Tag Archives: SQL Family

#tsql2sday – Giving Back – Reprise

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Itsql2sdayt’s TSQL Tuesday again! This month our host is Riley Major (b/t) and the subject is Giving Back. He’s given us two options here (as well as the side option of your favorite 2017 improvement). Pick a way that you’d like to give back to the community and talk about it, or if you already give back,  tell us how and why you started.

 

There will be a lot of excellent posts on this subject and one of the things that I like is that you can go to http://tsqltuesday.com and look up all of the entries which means that for a particular topic you can find a bunch of blog posts from different angles (I miss-typed that as angels first and yes they are all angels!) whether it is career improvement or technical like say Extended Events it is all there waiting for you 🙂

I wrote about giving back in 2014 when I was about to help organise SQL Saturday Exeter for the first time. Last year I blogged about a few of the wonderful people who made a difference to me. So this post is a little about how I give back and also hopefully some hints that can help you to do the same as well.

How

There are so many ways that you can give back to the community as Riley’s post shows.

Sharing your knowledge is a good way. I share my knowledge in blog posts and in sessions at user groups and at conferences. You can too.

From beginner, introductory posts and talks to expert level deep dives every single one of us has learned from the blog posts that other people have spent their time and effort creating.

YOU can share your knowledge, even if you have only been using a technology for a few months, you have knowledge of the things you have learned and the things that would have made it easier. Write a post about those things.

Answering questions is another way. You can do this on Stack Overflow, SQL Server Central, PowerShell.Org , Reddit, Facebook , on Twitter using the #sqlhelp or #PowerShellHelp or just in person. I try to answer questions when I see them on twitter or in the SQL Community Slack

Mentoring or just providing feedback to people. You can offer to proof read blog posts or abstract submissions or you can listen to peoples presentations. I do this and it is a lot of fun

I also share my knowledge via my GitHub. All of my presentations slides and code are available as well as other code that I use. I also contribute to open-source projects such as dbatools and dbachecks.  You can do this too. You could open an issue for an improvement or bug. You can contribute your code, even if you are not confident writing the code you can fix spelling mistakes or add documentation., everything helps

You can help with organisation of events. I have helped to organise the PowerShell Europe Conference, PSDay.UK, SQL Saturday Exeter, SQL SouthWest user group, PASS PowerShell Virtual Group. I have also helped with session choices for a number of other events like SQL Grillen and SQLGLA and I have volunteered at many events from SQL Saturdays to SQL Bits. Everything from setting up and tearing down (IE moving heavy things and cleaning up rubbish) to sitting on the information desk, giving out badges, making sure the speakers are on time in their sessions. You can do this too. Just ask the organisers of the events what they need. It is better to do this prior to the event than on the day but I am sure all help is welcomed. Richard Munn and I talked (waffled?) about this at SQL Bits this year

If you would like to be considered as a volunteer for next years SQL Bits please email helpers at sqlbits.com

Why

So why did I start giving back?

I wanted to be useful. I saw the amount of work that Jonathan and Annette were doing organising SQL Saturday Exeter and SQL South West. I hoped that I could help them with that.

Why do I carry on doing it?

Because it is fun 🙂 I enjoy speaking, I enjoy sharing my knowledge and talking to people

That is good but there is more to it as well

You learn so much by writing a presentation or a blog post because you will do research.

You will learn even more when people ask you questions in your sessions or leave comments on your blog posts and you have to go and find the answers

You learn new and useful skills and demonstrate your knowledge to potential employers

My blog is a scrapbook of knowledge that I go back to and use all the time (and sometimes I forget that I have written something and find my own post in the search results!)

But the most important reason is that I feel that it pays back some of the benefit that I have gained from all of those people who’s time and effort I made use of for free when I was learning and continue to do so to this day. All of those blog posts and videos and presentations that I consumed have helped to make me the technician I am today. I have skills and abilities that I would not have without them all and by giving back I hope that I am enabling others to develop and see the benefit of sharing so that they will continue to do so in the future and I can learn from them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TSQL2sDay – Folks Who Have Made a Difference

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tsql2sday

This months TSQL2sDay is an absolute brilliant one hosted by Ewald Cress

the opportunity to give a shout-out to people (well-known or otherwise) who have made a meaningful contribution to your life in the world of data.

Fabulous, fabulous idea Ewald, I heartily approve

Now this is going to be difficult. There are so many wonderful people in the #SQLFamily who are so gracious and generous and willing to share. I am also lucky enough to be part of the PowerShell community which is also equally filled with amazing people. I do not want to write a novel or a massive list of people, I don’t want to risk missing someone out (Ewald, I’m beginning to question whether ‘fabulous’ should become ‘tricky and challenging’ !!)

