I’ll be honest, I don’t really know what I’m going to be doing in a year’s time. Things are a little in flux and some big decisions are soon going to need to be made. In light of that, I’m choosing mostly technical books.

So without further ado…

1) Pro SQL 2008 Failover Clustering

Clustering’s something I’ve dabbled in a couple of times and an area that I know just enough to be dangerous in. That needs to change, hence this book.

2) SQL 2008 Mirroring

Another aspect I know well enough to implement, in its basic form. The more advanced aspects, not a chance. Hence, book 2

3) SQL 2005 Assemblies

.Net in my SQL Server? Are you nuts? Apparently not. It has uses and places and again, I know the basics not the advanced.

4) Securing SQL Server

I have an excuse for not liking security much. I am mostly a developer after all. Not a good excuse. I need to know the area so I can make appropriate designs and recommendations (even if they get ignored). This book isn’t just SQL security settings, it’s everything from network and server hardening to application design.

5) Protecting SQL Server Data

Extension of the previous book. This one focuses on the data itself. Mostly encryption and design and reason thereof.

6) Defensive Database Programming with SQL Server

This is polish. I probably know and practice a lot of this, but there’s always room for a bit more polish, a bit more improvement.

7) SQL Server Hardware

While I build my own desktops and servers, I know far too little about selection of hardware for proper production servers. It’s also an area that I’ve been asked for advice on a few times. No excuses, time to study up.

8 ) Architecting Applications for the Enterprise

Knowing the database backwards is not enough. I’ve dabbled in architecture a few times, I’ll probably end up doing it again and I’ve never believed in doing things right the 3rd time.

9) Pro C# 2008 and the NET 3.5 Platform

I doubt I’ll be doing serious C# development in the near future, but knowing it means I’m less likely to fall for exaggerations (or outright lies) from developers. It also means I’ll have a better understanding of what works where; when the front end (or CLR assembly for that matter) is the appropriate place for something to be done, when the database is.

10) Linq in action

More on the previous point. While LinqToSQL is no longer been developed, that doesn’t mean it’s no longer used, and the other Linq options are here to stay. (I need to find an Entity Framework book too at some point)

11) The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

This is more on the process and philosophy of programming than on the action. Like Code Complete or Code Craft (both of which I need to re-read sometime)

12) Confessions of a Public Speaker

My one non-technical book. I don’t give that many presentations, all things considered, I do give enough that I want to get better at it.

One last point. I commit to reading all of these during a contiguous 12 month period. I don’t commit to starting immediately. I’ll start these once certain other things get finished.

Other than possible 24 Hours of PASS and PASS Summit feedback, the next blog post here will be a discussion of how not to go about doing a research degree while working full-time, which will be posted sometime after I get the thesis submitted.

London

Jen Stirrup (blog|twitter) took me around some of the major sights of London.

Inside and outside shots of St Paul’s cathedral.

A view down the Thames towards Tower Bridge.

And a view down the Thames in the other direction

One of the boundary markers for the City of London. I intend, on a future visit, to catalogue all of the various different dragons that mark the boundaries.

The gate and façade of Buckingham Palace

The Victory column and its surrounding statues, some silhouetted against the threatening sky.

Westminster Abbey

Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster (aka the Houses of Parliament)

Cambridge

A wilderness area outside of the City? No, the Cambridge Botanical Gardens, less than 10 min walk from the city centre.

This is simply called the Round Church. Can’t imagine why…

Some of the University Collages and Chapels that are scattered through the city.

Interior of King’s College Chapel

Some views of the river Cam

The Mathematical bridge (originally built by Sir Isaac Newton), the Bridge of Sighs, one of the College bridges and lastly the steel bridge that currently stands at the location of the original bridge over the Cam that gave the city its name.

I did fairly well with the goals that I set back in October. The experiment design for my thesis is not documented and the WPF book is not finished, but the rest is all done and the exam was easily passed. So not too bad there. Better than I managed in the first half of the year.

And now for next year…

The biggest thing is that I’m going to take a near-complete break from the SQL community for at least the first half of the year so that I can focus on my thesis. No writing articles, no contributing to books, no giving or writing presentations. I’ll still blog, though likely only once a month on SQL-related stuff, though there may well be some AI stuff appearing from time to time. I’ll still be around on the SSC forums, though not as much as I currently am. I’ll also still be involved in the local usergroup. I can’t abandon that.

So, with that out of the way, the goals for the next six months:

• Read one SQL book
• Read at least two AI books
• Get the experiment for my thesis designed and coded.
• Write at least two chapters of the thesis
• Get back into computer graphics and get two images done

To add to that, strange as it may seem, I’m going to ensure that I take time to read, relax and exercise away from the computer. This year I’ve spend too much time ‘busy’. I have a stack of books almost a metre high that I’ve bought but not opened. I have a similar stack of movies and games (though not quite as high) and I had a nasty bout of burnout Oct/Nov and I really don’t want  that again.

Of the goals I set back in January, about the only ones I achieved were getting the articles written (published at Simple Talk), reading the books and listening to podcasts. I’m doing so badly with my university studies that I’m wondering if it’s worth even considering registering next year.

