Five Years of Blogging

From

to

My blogging story started on December 7, 2010. I have now had a blog for over 5 years. I want to thank all of you who have read my blog and interacted with me through it. You have seen me change the theme once and do a number of series. Here are some highlights from the past five years:

Top 5 Posts All Time

1. Adding Top 10 Charts to Power View Which Honor Filters
2. Simple batch script to generate XMLA and deploy SSAS DB
3. T-SQL Window Functions – Part 1- The OVER() Clause
4. Exploring Excel 2013 for BI Tip #14- Sparklines and Pivot Tables
5. O, There’s the Data- Using OData in SSIS

Top Series All Time

The Excel BI Tips series has changed it name a couple of times. However, this tip series still rings true even today even as Microsoft invests in other tools. Look for some more Power BI content this year, but this series will continue to have updates. Also, look to see some Excel 2016 topics added to the list as that release becomes available. Here are the top ten tips from the series:

1. Exploring Excel 2013 for BI Tip #14- Sparklines and Pivot Tables
2. Exploring Excel 2013 for BI Tip #15- Locking Slicer Position
3. Exploring Excel 2013 for BI Tip #10- The Data Bar
4. Exploring Excel 2013 for BI Tip #4- Adding a Slicer
5. Exploring Excel 2013 for BI Tip #5- Cleaning Up Slicers
6. Exploring Excel 2013 for BI Tip #9- Adding Calculated Members
7. Exploring Excel 2013 for BI Tip #8- Adding Calculated Measures
8. Exploring Excel 2013 for BI Tip #13- Connecting Slicers in Pivot Tables Sourced from a Power Pivot Model
9. Excel BI Tip #18- Using CUBE Functions to Break Out of Pivot Tables
10. Excel Tip #21- Hiding Scrollbars in Excel Services Web Part

Tributes

A tribute is an expression of gratitude or praise. A couple of years ago, I started a series about individuals who have impacted my career. I do this as a tribute to my father-in-law, Ed Jankowski who passed away in December 2009. Check out my original post about him and his impact on me being in software development today.

• 2011: How I Got Started in Software Development-A Tribute to Ed
• 2012: Cultural Anthropology and Business Intelligence–A Tribute to Dr. Thomas C. Correll
• 2013: Work Ethic and Family – A Tribute to My Parents
• 2014: She Taught Me to Code–A Tribute to Sheila, My Wife

Some Stats

I want to thank everyone again for taking time to check out my blog. Here are some stats that I thought were cool and decided to brag about here:

• 2011 daily average: 9 – 2015 daily average: 162
• 156 posts
• 135,000 views
• Best ever views in a day: 584

Thanks again for checking out my “help” library. As I noted in one of my posts, I blog to not forget and to pass along what I have learned. The key for me is that I do it when I can about topics that interest me.

A Quiet Quarter

The last statement holds true here. I have had a very quiet end of the year. I had blogs which followed up sessions, a practice that I intend to continue, and one BI Tip. November and December were quiet as my job and family took precedence as Pragmatic Works closed out the year strong and we had holiday activities at home including getting my two kids in college home. Well, the dust has settled so I am getting a few more posts published now. Look for the Minnesota SQL Server User Group and Minnesota BI User Group follow up posts this week.

Looking ahead to 2016

After a busy year last year, I am looking forward to having some new opportunities to write about Azure, SQL Server 2016, and other technologies I have not even seen yet. Are you excited for what is coming? Let’s have a great year working with data and analytics.