So after consideration I am only going to talk about 4 wonderful people and the effect they have had on my life, my career and my community involvement but know that I truly appreciate the input that all of the peoples have had and the amazing friendships that I have all over the world. There is no order to this list, these are 4 of the people in equal first with all the other people I haven’t mentioned. This post should really scroll sideways. Interestingly I noticed after writing this that they are in reverse chronological order in my life!

The Hair!

At PASS Summit this year many people came up to me and said “Hey, Beard ……..” The first person who called me that is an amazing inspiring bundle of talented energy called Chrissy LeMaire

Many moons ago, we exchanged messages over social media and email, chatted after a PowerShell Virtual Group presentation and then one day she asked me to join as an organiser for the Virtual Group.

When dbatools was in it’s infancy she asked me to help and since then has given me interesting challenges to overcome from introducing Pester and appveyor to the dbatools development process to creating continuous delivery to our private PowerShell gallery for our summit pre-con forcing me to learn and implement new and cool things. Our shared love of enabling people to do cool things with PowerShell is so much fun to do 🙂

She is so generous and giving of her time and knowledge and has an amazing capability to get things done, whether by herself or by encouraging and supporting others.

We have presented at many conferences together, both SQL and PowerShell and we have the best of times doing so. It is so refreshing to find someone that I am comfortable presenting with and who has the same passion and energy for inspiring people. (It’s also fun to occasionally throw her off her stride mid-presentation (Thank you Cathrine 🙂 )

I am proud to call her my buddy. You are so inspiring Chrissy.

Thank you Ma’am

Amazing Couple

A few months after becoming a DBA I was the only DBA at the company as the others all left for various reasons. I was drowning in work, had no idea what I should be doing. I knew I didn’t have the knowledge and during that time I began to be aware of the SQL community and all the fine resources that it provides.

I then found out about a local user group and emailed the leader Jonathan Allen (He surprised me by reminding of this during our pre-con in Singapore a couple of weeks ago!) Jonathan and his wife Annette run the SQL South West user group and are also members of the SQL Bits committee, Annette is also the regional mentor for the UK. They give an awful amount of time and effort to the SQL Community in the UK. It took a few months before I even had the time to attend a user group and in those early days they both answered my naive questions and passed on so much of their technical knowledge and methodology to me and I soaked it up.

Later on, they invited me to help them to organise SQL Saturday Exeter, encouraged me to speak, gave me fabulous feedback and pointers to improve, encouraged me to volunteer for SQL Bits and have been incredibly supportive. I love them both very much. Neither like having their photo taken so I can’t embarrass them too much.

Next time you see them give them a hug.

Thank you J and A

The First One

Andrew Pruski dbafromthecold and SQL Containers Man

At the time I am talking about he was not a member of the SQL Community although he possessed all of the qualities that describe such a person. Now he is an established blogger and speaker and attender of SQL events.

He is one of the DBA’s who left me on my own!! He is the first SQL DBA I ever worked with. The person who taught me all those important first bits of knowledge about being a SQL DBA. He imparted a great amount of knowledge in a few months with great patience to an eager newbie.

More than that, he showed me that to succeed in IT, you need to do more than just an everyday 9-5, that it requires more time than that. He instilled in me (without realising it) a work ethic and a thirst for doing things right and gaining knowledge that I still have today. He inspired me when I was faced with trying to understand the mountain of knowledge that is SQL Server that it was possible to learn enough. He taught me the importance of testing things, of understanding the impact of the change that is being made. He showed me how to respond in crises and yet was still willing to share and teach during those times.

He has had a greater impact on me than he will ever know and I have told him this privately many times. I will never forgive him for abandoning me all those years ago and yet that is a large part of what made me who I am today. I was forced to have to deal with looking after a large estate by myself and needed to learn to automate fast and he just about left me with the skills to be able to accomplish that.

Massive shout out to you fella. Thank you

All the Others

Seriously, there are so many other people who I wish I could thank.

Every single one of you who blogs or speaks or records webinars that I have watched – thank you.

All of the organisers who ensure that events happen – thank you

All of the volunteers who assist at those events – thank you.

That group of amazing European speakers at the first SQL Saturday Exeter I attended. The cool group, my wife still reminds me of how I came home from that event so inspired by them. How incredibly generous and welcoming they were and how they welcomed me into their group even though I didn’t feel worthy to share their table. They taught me about the lack of egos and humbleness that defines the SQL family. I am proud to call them my friends now. Thank You (You know who you are)

We have a great community, may its ethos continue for a long time.

TSQL2sDay – Get-PostRoundup

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First an apology, this round up is late!

The reason for that is an error in the PowerShell testing module Pester (That’s not completely true as you shall see!!)

