Manda QoP

It was interesting to read how web use in Sweden dropped overnight by 40% since the introduction of a strict new copyright law... see here: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/web-2-0/news/article.cfm?c_id=363&objectid=10565443 , I'm wondering if perhaps a point has been missed in the NZ Herald article. I'm guessing they've copied the information from one site that seemed credible without putting in any actual thought or real journalism; the first result returned by Google gave me pretty much the same information that was contained in the NZ Herald article. This prompted me to do a bit of reading up of my own, especially as 4 0% seems rather higher than would be expected by just losing the file swappers. Surely 40% of Internet users in Sweden aren't using the Internet purely for file swapping and illegal downloads? Who knows? One day really isn't a long enough sample period and things may bounce back next week when people get over the shock of the new law. Swedish Pirate

We have Pat Martin from Microsoft presenting at the April meeting. The meeting will be at Level 7, Fronde House, 131 Queen Street starting at 6pm. Go to www.aucklandsql.com for more information and to register.

Sharepoint Designer is now available as a free download. Check out this link for more information. http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/04/02/sharepoint-designer-available-as-a-free-download.aspx

www.girlgeekdinners.co.nz has joined the blackout to protest against Section 92. Normal service will be resumed shortly.

I am very concerned about section 92 of the Copyright Amendment Act which comes into force at the end of February in New Zealand. This law assumes guilt upon accusation. No courts or legal system of any kind are involved. Your ISP is expected to act as judge, jury and executioner based upon a copyright infringement notice. For more information about this new law, check out Mauricio's blog as he's written a very good article, or the Creative Freedom Foundation or you could even go and read the law amendment on the NZ Legislation website . How do they prove guilt? That's all the proof they need. A signed notice from the copyright owner. 92D Requirements for notice of infringement A notice referred to in section 92C(3) must— “(a) contain the information prescribed by regulations made under this Act; and “(b) be signed by the copyright owner or the copyright owner's duly authorised agent. Because I am so concerned about this I've done something I would not normally do

Should be good tonight, we have 35 confirmed attendees and 5 speakers all doing lightning talks on various subjects. :) Bruce - The merge statement Kent - UDFs Bernard - Spatial Dave - SSMS Amanda - start discusson on Cursors (maybe... if time allows today to get some slides up together... gosh work is insane...) Hope to see you there. www.aucklandsql.com for more information...

I'm at the SQL PASS conference in Wellington this weekend and so far it's been very interesting. The Key Note talk was definitely different with an Iron DBA competition - o for awesome - yeah, I know... guess you have to be here for that one to make any sense. Have just watched a very useful DMV talk by Dr Greg Low, has made me think of a t-shirt slogan, sp_who is toast! Too geeky? Maybe I'll just stick with something slightly less geeky, current fave t-shirt slogan is "Come to the dark side, we have cookies." This afternoon I'm presenting on coding standards, the slides are minimal but they're attached on the right. I've also put together a word document of coding standards for T-SQL, these aren't 2008-i-fied yet but I'm working on that. Should still be useful though.