Wednesday, May 21, 2008

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Community Days Milano 2008: 09-10 July

The agenda is not finalized yet, but I am sure Community days 2008 will be as interesting as the past events.


I doubt I will attend the free event this year as I do not program in .NET at work. I still do some coding for fun but it is hard to justify two days away from work just for fun :-)


I will try to attend some Microsoft events to stay in touch with friends but you are more likely to see me at Python conferences in the future...

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

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NEVER underestimate the power of female intuition!

I have had a countdown status message in my office mail this week:


A female colleague a few thousand km away noticed and could not resist (keep in mind that I have never met her):



...
SuperWoman:  BTW, what are you celebrating in 2 days ;)
if i may ask


me: Guess
 
SuperWoman: wedding aniversary
 
me: correct !!!!
 
SuperWoman: congratulations ;)
 
me: The 10 years have gone very fast. Time flies when you have kids...
 
SuperWoman: next question...
 
how many ;)
 
sorry, I'm curious!
 
me: Since you are so incredibly good at guessing; lets see if you can guess the number of kids and age


SuperWoman: I'd say 2 kids, aged between 9 and 6??
 
me: I do NOT believe it.
My oldest daughter is 9
the youngest in 6
 


Are all women like this or am I that easy to read?


More importantly; what should I do with the aniversary gift? I am sure my wife knows what it is already...


 

Monday, May 19, 2008

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Contexts made GTD work for me

I have played around with GTD for several years. It has worked reasonably well but I recently learned that I have done one thing wrong: I used categories instead of contexts. They sound like the same thing but using context has made a big difference.


In the past I used categories like: "personal" and "work". It works for grouping tasks together but it is a bad idea when you have to choose the next thing to work on as it says nothing about the "context" you require to do them. I could have a personal task like "scan letter" that I actually have to do in the office where I have access to a scanner.


Defining real context makes it very clear what you should work on at any given time. No need to scan through the tasks and discard the ones you cannot work on as you are missing something. These are the contexts I use the most



  • Computer

  • Home

  • Person A/B/C etc: Something to do/discuss the next time I meet the person.

  • Office

  • Waiting: Anything I am waiting for ends up in here. I review it on a weekly basis to make sure I'm not loosing track of something

You can find plenty of good contex suggestions here.


Seeing a long lists of things to do regardles of context is just overwhelming and causes stress, so I have extended poToday to use context as well. Changes in version 3 of poToday



  • Support English date formats

  • Added a "move to no date" feature

  • Added context support (using the categories in Outlook).

  • Support for different screen orientations and sizes

Saturday, May 3, 2008

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Free essential guides for SQL Server

SQL Server Magazine has a set of free essential guides regarding many SQL Server tasks. They are targeted at people that are new to the topic and they are short and to the point:



  • The Essential Guide to Business Intelligence Reporting: Choosing the Right Tool for the Right Job

  • Virtualization of SQL Server 2008

  • The Essential Guide to Reporting Services Tips & Tricks

  • The Essential Guide to Disaster Recovery and Virtualization

  • The Essential Guide to SQL Server Backup and Recovery

  • The Essential Guide to Jump Starting Your SQL Server Skills

  • The Essential Guide to User Continuity

  • Special Report: Perspectives on SQL Server Sprawl

  • The Essential Guide to Solving Server Sprawl

  • The Essential Guide to Analytic Dashboards

  • The Essential Guide to Antispam Solutions

  • The Essential Guide to Choosing a Clustering Alternative

  • The Essential Guide to Table Partitioning and Data Lifecycle Management

  • The Essential Guide to SQL Server Skills for the Oracle DBA

  • The Essential Guide to SQL Server Management Fundamentals

Registration is required for the guides I had a look at.