I spoke in Stuttgart at the PowerShell Saturday last weekend and had intended to write this blog post whilst travelling, unfortunately I found a major error in Pester (again not strictly true but it makes a good story!!)

I explained it with this slide in my presentation

Yep, I forgot to pack my NUC with my VMs on it and had to re-write all my demos!!

But anyway, on to the TSQL2sDay posts

What a response. You wonderful people. I salute you with a Rimmer salute

There are 34 TSQL2sDay posts about dbatools, about starting with PowerShell, If you should learn PowerShell, SSAS, SSRS, Log Shipping, backups, restores, Pester, Default settings, best practices, migrations, Warnings in Agent Jobs, sqlpackage, VLFs, CMS, Disabling Named Pipes, Orphaned users, AG Status, AG Agent Jobs, logging, classes, auditing, copying files, ETL and more.

I am really pleased to see so many first timers to the TSQL2sDay blog monthly blog party. Please don’t let this be your only TSQL2sDay post. Come back next month and write a post on that topic.

Here they are below in the media of tweets, so that you can also go and follow these wonderful people who are so willing to share their knowledge. Say thank you to them, ask them questions, interact.

Learn, Share, Network

Volker wrote about testing best practices with dbatools

https://twitter.com/VolkerBachmann/status/907664676150022144

Dave explains why PowerShell is so useful to him in his ETL processes

Steve writes about the time he has saved using PowerShell to automate restores and audit SQL Server instances

https://twitter.com/Steve_TSQL/status/907713842943115264

Nate talks about copying large files like SQL Server backups using BITS with PowerShell

Warren talks about his experience as a beginner, the amount of things he automates and his DBReboot module

THANK YOU every single one and apologies if I have missed anyone!

 

 

Enterprise Strategies – A #TSQL2sDay post

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This months TSQL2sDay blog post party is hosted by Jen McCown and is about Enterprise Strategy.

Adam Mechanic started TSQL Tuesdays over 5 years ago and you will find many brilliant posts under that heading if you search for them

Managing SQL servers at enterprise scale is not a straightforward task. Your aim as a DBA should be to simplify it as much as possible and to automate everything that you possibly can. This post by John Sansom could have been written for this months party and I recommend that you read it.

So here are a few points that I think you should consider if you look after SQL in an Enterprise environment.

  • Enterprise Strategy will undoubtedly garner a whole host of excellent posts and Jen will provide a round up post which will I am certain will be an excellent resource. Take a look here
  • Know where your instances are and have a single place that you can reference them from. Some people recommend a Central Management Server but I find this too restrictive for my needs. I use an InstanceList table in my DBA Database with the following columns [ServerName], [InstanceName] , [Port] , [AG] , [Inactive] , [Environment] and [Location]. This enables me to target instances not just by name but by environment (Dev, Test, Pre-Prod, Live etc), by location or by joining the InstanceList table with another table I can target by the application or any number of other factors. I also capture information about the servers at windows and SQL level to this database so I can target the SQL 2012 servers specifically if need be or any other metric. This is very powerful and enables far greater flexibility than the CMS in my opinion.
  • Use PowerShell (no surprise I would mention this!) PowerShell is a brilliant tool for automation and I use it all of the time
  • Get used to using this piece of Powershell code
	 $Query = @"
	 SELECT [ServerName],[InstanceName],[Port]
	  FROM [DBADatabase].[dbo].[InstanceList]
	  Where Inactive = 0 AND NotContactable = 0
	"@
	try{
	$AlltheServers= Invoke-Sqlcmd -ServerInstance $CentralDBAServer -Database $CentralDatabaseName -Query $query
	$ServerNames = $AlltheServers| Select ServerName,InstanceName,Port
	}
	foreach ($ServerName in $ServerNames)
	{
	## $ServerName
	 $InstanceName =  $ServerName|Select InstanceName -ExpandProperty InstanceName
	 $Port = $ServerName| Select Port -ExpandProperty Port
	$ServerName = $ServerName|Select ServerName -ExpandProperty ServerName 
	 $Connection = $ServerName + '\' + $InstanceName + ',' + $Port
	
	 try
	 {
	 $srv = New-Object ('Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Server') $Connection

Notice the query variable above, this is where the power lies as it enables you to gather all the instances that you need for your task as described in the bullet post above. Once you get used to doing this you can do things like this identify all the instances with Remote DAC disabled using a query against the DBA Database and then enable it on all servers by adding this code to the loop above

$srv.RemoteDacEnabled = $true
$srv.alter()

Very quick very simple and very very powerful. You can also use this to run TSQL scripts against the instances you target but there are some added complications with Invoke-SQLCmd that you need to be aware of

