Category Archives: thoughts

Starting 2012

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Besides my wildest hopes that I would have time for learning more of SQL Server, the reality is that I am deeply stuck somewhere in 2011 with my plans still not being finished. :) haha

This is all because of the SQLSaturday#115, which I hope will become a legendary event in Portugal. We are working our butts off to make it happen, and not just to create the biggest privately organized IT event in the Portuguese history, but we are working hard to enhance it with a deep social meaning. What does it actually mean – you might ask. Well, there are 2 unannounced parts of our event which are still under construction, but which I consider one of the most important things about our SQLSaturday.

What is about? Its all about community, the real community which surrounds all of us, living in Portugal. Our SQLPort community has to give something back to the people and its a perfect time to start. We will be announcing these 2 parts very soon.

Reviewing 2011

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Though the new 2012 year has started already almost a week ago, I am still trying to review what has happened in my life during the past year (2011).

In a professional sense, 2011 was dominated by the SQL Server, as it was in the past 3 years. I have had spent more then 200 hours on my SQL Server education, and by the end of the year I was lucky to change my daily work from a major part of a typical day dedicated to SQL Server to full-day SQL Server engagement. Right now I am doing a lot of SSIS works, which I am enjoying a lot.

I have presented much more times than I have originally thought and planned – 7 times instead of just 4, that I was expecting in the beginning of 2011. I had delivered a couple of small sessions and lighning talks at SQLPort, NetPonto and PASS. Comparing to the past years, this was definitely the biggest audience that I have reached within a same year.

I have had a period in September-October when I was looking for a new gig, but even after doing 9 interviews, the company I am working with (Novabase) has found a great new gig which I was more then happy to accept. This period of interviews has given my a better view of the current market situation, and the way that things are. I had applied to a couple of portuguese companies that I admire, and with one I have got even to the very last stage, but … when I was saying that I was ready to spend 1 week per month away from home at max, I was really meaning it. I am about to become a father for the second time, and at that time frame I was not going to reveal that it was one of the main reasons for not wanting to work in other countries.

Apart from daily work, there has been so much work with SQLPort, that I am really wondering how on earth I managed to pull it of. SQLPort – Portuguese SQL Server User Group is a baby which has enjoyed a very strong growth – in almost every aspect the group has grown around 100% – events attendance, signups, number of users, etc, etc.
Sure enough – we have had arranged great presentations by the Portuguese professionals and some international specialists like Brent Ozar, Alejandro Leguizamo (SolidQ), Scott Stauffer and Kalen Delaney.

We had organized the first official SQLSaturday outside of Northern America and let me tell you, that the amount of time that a person spends to organize such an event is genuinely ginormous. Do not be fooled, it gives such a big pleasure of helping your own community, that when looking back one feels an enormous satisfaction that we have had full-day event and delivered great content for over a 100 of SQL Server professionals.

Once again I went to the PASS Summit, and once again it was an absolutely marvelous experience. Besides just learning and communicating with other SQL Server professionals, I was given to deliver an opportunity to deliver a small presentation – a so called Lightning Talk. I have chosen to present in what I call “Niko On Steroids” style, which is a kind of very energetic presentation style. When I am speaking about a subject, I feel a genuine passion about it. I am alive, so I need to feel, and when a topic is close to me – then I am looking that every person in the room gets the message. Those who are present, are free to agree or disagree with the subject but if one thing is sure – when listening to me you will feel the highs and lows that I feel when thinking about the subject.

I am not the biggest fan of separating things based just on the calendar year, but if I am looking at the year 2011 – I feel satisfaction. It was a year of learning and surviving. I have faced some difficulties, like a potential unemployment, stress and depression, but I have passed them – hoping that I have become just a bit stronger and a bit happier.

2012 will be different … but I am looking forward to all that it is going to bring into my life.

Rethink, reload, relaunch

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This is a turning point for this site – I took my time and I am relaunching this blog.
I will be writing more about the stuff I am doing – like SQLPort (Portuguese SQL Server Community), SQLSaturday#115 – the biggest IT community event in Portugal ever, and so on. Good stuff in 2012 :)
I will be sharing some thoughts about the state of the community and the enterprises in my country (Portugal) and in general.
Stay tuned. :)

Liberalization of .pt domains

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Registering a .pt domain sucks big time — its expensive (20 euros, about 3 times more expensive then .com) and complicated. If you do not have a registered trademark or its not your enterprise name, then forget it – it is impossible. Of course if you are a public entity with such name, than you may have it, but i will just skip this rules part, because in a common case that all does not make any sense. Also, because of such rules you could not actually sell any domain, which from one side stop the cybersquatters but from the other side if FCCN would rule the internet, then everyone would go to amazon.on.sapo.pt and ebay.iol.pt at best. I always lived in the countries where domains are free to register, and i do not see any reason why in Portugal it should be any different. And no, i do not like the com.pt domains at all, though i know some people who has such domains and i did site for such domains, but why should someone need .com.pt, when .pt is still available ?

If you have a business or want to start on in Portugal, or you are thinking about starting any online community — start with registering a trademark (think time and money), and only after your have all the papers you may initiate the register process. The FCCN — the authority, responsible for the internet promised last year to open the registration on the 1st of May 2008.

A lot of people started pre-registering .pt domains paying some money to the clever internet providers. Of course when the time came, FCCN announced that they would delay the liberalization for an undefined period of time, which was not such a big surprise remembering the history of the .pt domains. I was one of those who while being close to register a couple of .pt domains decided to give it “some time”, or in other words to wait and see. Well, it was worth of not doing anything, and for sure i wont enter in any such scheme involving FCCN anymore.

I am angry on the stupid attitude of the FCCN, the liberalization of the .pt domains in Portugal would help the development of the internet, and by preventing the liberalization they only help those who have enough money and time to register a trade mark or found a firm, but in the big sense preventing portuguese internet from growing. I just think that this attitude is completely stupid.

Microsoft still fights for Yahoo

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In the recent news one thing that should be noted, is that Microsoft after announcing that they do not want to buy Yahoo anymore, and that does not correspond their interest at all have announced that they are looking into forming an alliance with Yahoo. Is it me or does anyone here the world famous microsoft “3E tactics” — embrace, extend and extinguish ?

My point of view is that we do not need less sharks (big enterprises), but much more of them — more big fishes in the business, means more real concurrence and better products and prices. If someone wants less options, than more merges is your area. I hope that they will fail, as well as the Google will fail to do any kind of merge with Yahoo – i may like or dislike them, being a client of Yahoo for more then 10 years, but i want them to continue to be an important player on the scene. This way the internet will only get better.

Randy Pausch

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Randy Pausch is a well known professor at Carnegie Melon University, working on 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. This project is called Alice, and EA has already announced that they are helping with the creation of the third version of this project by giving the characters from their game “The Sims”.

Randy Pausch has pancreatic cancer and was given just a couple of months to live, and thats where he has shown a character by giving his “Last Lecture” to his students. In his last lecture he is talking about different subjects, but mostly about the time which is quite finite for all of us. I urge everyone to take a look at the videos on his page, they are quite emotional and inspiring, his “time management” lecture is an instant classic. You might disagree with some of the things that he is presenting, but it is quite a way of managing the time.

There has been a lot of things written about him, a number of television stations have made interviews and specials. He is quite an impressive person, he is doing all this public things at the moment as a way of leaving a message for his 3 kids. I feel that he is a very special person capable of inspiring those who are around him, and watching his videos leaves me quite an inspired for doing better things in this live

I have learned about him some time ago, and by now i have seen all the videos that i could find on the internet and i am waiting for his book, which should arrive next week.