Aaron Stanley King

I had a great time talking with all the guys from Australia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.  It was one of the best groups ever.  I had so many questions and such great conversation I didn’t get to show a lot of benefits.  I hope that I did get to share my real world knowledge and advice.  I think that SQL Azure is a great service and can be a great tool to help lots of apps have good performance and uptime.   Please check out my recorded talk on the PASS AppDev Virtual Chapter.  I didn’t have the great conversations that I did when I met you all, but in this canned form, you’ll get what you missed.    http://appdev.sqlpass.org/MeetingArchive/tabid/2005/Default.aspx   Again, I’m sorry that I ran over on my time.  There was code that I wanted to share.  This code shows you how to build an ASP.NET MVC 3 App using both Razor and ASP.NET pages to mix the great dynamic data form layout tools and the nic...

SQL Saturday #53 – New York, New York – November 20th – 9am   I just wanted to remind my fans (both of them) that I’ll be speaking at two more events this month.  First off is this Saturday the 20th in the Big Apple.  I’ll be covering SQL Azure to the attendees of SQL Saturday 53.  I’m first up, at 9am.  I’ll be covering the reasons why to use SQL Azure, reasons why not to use SQL Azure and how to use SQL Azure.  I’m also showing attendees how to do a little reporting on Windows Azure before SQL Azure Reporting comes out in CTP.  I think it’s a good thing to cover.   Evansville .NET Users Group – Evansville, Indiana – November 30th – 11:30am   The great guys down in Evansville asked me to come cover ASP.NET MVC.  Since I’ve been using it in production almost since its inception, I jumped at the chance to share.  I’ll be covering the basics and then I’ll jump into MVC 3 RC.  There is a lot of great stuff that used ...

IndyGiveCamp is this weekend from Friday at 4pm until Sunday.  It’s going to be a great time so I already have set up a photo album on my SkyDrive.  The Live Group is also up at http://indygivecamp.groups.live.com/ Check out the pics from the first ever Indy GiveCamp. <p$1><p$1></p></p> I also put the same album on Flickr, just in case users like Flash more than Silverlight, Why would you do that, gosh.

I’m really excited about the upcoming SQL Saturday events.  SQL Saturday is one of the best, if not the best ever, conference circuits around.  It’s like a traveling roadshow except its put on by local coordinators not the same national speakers each time.  It’s so popular though that it brings in the really best speakers.  I’ve been lucky enough to be able spread the good word about SQL Azure many times.    My latest speaking trip takes me to Midtown Manhattan.  To speak to so many, in such a great town is going to be a thrill.  I’ve mostly spoken in the Midwest.  DBAs and developers in the Midwest are a little different than the guys and gals in the Big Apple.  But a lot is the same.  I hope I can start a good two-way conversation about the benefits of SQL Azure and maybe show off some good uses of running SQL Server in the Cloud .   I recently got interviewed by Robert Pearl .  He’s one of the coordinators o...

    I’m posting this picture of my old laptop.  It was my wife’s first but then she wanted a netbook.  So I was handed down this 32bit Toshiba.  It is actually pretty good hardware.  Both Windows 7 and Linux installed with ease.  I use it for demo and cross platform game programming.  Since I use it in demos I started with the stickers.  I acquired several from all the conferences I attend and speak at.   It is now full.  It is also now too slow for my everyday work.  It gets too hot and the battery doesn’t last very long.  I am very proud of one sticker though.  I got it from Dreams for Kids for writing code at the Midwest GiveCamp.   If you haven’t attended a GiveCamp, the Indy GiveCamp is Nov 5th.  Be there or be square.

