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Archive for the ‘About Me’ Category

SQLAuthority News – 6th Anniversary and 50 Million Views and Over 2300 Blog Posts – Thank You Thank You

Posted in About Me, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology on November 1, 2012 | 47 Comments »

Six years ago, I started this SQLAuthority.com blog. There are so many things I want to say today – it is very very emotional. Instead of writing long I am including few images and cartoons.

Last month we have also reached 50 Million Total Views on this blog. Here is the screen captured at that time.

Click Image to Enlarge

In 6 years there are total 2192 days (including 2 leap year day) and my total blog post count is 2300. That means I have been blogging more than 1 blog post every day. Here is the quick glance to all the numbers.

Here you can find the list of all the 2300 blog posts.

I am very glad to see my many of the friends stay in USA, India, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia in that order. You can see the geographic distribution of the support I receive on the blog from worldwide.

On this day I would like to call out one 2 individuals who contribute equally or more in my success. When I started this blog 6 years ago, I was walking alone. After 2 years my wife Nupur joined my journey and 3 years later my daughter Shaivi joined the journey. Here is the example of the common conversation among us almost every day -

Shaivi: Daddy, play catch-catch.
Nupur: Shaivi, daddy will play with you once he finishes tomorrow’s blog.
Shaivi: Daddy, Finish Blog. Okey. I play catch-catch (alone).

SQLAuthority Family

Well, thank you very much! We all love you!

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

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SQLAuthority News – Who I Am And How I Got Here – True Story as Blog Post

Posted in About Me, Best Practices, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology on October 20, 2012 | 2 Comments »

Here are few of the sample questions I get every day?

  • “Give me shortcut to become superstar?”
  • “How do I become like you?”
  • “Which book I should read so I know everything?”
  • “Can you share your secret to be successful? I want to know it but do not share with others.”

There is generic answer I always give is to work hard and read good educational material or watch good online videos.

One of the emails really caught my attention. It was from a friend and SQL Server Expert John Sansom (Blog | Twitter). He wrote if I would like to share my story with the world about “Who I am and How I got Here”. I was very much intrigued with his suggestion. John is one guy I respect a lot. Every single topic he writes, I read it with dedication. I eagerly wait for his Weekly Summary of Best SQL Links. If you have not read them, you are missing something out.

Writing a guest post for him was like walking in memory lane. I remembered the time when I was beginning my career and I was bit overconfident and bit naive. I had my share of mistakes when I started my career. As time passed by I realize the truth. Well, we all do mistakes. Though, I am proud that as soon as I know my mistakes I corrected them. I never acted on impulse or when I am angry. I think that alone has helped me analysis the situation better and become better human being. During the course, I have lost my ego and it is replaced by passion. I am much more happy and successful in my work.

Quite often people ask me if I am always online and wether I have family or not. Honestly, I am able to work hard because of my family. They support me and they encourage me to be enjoy in what I do. They support everything I do and personally, I do not miss a single occasion to join them in daily chores of fun.

If there was a shortcut to success – I want know. I learnt SQL Server hard way and I am still learning. There are so many things, I have to learn. There is not enough time to learn everything which we want to learn. I am constantly working on it every day. I welcome you to join my journey as well. Please join me with my journey to learn SQL Server – more the merrier.

I have written a story of my life as a guest post. 

Read Here: A Journey to SQL Authority

Special thanks to John Sansom (Blog | Twitter) for giving me space to talk my story. Indeed I am honored.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

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SQL SERVER – A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words – A Collection of Inspiring and Funny Posts by Vinod Kumar

Posted in About Me, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology on September 28, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

One of the most popular quotes is: A picture is worth a thousand words. Working on this concept I started a series over my blog called the “Picture Post”. Rather than rambling over tons of material over text, we are trying to give you a capsule mode of the blog in a quick glance. Some of the picture posts already available over my blog are:

Correlation of Ego and Work: Ego and Pride most of the times become a hindrance when we work inside a team. Take this cue, the first ever Picture post was published. Simple and easy to understand concept. Would want to say, Ego is the biggest enemy to humans. Read Original Post.

Success (Perception Vs Reality): Personally, have always thought success is not something the talented achieve with the opportunity presented to them, but success is developed using the opportunity in hand now. In this fast paced world where success is pre-defined and convoluted by metrics it is hard to understand how complex it can sometimes be. So I took a stab at this concept in a simple way. Read Original Post.