  • BE CAREFUL. Test and understand and test before you run any script on a live system especially using a script like this which enables you to target ALL of your servers. You must definitely check that your $ServerNames array contains only the instances you need before you make any changes. You need to be ultra-cautious when it is possible to do great damage
  • Write scripts that are robust and handle errors gracefully. I use Jason Wasser @wasserja Write-Log function to write to a text file and wrap my commands in a try catch block.
  • Include comments in your scripts to assist either the future you or the folks in your position in 5 years time. I would also add one of my bug bears – Use the description block in Agent Jobs. The first place any DBA is going to go to when that job fails is to open the properties of the job. Please fill in that block so that anyone troubleshooting knows some information about what the job does or at the very least a link to some documentation about it
  • Finally in my list, don’t overdo the alerts. Alerting is vital for any DBA it is a brilliant way to ensure that you quickly know about any issues affecting your estate but all alerts should be actionable and in some cases you can automate the action that you can take but the message here is don’t send messages to the DBA team email for every single tiny thing or they will get swamped and ignore the vital one. This holds for whichever alerting or monitoring system that you use

This is but a small sub-section of things that you need to consider when responsible for a large SQL estate but if you need help and advice or just moral support and you don’t already interact with the SQL community then make today the day you start. Maybe this post by Thomas La Rock is a good place to start or your nearest User Group/Chapter or the #sqlfamily hashtag or give me a shout and I will gladly help.

Twas 2 Days Before Xmas or Thank you SQLFamily

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Twas 2 days before Xmas & all through the office,
not a creature was stirring not even old Maurice.
With merriment going on outside of his window
There sat a bearded DBA without much to do

No changes can be made through the holiday season
We’re on skeleton support, which is a good reason
Ensure you are making the most of your time
You mustn’t be wasting the company dime

The backups are checked, there isn’t an issue
So documentation writing should ensue
Instead he decided to procrastinate
And so, this little ditty he proceeded to create

Looking back over last year he did ruminate
About all the progress he had made, it was great
So much had been learned, so many improvements
Derived using content from fine ladies and gents

Impossible to estimate how much it would cost
Or calculate the amount of revenue lost
For all that he would have been unable to do
Or the times that he knew how to get out of a stew

But also the friends old, new and the rest
The talking and dining and drinking and jest
I am lucky to be a part of the SQL Family
So thank you one and all, with love from me

beard

Giving Back – #TSQL2sday

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T-SQL Tuesday, which was started by Adam Machanic (blog|twitter) and is now starting its 6th year, is hosted by a different person each month. The host selects the theme, and then the blogging begins. Worldwide, on the second Tuesday of the month (all day, based on GMT time), bloggers attend this party by blogging about the theme. This month it is hosted by Wayne Sheffield blog|twitter and in the spirit of the holiday season it is about giving. This is my post on giving back, in the little ways as well as the bigger ones, how you can give back and why it not only benefits others but also yourself

What’s the SQL Family?

The SQL Family (or SQL community call it what you will) is a fabulous place to be. Full of many wonderful, talented, passionate and generous people. Every method of interaction that you wish for can be found if you look. Ever wanted to know how others do it? or Does this happen in other shops? or I wish I had access to someone who knows about ‘insert new shiny thing here’?

I guess that that is how I joined. I had no peers in my shop. I had no one to turn to to ask questions or get advice. I had no support and I turned to the internet. Now we all know that the internet lies. It is full of accidental and deliberate mistruths, of part information and downright bad advice. You have to be careful where you go and who you trust. I gradually found myself going back to the same resources and from those I found out about PASS and user groups

I am in the UK. I found the list of UK SQL User Groups

You can find more here both local and virtual

User Groups

I found a user group near me and went along to a meeting not knowing what to expect. I found a group of people like me willing to give up their time to learn and share knowledge. A wide range of people from DBAs, Developers, BI Professionals and SysAdmins. Working for International multi regional companies looking after many hundreds of SQL Servers to single sysadmins looking after the whole kit and caboodle and everything in between. A wealth and breadth of knowledge to tap into. You will learn so much not only from the sessions but also the conversation with all these other talented people

Come along.

Simply coming along will bring benefit. Other people will be interested in what you have to say even if you are in week 0 of your first ever job. Your view will still be valued. Everyone can learn from everybody and NO-ONE knows it all.

There will come a point where you will pass on a piece of knowledge or an idea or a way of working and someone will say thank you I didn’t know that. You just gave back. It may even be someone you look up to, someone whose knowledge and experience far outweighs yours whose word you hang on to. That feels good.

You may ask the questions that others thought but didnt ask and boy are they glad you asked the question. You just gave back. It’s something I do often. I ask questions and sometimes I ask questions I know the answer to so that they will be of benefit to the group.