The PCI Compliance talk at PTI’s Back to School event was given by Kyle Neier .  He’s a very experienced database administrator and also a leader at IndyPASS.  He’s a cool guy.  Unfortunately his PCI expert didn’t make it.  That was perfectly ok because I wanted to focus on the SQL Server 2008 R2’s feature called SQL Audit. The good ole days?  Seriously? Back before SQL Audit it was a pain in the rear to audit at the database level.  Kyle went into this and reminded us all the pains of what we had to architect in the past decades.  I remember them well,  SQL Audit is much better than those old hacks. I don’t have to be PCI compliant in my current function but HIPAA is similar in terms of SQL Server and SQL Audit.  The things I took from this is that any column that contains PHI I could audit, if I used Enterprise or DataCenter edition of SQL.  It’s on the list for SQL Azure features but only has 17 votes.  If you think that Audit ...

I sat in on Dave Leininger ’s talk about Business Intelligence Architecture. He covered a lot of the soft skills that you need or at least should look into obtaining.  I think that out of all those skills communication and documentation were what I focus on and will continue to focus on.  Dave reminded me that talking is the best form of communication.  As a developer (some people call me an architect) I would rather code than talk about coding.  I do appreciate good communications.  I would say that half of my unproductive hours are due to being unsure about what direction to go next.  The other half of my unproductive hours are due to thrashing.  Getting stuck trying to make some piece of code, framework, or sdk do something I want it to but it resists doing.  Dave was right communication is a great asset to an organization. What is Business Intelligence?  Dave was a bit like a preacher talking to the choir about what BI is.  I did en...

I thought this yesterday when ScottGu brought it out into the open, but didn't say anything.  I didn't want to make myself sound old.   Alan Stevens brought up the topic of the old Web Matrix.  Funny how the same product at Microsoft can be redone over and over again.  Hello kids, check out this new technology, it's a web editor for designers who don't want to use the word programmer.  I think it's another fine way to market ASP.NET to guys and gals who aren't using it.  But for those who do, Visual Studio is probably fine, thanks.  But I'm not in marketing, I'm in development. 2002 http://web.archive.org/web/20030617213242/http://www.asp.net/webmatrix/guidedtour/getstarted/intro.aspx 2010 http://www.asp.net/webmatrix/tutorials/create-an-asp-net-website-from-scratch

I attended a hands-on lab session presented by Dave Bost and Bill Steele  at Indianapolis Microsoft offices today.  The topic of the day was Windows Phone 7.  I've watched several demos from Mix and TechEd, IndyNDA meetings and IndyTechFest.  I have been more impressed with the idea of Windows Phone 7 than the development environment.  Today I was pushed deeper into the SDKs than I've been before. I was first frustrated with installation of the bits.  Dave and Bill were using the April Refresh.  I seemed to have something else installed.  The SDK's installer wouldn't let me get very far.  I had to go through several (8) product un-installs.  Then one just wouldn't un-install.  I found that the XNA Cleanup tool did the trick. On my system things seemed to work better than Bill's.  I think that the resources needed to run both Visual Studio 2010 and the Windows Phone 7 emulator are a bit more than a netbook should run to be...

I had a great time talking about SQL Azure and it's benefits.  I did have one snafu though.  When I tried logging in to windows.azure.com I kept getting errors and blank pages.  It was a javascript error in Live Login.  Note to the wise, double check that javascript debugging is turned off when doing your demo. Links Microsoft SQL Azure SQL Azure Explorer Visual Studio addin   SQL Azure Manager one click app

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If you've been to one of my many talks on the topics of SQL or XNA please provide some feedback at SpeakerRate. http://speakerrate.com/trendoid I'd enjoy anything you have to say.  Don't like my slides, don't like my demos.  Should I explain things more in depth, or am I too detailed.  I'm trying to get better and your help is greatly appreciated.

Check out this SlideShare Presentation: Sql Azure - Sql Saturday Chicago View more presentations from Aaron King . Pro SQL Azure Windows Azure Platform (Expert's Voice in .Net) Azure in Action  

Hiring a consultant is a lot like dating in those TV sitcoms. Your dating this guy and it's promising but he just won't commit. When your dating a consultant you probably should keep your options open. Just in case he really isn't as into you as you are into him. In the end, just remember, you don't have to marry the guy.