Doing Vs Saying: As Einstein would describe, Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Given the amount of information we get, it is difficult to keep track, learn and implement the same. If you were ever reminded of your college days, there will always be 5-6 people doing different things and we naturally try to emulate what they are doing. This could be from competitive exams GMAT, GRE, CAT, Higher-Ed, B-School hunting etc. Rather than saying you are going to do, it is best to do and then say!!! Read Original Picture Post.

Your View Vs Management View: Being in the corporate world can be really demanding and we keep asking this question – “Why me?” when the performance appraisal process ends. In this post I just want to ask you one frank opinion – “Are you really self-critical in your assessments?”. If that is the case there shouldn’t be any heartburns or surprises. If you had just one thing to take back, well forget what others are getting but invest time in making yourself better because that is going to take you longer and further in your career. Read Picture Post.

Blogging lifecycle for majority: I am happy and fortunate to be in this blog post because this picture post surely doesn’t apply to SQLAuthority where consistency and persistence have been the hallmark of the blog. For the majority others, who have a tendency to start a blog, get into slumber for a while and write saying they want to get back to blogging, the picture post was specifically done for them.

Paradox of being someone else: It is always a dream that we want to become somebody and in this process of doing so, we become nobody. In this constant tussle of lost identity we forget to enjoy the moment that is in front of us. I just depicted this using a simple analogy of our constant struggle to get to the other side, just to realize we missed the wonderful moments. Grass is not greener on the other side, but grass is greener where we water the surface. Read Picture Post.

And on the lighter side…

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

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SQL SERVER – Basic Calculation and PEMDAS Order of Operation

Posted in About Me, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology on September 25, 2012 | 16 Comments »

After thinking a long time, I have decided to write about this blog post. I had no plan to create a blog post about this subject but the amount of conversation this one has created on my Facebook page, I decided to bring up a few of the question and concerns discussed on the Facebook page. There are more than 10,000 comments here so far.

There are lots of discussion about what should be the answer. Well, as far as I can tell there is a big debate going on on Facebook, for educational purpose you should go ahead and read some of the comments. They are very interesting and for sure teach some new stuff. Even though some of the comments are clearly wrong they have made some good points and I believe it for sure develops some logic. Here is my take on this subject. I believe the answer is 9 as I follow PEMDAS  Order of Operation. PEMDAS stands for  parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction. PEMDAS is commonly known as BODMAS in India. BODMAS stands for Brackets, Orders (ie Powers and Square Roots, etc), Division, Multiplication,  Addition and Subtraction. PEMDAS and BODMAS are almost same and both of them follow the operation order from LEFT to RIGHT.

Let us try to simplify above statement using the PEMDAS or BODMAS (whatever you prefer to call).

Step 1: 6 ÷ 2 (1+2) (parentheses first)
Step 2: = 6 ÷ 2 * (1+2) (adding multiplication sign for further clarification)
Step 3: = 6 ÷ 2* (3) (single digit in parentheses – simplify using operator)
Step 4: = 6 ÷ 2 * 3 (Remember next Operation should be LEFT to RIGHT)
Step 5: = 3 * 3 (because 6 ÷ 2 = 3; remember LEFT to RIGHT)
Step 6: = 9 (final answer)

Some often find Step 4 confusing and often ended up multiplying 2 and 3 resulting Step 5 to be 6 ÷ 6, this is incorrect because in this case we did not follow the order of LEFT to RIGHT. When we do not follow the order of operation from LEFT to RIGHT we end up with the answer 1 which is incorrect.

Let us see what SQL Server returns as a result.

I executed following statement in SQL Server Management Studio

SELECT 6/2*(1+2)

It is clear that SQL Server also thinks that the answer should be 9.

Let us go ahead and ask Google what will be the answer of above question in Google I have searched for the following term: 6/2(1+2)

The result also says the answer should be 9.

If you want a further reference here is a great video which describes why the answer should be 9 and not 1.

And here is a fantastic conversation on Google Groups.

Well, now what is your take on this subject? You are welcome to share constructive feedback and your answer may be different from my answer.

NOTE: A healthy conversation about this subject is indeed encouraged but if there is a single bad word or comment is flaming it will be deleted without any notification (it does not matter how valuable information it contains).

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

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SQLAuthority News – Memories at Anniversary of SQL Wait Stats Book

Posted in About Me, Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority, SQLAuthority Book Review, T SQL, Technology on September 1, 2012 | 5 Comments »

SQL Wait Stats

SQL Wait Stats

About a year ago, I experienced a very proud moment. I published my second book, SQL Server Wait Stats, also acting as its primary author. It has been a long journey since then. The book received a generally great response and it has been widely accepted in the Community ever since its release. It was actually a first-of-its-kind book written to concentrate on the subject of Wait Stats and Performance. The book was based from my month-long blog series about the same subject, SQL Server Wait Stats. Today’s the first anniversary of the book, and lots of things come to my mind. Let me share a few here.

Idea behind Blog Series

A very common question I receive is why I wrote a 30 day series on Wait Stats. There were two reasons behind this series:

1) I have been working with SQL Server for a long time now and have troubleshoot more than hundreds of SQL servers which are related to performance tuning. It was a great experience and it taught me a lot of new things. I always documented my experience. After a while I found that I was able to rely completely on my own notes when I had to troubleshoot any server. It is right then that I decided to document my experience for the Community.

2) While working with Wait Stats, there were a few things which I thought I knew well enough since they were working. However, there was always a fear in the back of mind about what happens if what I believed was incorrect and I was on the wrong path all the time. There was only one way to get my belief validated -put it out in front of all the Community with my understanding and request further help to improve my understanding. And it worked – it worked beautifully. I received plenty of conversations, emails and comments. I refined my content based on the various conversations with others and made my understanding more relevant and accurate.

I guess that these two are the major reasons for beginning my journey on writing Wait Stats blog series.

Idea behind Book

After writing a blog series there was a good amount of request from my readers saying that I should convert the series into an eBook or a hardcopy. They said that reading the blog posts is great, but it does not give a comprehensive understanding of the subject as much as a book does. The most common feedback from users who were beginning to study the subject was that they prefer to read all about Wait Stats in a structured method. After receiving the same feedbacks for more than 4 months, I decided to write a book based on the blog posts. When I envisioned the book, I wanted to make sure that this book would address the Wait Stats concepts from the fundamentals and fill the gaps on the blog posts I wrote earlier.

Rick Morelan and Joes 2 Pros Team

I must acknowledge my co-author Rick Morelan for his unconditional support in writing this book. I had already authored one book before I published this book. The experience to write the book was out of the world. Writing blog posts are much much easier than writing books. The efforts it takes to write a book is 100 times more even though the content is ready. I could have not done it myself if it wasn’t for the tremendous support of my co-author as well as my editor’s team. We spend days and days researching and discussing various concepts that were to be covered in the book. When we were in doubt, we reached out to experts to improve the content, and also did a practical reproduction of the scenarios to validate the concepts and claims. After 3 months of continuous hard work, we were able to get this book published into the Community.

September 1st – the lucky day

Well, we had to select any day to publish the books. When the book was completed in the last week of August, we felt very glad. Every time my books are published, I feel the same joy which I had when my daughter was born. The feeling of holding a new book on my hand feels (almost) the same as holding newborn baby. I was excited. For me, September 1st was (and has always been) the luckiest day of my life.

My daughter Shaivi was born on September 1st. Since then, every September first has been a special day for me, and has always taken me to the next step in life. I believe anything and everything I do on September 1st is turning out to be successful and blessed.

Rick and I had finished a book in the last week of August. We sent it to the publisher (printer) and asked him to publish the book as soon as possible. We did not decide on any date as we wanted the book to get out as fast as it can. Interestingly, the publisher/printer selected September 1st for publishing the book. Because it was published on 1st September, I got a feeling that this book would reach the next level.

Book Model – The Most Beautiful Girl

We were done with book. We had no budget left for marketing. Rick and I had a long conversation about how to spread the word for the book so it can reach as many people as it can. While we were talking about marketing Rick come up with the idea that we should hire the most beautiful girl around who acknowledges our book and genuinely cares for the book.

I am a father and the most beautiful girl for me is my daughter. This was not a difficult task for me. Rick had given me the task to find the most beautiful girl and I just could not think of anyone else than my own daughter. I still do not know what Rick thought about this idea but I had already made up my mind. You can see the detailed blog post here.

The Fun Experiments

Book Signing Event

Book Signing Event

We had lots of fun moments along this book. Actually, we have given away more books to people for free than we have sold them. We went through book signing events, contests, and just plain give away events when we found out that more people could benefit from this book. There was never an intention to make money and get rich. We just wanted to see more and more people learning about this new concept and learn from it. Today when I look back at the earnings in dollars, there’s nothing much really. However, the best reward we received has been the relentless satisfaction and love of community. The amount of emails, conversations we have received for this book is over thousands as of the moment.

We had fun writing this book; it was indeed a very satisfying journey. I have earned lots of friends while learning and exploring.

Availability

The book is one year old, but the content is still very relevant when it comes to performance tuning. It is available at various online book stores. If you have read the book, please let me know what you think of it.

Amazon | Kindle | Flipkart | Indiaplaza

Reference:  Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

 

 

 

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