What will you get? More than you can ever put in. Free training, often free pizza, knowledge, advice,guidance, contacts, support, a network of people in your field, notice of job openings, swag, fun, friends, more social events and more and more

The user groups are run by volunteers in their own time out of the goodness of their hearts. They will always need your help. Turn up 5 minutes earlier and help set out the chairs or put out the handouts or assist with the tech. You just gave back. Afterwards before going to the pub clear the tables, help carry the boxes, put the pizza evidence in the bin. You just gave back

SQL Saturdays and other community events

SQL Saturdays are held all over the world most every Saturday You can find more about them here https://www.sqlsaturday.com/ There are also other larger events such as SQL Bits and SQL Relay here in the UK. Everything I wrote about User groups counts here just in a slightly larger scale. You will be able to attend several sessions across many different areas for free on a Saturday

These events are also run by volunteers and they will also need your help. If you can spare some time to help on a registration desk you just gave back. A room monitor to ensure the speaker and delegates have everything they need, the room is tidy and the session runs to time. You just gave back. Putting things out and tidying them away again. You just gave back.

You can become a volunteer by asking the people organising the events if they would like your help. These events will all have twitter feeds and emails and facebook pages and many methods of getting in touch. Contact them and offer your help if you can. You just gave back.

If you fancy taking the next step then you can get involved in organising the events. This is hard work, great fun, a good thing to add to your CV and you just gave back. There are so many areas to get involved organising an event. Premises and technology, speakers and printers, volunteers and sponsors all need co-ordination. Websites,twitter feeds, feedback forms, posters, marketing materials all need designing and producing. There are so many ways in which you will be able to provide value to the event and you just gave back

Oh and whilst I am at it, when you attend an event

Say Thank You to the volunteers. You just gave back.

 Speaking and Blogging

All the events named above need speakers. The bigger events like the SQL Saturdays and the large events like SQL Bits will generally have more established speakers but every user group will need speakers and they will be more likely to accept new speakers and will be very supportive if you say that you are a new speaker. Every speaker had to make their first presentation at some point and they all know how it feels and can provide guidance and advice. You will feel that you don’t have anything to speak about that others will want to hear about. You do. Your experience and your knowledge or how you solved something or created something will be of interest to people. Of course, you need to check with the user group leaders and members if your idea for a presentation is suitable. Like anything you do that is new, researching it and taking advice from people with more experience is always useful. Maybe you can start with a lightning talk. Give it a go. You just gave back.

What do you get back from Speaking and Blogging?

I’ll tell you a secret. The vast majority of my posts ( This is an exception) are written for the benefit of one person. Me.

I write posts to record my learning for myself. To document my knowledge. I use my posts to help me to do my job. I know that I wrote the method of doing something somewhere and this is part of my store of knowledge. I write posts to answer peoples questions so that I have a place to point them to. Occasionally people will email me asking a question and if it requires a detailed response I will write a post and email them to tell them that this is the answer. I often point my work colleagues at my blog when they ask me questions about Azure or Powershell. You could also see your blog as an extension of your CV and use it when job hunting and develop it in that way

I also write posts to expand my knowledge and this is the same for speaking. When I am writing a blog post or a presentation I will read and watch videos and ensure I know more about it. The process of creating that content will improve my own knowledge and work practices and you will find that, as you write your blog posts you will have a deeper knowledge also. When you give your presentations you will learn as you answer questions or find the answer to the question afterwards (It’s ok to do that) that you are improving yourself and your knowledge.You will also be giving back.

Putting your information online will enable people to find it. Sure you can worry about SEO and getting to the top of search pages but you know that sometimes the answer is on the ninth page. What you write will be of benefit to others and by taking the time to post you will be giving back to the community

You can do one, many or all of those and you will be giving back. I hope you do

I will be giving back. You will find me at SQL Bits where I shall be room monitoring and volunteering.

You will find me at SQL Saturday Exeter. I am again one of the fabulous SQL South West team

who are again organising a SQL Saturday in Exeter in the UK on April 24th/25th 2015 You can find out more here http://sqlsouthwest.co.uk/sql-saturday-372/ 

You still have time, if you are quick, to submit a session to speak or present a pre-con at Exeter. Submissions close on 15th December and we would love to have yours

I shall carry on blogging and hopefully present at some user groups again this year. If you see me any where, come up and say hi to me. You just gave back

 

 

 

#tsql2sday #60 – Something New Learned – Problem Step Recorder

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What is T-SQL Tuesday?

T-SQL Tuesday is a monthly blog party hosted by a different blogger each month. This blog party was started by Adam Machanic (blog|twitter). You can take part by posting your own participating post that fits the topic of the month and follows the requirements Additionally, if you are interested in hosting a future T-SQL Tuesday, contact Adam Machanic on his blog.

