October 11, 2004 at 1:05 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the content posted at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/bkelley/passsummi
K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley
October 12, 2004 at 8:06 am
Why leave out the props for Brian Knight's and Andy Warren's presentations? I was able to attend Brian's "Protecting SQL Server Against Hackers" but missed Andy's "Develop on Your Machine" so I downloaded the slides from the PASS site. Brian's session was one of the best at the conference because he did a lot of demos with his co-presenter, Bayer White. It gave me some great ideas for a presentation I am giving next month.
Some positives about the conference - the sessions were very good and the conference seemed well run. The PASS leadership and volunteers looked in control of things. Microsoft was there in full force, which is something I was concerned about since this was the first conference outside of Seattle.
Some negatives - due to the weather I suppose, there were a lot of cancelled sessions. When I registered on Wednesday, they weren't handing out updated schedule grids but instead emailed updates. (email...WTF?) By Thursday, they had paper updates to distribute at the morning keynote. By Friday, there were new updated schedules with the full information (title, presenter name, etc.) at the keynote.
The layout of the Gaylord Palms sucked as well because some of the sessions were in rooms that were hard to find like Orange Blossom or St. George. I don't know how many times I went up and down the different floors trying to find the next session. Why couldn't they keep the PASS conference all on the same floor and move the concrete or other smaller conferences someplace else?
In summary, the educational value in the conference was great. The Gaylord Palms is not my favorite hotel. DFW Gaylord Palms next year? Maybe.
October 12, 2004 at 9:45 am
Brian,
thx for article and stopping by ApexSQL booth to jam with Todd and I. I look forward to the Edit review. Also thx to James (Travis) aka Antares(sp) for also "chewing the fat". I don't get a chance to talk to many people in my role at ApexSQL so it was fun engaging people. I also met some of the other vendors.
Us "rebels" need to get together sometime. I'm in Chapel Hill, NC and Ashton (ApexSQL Edit) is in Greensboring ... I mean Greensboro. There is nothing he likes more than talking SQL Server and MSFT technologies. He'll be in Houston next year an we'll probably bring along a few others.
also thx to Veritas for the "booth babe". The guys at ProActive DBA (they were right next to us) were great - *I* almost bought some of their software. If you want to talk to some straight shooters give these guys a call. LogPi crew had a good both and we hooked up with these guys later.
overall a good first run for us and a fun time
Brian Lockwood
President
ApexSQL - SQL Developer Essentials
October 12, 2004 at 12:42 pm
My thoughts on this are at a top-notch conference, you'll see seminars like Brian's and Andy's. That's to be expected. However, a vendor being very open with their next product and putting out a slew of seminars is not always the case, even at one targeted towards them.
K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley
October 13, 2004 at 7:52 pm
The biggest complaint I have is that I was so busy trying to get to all the sessions I never seemed to have time for the hands-on labs. But I think if I was there the whole week I'd still feel like I missed something.
Who had all the parties in the fort, and why wasn't I invited?
Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply