Manda QoP

Conquering the World one server at a time.... it's just a little bit addictive. Link to Travian

We're under way! Auckland SQL Server user group coming to a boardroom near you soon. :) We have a website, courtesy of Dave , the addy is www.aucklandsql.com . The re are also some funky new email addresses for Dave and me - dave@aucklandsql.com and amanda@aucklandsql.com , feel free to email either of us with any questions about the group. The current plan for the first meeting (subject to change if speakers can't make this date): 6pm, Wednesday November 19th Fronde (Level 7, Fronde House, 131 Queen Street) Sessions: Introduction to SQL Server 2008 (Dave Dustin / Wolters Kluwer Health) To Be Confirmed (Pat Martin / Microsoft New Zealand) SQL Server 2008 Certification (Amanda Jackson / Fronde) Pat's session and abstracts still to be nailed down. Hopefully next 48 hours.

Some good things heading our way SQL-wise. Hopefully Dave Dustin and myself will get the Auckland group up and running a.s.a.p. and plans are afoot for a possible SQL code camp later in the year. Emails are hot footing around the ether as I type...

I work for Fronde Systems in Auckland as part of the S+S, SaaS team .   Fronde has recently been appointed Google’s first partner in New Zealand for the Google Security, Compliance and eDiscovery products as well as Google Apps.  Hopefully this means I'll be able to get my paws out to play with some Google Apps though as we're specialists in transaction processing I'm wondering if it will be the security & transaction guys who get all the fun.  Guess I'll find out when I get back from speaking at TechEd Australia. Fronde had other good news last week as well.  We won the Microsoft Partner Software Solution of the year award for 2008.  Pretty spiffing eh?

So far I'm impressed with Google Chrome.  I love simple designs and I'm particularly liking the garbage collection and process handling.  Very neat.  It harks back to the days when I was learning C & C++ and I remember these being standard requirements when writing code - tidy up after yourself, avoid creating memory leaks etc...  I take it that previous browser developers either forgot this or thought it didn't matter. I'm also wondering if they've read my TechEd talk on complexity where I talked about leaving cool stuff out so that the first iteration of your software is a workable, robust solution... maybe not, that was yesterday afternoon and I'm pretty sure the Google devs don't have a time machine. :-) I had a quick look at ESI as well and this is looking like an interesting thang that deserves a more in depth look.  More info on how that goes later on...

Someone on the otherside of the table has my dream laptop, wonder if it's fully modded though. I'm still saving the $11k I need to buy it. Then again, by the time I've saved that much money it'll be available on TradeMe for $1000.

Someone raised an interesting point on Monday night at a GGD dinner and I feel they have missed the entire point of Girl Geek Dinners and have also, with their comments, seriously undermined other women who are looking to come out of their shell and interact with other 'geeks'. If you don't agree with what we're doing then don't come to a Girl GEEK dinner, and certainly don't turn up and throw cold water on people, make belittling comments and then moan that it was too technical and you didn't enjoy it. So what is a geek? There seemed to be some confusion. These women throwing around the derogatory comments seem especially confused. So let's refresh everyones' minds. You don't need to be in IT to be a geek folks! It's not an exclusive club limited to women who don't baulk at the thought of writing code. We're a diverse crowd and we celebrate each others geekiness, even if it isn't something we're into. We certainly ...