This month’s blog party is hosted by Chris Yates blog |twitter who asked people to share something newly learned.

I love being a part of the SQL community. It gives me the opportunity to learn as much as I want to about anything I can think of within the data field. In the last couple of months I have presented at Newcastle User Group and learnt about migrating SQL using Powershell with Stuart Moore. At our user group in Exeter http://sqlsouthwest.co.uk/ we had Steph Middleton talking about version control for databases and lightning talks from Pavol Rovensky on Mocking in C# ,John Martin on Azure fault domains and availability sets using a pen and a whiteboard!, Annette Allen on Database Unit Testing,Terry McCann  on SQL Certifications. We also had Jonathan Allen talking about some free tools and resources to help manage both large and small SQL environments.  I went to SQL Relay in Southampton and saw Stuart Moore (again!) Scott Klein Alex Yates James Skipworth and I joined the PASS DBA fundamentals virtual chapter webinar for Changing Your Habits to Improve the Performance of Your T-SQL by Mickey Stuewe and that’s only the ‘in-person’ learning that I did. I also read a lot of blog posts!

But instead of repeating what I learnt from others within the community I thought I would write a blog post that I have been meaning to write for a few weeks about a solution pre-built into Windows that appears to not be well known. Problem Step Recorder.

What is PSR?

I found out about a little known tool included in Windows Operating System a couple of months ago which enables you to record what you are doing by taking screenshots of every mouse click. The tool is Step Recorder also known as PSR. It is included by default in Windows 7 , Windows 8 and 8.1 and Windows Server 2008 and above.

What does it do?

Simply put, it records “This is what I did” There are many situations when this can be useful

  • You can use this during installations to help create documentation. “This is what I did” when I installed X and now you can follow those steps and I know I haven’t missed anything.
  • You can use it when communicating with 3rd parties or other support teams. “This is what I did” when I got this error and here are all of the steps so that you can re-create the issue and I know that I haven’t missed anything
  • You can use this when resolving high priority incidents. “This is what I did” when System X broke, it includes all of the times of my actions.
    I still keep my notepad by my keyboard out of habit but I have a record of the exact steps that I took to try to resolve the issue which will be very useful for reporting on the incident in the near future and also placing into a Knowledge Base for others to use if it happens again and I know I haven’t missed anything
  • For assisting family members. Like many, I am “The IT guy” and PSR enables me to provide clear instructions with pictures showing exactly where I clicked to those family members who are having trouble with “The internet being broken”

It does this by automatically taking a screen shot after every mouse click or program event with a timestamp and a description of what happened. It does not record keystrokes though so if you need to record what you have typed there is some manual steps required

So how do you access PSR?

Simple. Type “psr” into the run box, cmd or PowerShell and it will open

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Once you click on Start Record it will start recording your clicks and taking screenshots. However I always open the settings by clicking on the drop down to the left of the help icon first and change the number of recent screen captures to store to the maximum value of 100.

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If you do not you will get no warning but PSR will only save the last 25 screenshots it takes and your results will look like the below. It will still record your actions but not keep the screenshots.

Previous Next

Step 16: (‎09/‎11/‎2014 13:47:45) User left click on “Chris Yates (@YatesSQL) | Twitter (tab item)”

No screenshots were saved for this step.

Previous Next

Step 17: (‎09/‎11/‎2014 13:47:47) User left click on “The SQL Professor | ‘Leadership Through Service’ (text)”

No screenshots were saved for this step.

Previous Next

Step 18: (‎09/‎11/‎2014 13:47:47) User left click on “T-SQL Tuesday #60 – Something New Learned | The SQL Professor (text)” in “T-SQL Tuesday #60 – Something New Learned | The SQL Professor – Google Chrome”

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You can also set the name and location of the saved file in the settings but if you leave it blank it will prompt for a location and name once you click Stop Record

How do I add keyboard input?

PSR allows you add keyboard input manually. You may need this if you need to include the text you have entered into prompts or address bars or if you wish to add further comment. You can do this by clicking add comment, drawing a box around the relevant part of the screen for the text input and inputting the text into the box

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In the results this looks like

Step 1: (‎09/‎11/‎2014 12:56:22) User Comment: “http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=42573”

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What do the results look like?

