about Isaac Newton's dalliances with alchemy in the 17th century - kind of a murder-mystery.
• The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas. Paul Theroux is one of my favorite travel writers - in this book he takes a series of trains from Boston down to the middle of Patagonia.
• Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West. Telling the story of the various battles between the Persians and the Greeks around 500 BC. Interesting descriptions of the Spartan and Athenian societies.
• Eternity. Sequel to Eon.
• Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England. Biography of the sometime wife of Edward II in and around the 1300s by Alison Weir - one of my favorite historical biographers.

Ok - so I'm a total history nut... 

All in all, a very relaxing time! Hope you enjoy the photos and be sure to check out some of the books.

Enjoy!

[Edit 1/1/09] Well, actually its so nice here (St. Lucia) that we're staying on vacation another week - maybe I'll post some stuff next week - maybe...

Well, its the end of another year, and my first complete year outside of Microsoft - and what a busy year it's been. Between the two of us, Kimberly and I flew about 220 thousand miles, visited 8 countries, and presented at 5 conferences. With all the classes, books, articles, whitepapers, user groups, forums, and blogging, it seems like this year's been a blur!

Next year we've got some cool stuff coming up that we're looking forward to (books, broadcasting, and the return of our Immersion events), but for now we're flying out to the sun for a long-awaited and well-deserved vacation (and delayed honeymoon). We'll be totally offline from now until the first week of January, so don't expect any blog posts until then.

Thanks to everyone who reads my blog/articles/whitepapers, attended any of our classes/workshops/conference sessions, or just generally helped me stay enthusiastic about the SQL Server community.

Happy holidays, and I hope that 2009 is successful and corruption-free for you all!

Cheers!

After putting up with years of me occasionally breaking into song with 'Manamana!', Kimberly finally caved-in this afternoon and asked to see the classic Muppets Manamana song video. And so for all of you who haven't been exposed to those cultural icons of 70s and 80s, the Muppets, checkout the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KC9FtLQJoGM.

[Edit: the YouTube video has gone - try http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4737429188097095733]

Manamana!

As you may have noticed, I *really* like blogging and writing about SQL Server (to the point that Kimberly jokes in our sessions and workshops that I blog so much I don't sleep...). Well, to cap off our very successful conference season, I'm very pleased to announce that I've just been made a Contributing Editor of TechNet Magazine, with effect from the January 2009 issue (due out in a couple of weeks). This means a huge amount to me and is great incentive for years more blog posts and articles - maybe now they'll let me do an article all about DBCC CHECKDB .

Thanks to everyone who reads and responds to my articles and Q&A columns in the magazine, and to (my editor) Senior Editor Matthew Graven, and the magazine Editor-in-Chief Joshua Hoffman!

If anyone reading the blog was watching SQLServerCentral back in 2006, you'd have seen an email interview I did with Steve Jones while I was still at MS. In there I talk about how I got into computers and taught myself 6502 assembly-language programming on an Acorn Electron (little brother to the BBC Micro) which I bought myself back in 1988 - none of this Java nonsense they teach in colleges these days! Those days served me well when I moved up to writing assembly code for multi-issue Alpha chips while at DEC ten years laters (see that story here).

Well, after a solid week of teaching here in Vienna we decided to have a relaxing day in the hotel - which turned out to be the right choice as its been raining all day. I had great intentions of working but then decided to download some games and abandon the day to mindless game-playing. After poking around I found a BBC emulator - BeebEm - and a bunch of my old favorite games that are now free - Citadel, Palace of Magic, Elite, Arkanoid, Repton, and Ravenskull. Although I've still got my Acorn Electron, I never get around to setting it up and playing with it - one day I'll do that to show the kids how computers used to be when Daddy was a kid.

Six hours later, plus a walkthrough guide and a game map (which I remember seeing when I used to subscribe to Micro User magazine and Electron User magazine - these guys scanned in every page of all 82 issues in color - wow!), I'd finished Palace of Magic. I must have spent weeks playing through the game when it first came out. One thing I'd forgotten was how annoying the old 8-bit sound could be - Kimberly's been sitting here with headphones on all day while she's been working.

Oh well, on to Arkanoid before dinner

Thanks!