Well, 3 months of the year left, let’s see if I can redeem anything of it. By the end of the year I will

• Finish the WPF book that I’m reading and finish the WFP app that I’ve been dabbling with for months
• Read an AI book, cover-to-cover
• Write 2 articles for SQL Server Central (not hard, one’s half-written, one’s planned out)
• Do the last section of the proof-of-concept for my Master’s experiments and have at least the outline of the design of the actual experiments documented.
• Write one certification exam, probably the MCITP SQL Developer

1) Do you feel that you have a reliable SAN Solution? If so what is the secret?

Well, this one’s easy for me. What SAN?

I work from home and don’t directly admin databases any longer. Unlike Paul and Kimberly, I can’t afford a multi TB SAN in the basement to play with (not that I have a basement)

The most advanced storage I have here is a RAID 5 array on my fileserver/domain controller, and that came in very handy a couple months ago when one of the drives in there failed without warning.

2) Describe in laymen’s term what database mirroring is

Ok, do you know the kind of sleight-of-hand tricks that performing magicians do? Show a coin in one hand, make it disappear and then have it appear in the other hand? The trick is that there are two identical coins, but one one is ever visible to the audience.

Database mirroring’s like that. There are two identical databases (kept identical by technological wizadry), the users can only ever see one of them and when one disappears the other one appears, hopefully fast enough that the users don’t get frustrated waiting.

Let’s see… going to pass this one on to Paul Randal and Christopher Stobbs

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Hmmm, something doesn’t quite fit there. Though I must admit I really like the idea of telecommuting from a tropical beach. Must speak to the boss about that….

This is probably one of the more creative of the blog memes that go around, this time originally from Tim Ford

“So You’re On A Deserted Island With WiFi and you’re still on the clock at work.  Okay, so not a very good situational exercise here, but let’s roll with it; we’ll call it a virtual deserted island.  Perhaps what I should simply ask is if you had a month without any walk-up work, no projects due, no performance issues that require you to devote time from anything other than a wishlist of items you’ve been wanting to get accomplished at work but keep getting pulled away from I ask this question: what would be the top items that would get your attention?”

Well, actually that’s almost the situation I’ve been in for the last couple months. Except the ‘on-the-clock’ part. And the deserted island part. Also I don’t admin servers so there’s no pile of outstanding backups or standardisation to do.

Ok, so let’s say that I had a month with no projects and that I couldn’t work on any personal or community stuff in that time. What would be sitting on my list of things to do.

Organise documentation

Pretty much anyone who knows me would say that I’m pretty disorganised, and it’s true. I have IT-related documentation, presentations, saved articles, webcasts and podcasts scattered across two computers and several stacks of DVDs. One of the first things on my to-do list would be to start organising it. Not organise everything, that would take far more than a month, but start organising.

I have Sharepoint set up on a server here and the very beginnings of an IT library on it. The first goal would be to get the IT-related articles and saved blog posts into a sharepoint library and categorised.

Learn Sharepoint

To go with the previous step, I would study up on Sharepoint and how it works. I’m not talking about the interface, how to navigate through it, set up libraries or configure sites. I’m talking about learning how it works, how it scales, how the pieces work together, how the security works. The long-term goal here is to be able to make recommendations to clients on planned sharepoint implementations.

Dig deep into clustering

I’ve dabbled in clustering before, but I’ve barely scratched the surface with it. I know just about enough to get into serious trouble with it. I would spend some of my month getting familiar with clustering, both at the OS level, installing and configuring the cluster and at the app level, on SQL’s interaction with clustering.

WPF

Lastly, if there’s any of the month left, I’d play with Windows Presentation Foundation. Just because.

I’m not going to tag anyone, because I think just about everyone’s done this one. I’m slow to get to it. As usual.

• Finish reading the IT books that I’m currently busy with and read at least one more
• Watch a webcast each month.
• Listen to a podcast each week. This is more difficult now, since I’m not commuting every day
• Get up to speed with Sharepoint.
• Write at least two SQL articles to be published on the web (like at SQL Server Central)
• Write two certification exams. At least one of those will be SQL Server
• Get my MCT certification.
• Get the experiments for my Master’s thesis designed. This depends on whether I’m allowed to re-register this year, after the lack of progress last year.

And my goals for the local SQL Usergroup for the next 6 months:

• Monthly meetings with at least four different speakers
• A SQL 2008 launch event in March or April
• A website for the usergroup
• At least 15-20 regular members

Overall, it’s been an exceptionally good 6 months. Starting with receiving the MVP award in July, then speaking at TechEd South Africa and again at PASS in Seattle, it’s been a wild ride. Add to that, along with a former colleague, I relaunched the South African SQL Server usergroup in October. Attendance was better than I expected for the first two meetings, with 30 or so at the first meeting and 7 people pitching for a friday evening meeting late in November

In terms of the goals I set for myself back in July, things did’t quite go as well. Of the 3 IT books I ssaid I’d read, I finished one, and that was only last week. I’ve watched no web casts, I haven’t investigated Sharepoint, let alone a second project and I didn’t touch the master’s thesis for five months.

I could attribute that to the new job, and the increase in community stuff that I’m doing, and that would partially be true. The main reason is that I’ve got complacent and stuck in a comfort zone. I’m going to have to do something about that.

Enough musing.

Happy new year to everyone reading this. I hope that 2008 was all you could have hoped for and that next year is even better.