Once you have finished the actions that you want to record (or when you think you are close to 100 screenshots) click stop record and the following screen will be displayed

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This allows you to review what PSR has recorded. You can then save it to a location of your desire. It is saved as a zip file which has a single .mht file in it. You can open the file without unzipping the archive and it will open in Internet Explorer. As you can see from the shots below you can run PSR on your client and it will still record actions in your RDP sessions although it does not record as much detail. The first two are on my SCOM server in my lab and the second two are on the laptop using the SCOM console

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Step 11: (‎09/‎11/‎2014 13:02:13) User left click on “Input Capture Window (pane)” in “SCOM on ROB-LAPTOP – Virtual Machine Connection”

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Step 12: (‎09/‎11/‎2014 13:02:16) User left click on “Input Capture Window (pane)” in “SCOM on ROB-LAPTOP – Virtual Machine Connection”

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Step 13: (‎09/‎11/‎2014 13:06:25) User right click on “Management Packs (tree item)” in “Agent Managed – THEBEARDMANAGEMENTGROUP – Operations Manager”

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Step 14: (‎09/‎11/‎2014 13:06:27) User left click on “Import Management Packs… (menu item)”

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You can then use the zip file as you wish. Maybe you email it to your third party support team (once you have edited any confidential data) or you can attach it to your incident in your IT Service Management solution or attach it to a report. If you wish to create documentation you can open the .mht file in Word, edit it as you see fit and save it appropriately.

So that is one of the many things that I have learnt recently and I am looking forward to seeing what others have learnt especially as many will have just been to the SQL PASS Summit. You will be able to find the other posts in this blog party in the comments on Chris’s page

SQL Saturday Exeter–What’s the Point? My Experience of 2013 SQLSatExeter

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Disclaimer – I am on the committee organising the next SQL Saturday Exeter. To be kept up to date about SQL Saturday #269 in the South West, follow @SQLSatExeter and#SQLSatExeter on twitter and see details at the bottom. This post is about my experience at this years event.

In March this year the SQL South West User Group hosted SQL Saturday #194 in Exeter. I was a new member to the User Group having finally been able to join them for the first time in January. At that meeting Chris Testa O’Neill presented a session and was very passionate about the SQL Community and the benefit of the SQL Saturdays and other events.  I am always keen to learn new things and find ways of developing my skills. As I haven’t won the lottery I also look out for good deals as well!!

SQL SATURDAY PRE-CONS ARE EXCEPTIONAL VALUE

It was relatively easy to persuade my bosses to pay for my pre-con. For £150 I was able to spend a whole day in a room with about a dozen people being trained in SQL Server Security by Denny Cherry @mrdenny. The conversation went along the lines of

“I want to go to this training session being delivered by this guy. Link to MVP page. It’s £150 and is in Exeter so no other costs required”

My boss – “OK”

Of course there was a little more fun and games to be had with the payment but it was easy for me to get training sorted and £150 is not going to break the training budget.

Looking back through my notes from the session today I realise quite how much I have taken from it into my role at work. I can’t really comment which and what though that wouldn’t be good security!!

I remember an enjoyable day with plenty of technical learning, a lot of questions and answers and plenty of laughs as well. But more than that was the opportunity to mix with other professionals and talk with them. During the breaks and at lunch there were plenty of opportunities to chew the fat, learn how others do things, make new friends and put faces to twitter handles. (NOTE : I do look pretty much like my twitter profile picture so if you see me at SQL Community events I expect you to come up and say hi, that’s part of the benefit of attending these events, having a good natter)

Take a look at the end of this post for details of 2014 Pre-Cons

SQL SATURDAY – CAN’T GET CHEAPER THAN FREE

SQL Saturdays are FREE

SQL Saturdays offer sessions from internationally renowned and local SQL speakers on subjects relevant to you and your job, your future career, your development plan or just to challenge yourself by learning about something outside of your comfort zone. For Nothing. Add in the networking opportunities, the prizes from the sponsors, (if you were at Exeter this year the beer and the pasty) and if you added it up its a sizeable investment in yourself, your career and your development (did I mention a free beer and pasty?)

NOT BAD FOR FREE!!

To enable that, SQL Saturday organisers have to go out and talk sponsors into putting their hands into their pockets. They will only do that if it is worthwhile to them. You can make it easier for the organisers by going and spending time with the sponsors during the breaks, chatting with them and giving them your details. Also, if you choose to use one of their products please tell the sponsors you spoke to them at a SQL Saturday. They are (usually) data professionals who will record that and use that to make future decisions which will we hope include sponsoring SQL Saturdays.

This year on the Saturday I went to the following sessions

A temporary fix for a short term problem by Ian Meade
Advanced SQL Server 2012 HA and DR Architectures by Christian Bolton
Busting common T-SQL myths by Dave Morrison
Power View and the Cube by Régis Baccaro
Natural Born Killers, performance issues to avoid by Richard Douglas
Tracking server performance without slowing it down by Jonathan Allen which I also Room Monitored
Increasing Business and IT collaboration by Chris Testa-O’Neill

It was a really good day. I learnt so much from all those knowledgeable and talented people. It really kicked me on in my development at work. I was able to take from each of those sessions and use that knowledge to do my job better and I made new friends and new contacts. Just going back to my notes today has reminded me of something that I need to look into for work Smile Some of the conversations I have had at events this year have been fascinating – learning how other people do the same thing you do in a completely different but equally valid way,  problem-solving with a different set and type of minds than the ones at MyWork, laughing at the same things and moaning about similar frustrations. All have been both entertaining and rewarding and I think are worth mentioning as things I enjoyed about going to SQL Community events this year and play a part in the reason I shall continue to go to them (Just hope my boss doesn’t read this and think he won’t have to pay as I will go anyway!)

It’s busy and hectic, the sessions come along thick and fast and there are lots of people around to talk to. I wish I had made use of the SQL Saturday mobile phone app and I definitely recommend researching ahead of time and planning your day out.

This years sessions have not been decided yet but I have seen some of the submissions and there are some fabulous sessions there. You could also submit a session yourself. Choosing the sessions will be tough, but we want to offer the opportunity to speak to as many people as possible both new and experienced speakers.

You can submit your sessions at this link http://www.sqlsaturday.com/269/callforspeakers.aspx

ROUND-UP SQL SATURDAY EXETER WHY WOULDN’T YOU COME

For a newbie, as I was last time, SQL Saturday Exeter was a revelation.

An opportunity to learn without spending thousands of my own or MyWorks money to sit in a lecture room and listen to a trainer.

A chance to develop my understanding in a friendly environment amongst my peers where I could ask questions.

A place to meet new people and build relationships who have helped me with situations at work throughout the year. I reckon I’m in credit already

This year I have attended SQL Bits and SQL Saturday Cambridge and this month I shall be at SQL Relay in Cardiff and in Bristol. That all started with SQL Saturday 194 in Exeter 2013

WHAT ABOUT NEXT YEARS SQL SATURDAY EXETER?

Next years SQL Saturday in Exeter, SQL Saturday #269, will be held at the same place – Jury’s Inn Hotel Exeter on March 21/22nd 2014.

We had such amazing submissions for our pre-cons that we have had to find more rooms to be able to fit them all in.. You can see for yourself the quality of the sessions and speakers for SQL Saturday Exeter 2014 at the following link

http://sqlsouthwest.co.uk/sql-saturday-269-precon-training-day-details/

What do you think? I want to split myself into 8 and go to every one!

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO NOW?

I suggest that you should book Saturday 22nd March 2014 out in your calendar right this minute. Done that? Good.

Now go to this link

http://www.sqlsaturday.com/269/

and register for FREE to attend and let us know @SQLSatExeter

Next make yourself a coffee (Other beverages are available) and head to the pre-con page

http://sqlsouthwest.co.uk/sql-saturday-269-precon-training-day-details/

This bit is up to you, the choice is hard. I can’t tell you which one of our eight fabulous sessions you want to go to. It’s not for me to say which amazing speaker you want to spend a day with for a bargain price but if you need further info please get in touch and we will try and help. Unfortunately our human cloning experiment is not stable enough to allow you to go to more than one!

Then, let me know you have done so and come and say hi when you are here.

12 Things I learnt at SQLBits XI

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  • The Helpers are awesome

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  • Often Sessions fill up very quickly – Get there early

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  • You can learn as much outside of the sessions as you can in them

  • There are amazing prizes

A LEGO R2D2 !!!

  • Bring your sense of humour

  • The SQL community contains the most gracious and generous, willing to help people

  • You can connect with your user group and get a mini SQL Bits every month

Find your User Group Here http://sqlsouthwest.co.uk/national_ug.htm

  • If there is no user group in your area people will help you to start one

RT @fatherjack Interesting chat about a potential new user group in the uk. Anyone around Newcastle area looking for some free training?

  • Every session is videoed and will be available online. For free.

  • You will learn and have fun

Too awesome for words! “@justjonlevett: Lego Server! @fusionio #sqlbitspic.twitter.com/bhxPaTIq4K”

More blogs about SQL Bits XI and Photos

SQL Bits Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SQLBits

Roger Van Unen Gallery https://plus.google.com/photos/109984741094039234638/albums/5874913179986208577

JR’s Gallery https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=7b73b60f4c7d77c9&id=7B73B60F4C7D77C9%212222

Steve Jones Blog http://voiceofthedba.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/fun-at-sql-bits/

Chris Webbs Blog http://cwebbbi.wordpress.com/2013/05/05/sqlbits-xi-summary/

Find more from the Facebook Page or #sqlbits

Finally a BIG Thank you to all these people http://sqlbits.com/about/WhosWho.aspx

and the fantastic helpers without whom SQL Bits would never happen

Till Next year