Me!

Goodbye, 2010!

Jason Follas — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 17:24:23 GMT

A recap of my 2010. Here's hoping that 2011 is just as productive!

Conferences

Codemash - Organizer
Day of .NET in Ann Arbor - Organizer

User Groups

Northwest Ohio .NET User Group

Training

Azure Boot Camp - Learner (Nashville)
Azure Boot Camp - Trainer (Cleveland)
Azure Boot Camp - Trainer (Southfield)

Community Events

Give Camp - Team Leader (Ann Arbor)
Give Camp - Participant (Lansing)

Speaking Engagements

CodeMash (Looting Design Ideas from WoW)
West Michigan .NET User Group (Add Spatial to .NET Apps)
Central Ohio Day of .NET (Intro TSQL; Intro XML)
CodeStock (SQL XML)
DevLink (SQL XML; Looting Design Ideas from WoW)
St. Louis Day of .NET (Looting Design Ideas from WoW; Intro TSQL; SQL Spatial)
Fort Wayne PASS (SQL XML)
Ann Arbor .NET Developers (Looting Design Ideas from WoW)
Greater Lansing .NET User Group (Looting Design Ideas from WoW)
Grand Rapids Day of .NET (Looting Design Ideas from WoW)
Dogfood Conference (A Lap Around SQL Azure)
IndyNDA (Looting Design Ideas from WoW)

Other fun stuff

Windows Azure Delta Force Training (Redmond, WA)
Tech*Ed 2010 (New Orleans, LA)

Bill Gates Thought it was a Good Idea, Too!

Jason Follas — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:36:10 GMT

This morning, I came across this news article about some patents that Bill Gates filed to stop hurricanes.

Sure, I never patented the idea or did any work to further elaborate on it, but I did blog about the same concept in 2005!

http://jasonf-blog.blogspot.com/2005/09/preventing-hurricanes.html

Bill, you can buy me a Diet Pepsi the next time that you see me...

The Lounge

Jason Follas — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:35:14 GMT

Those of you who visit my blog's website will notice a new type of ad in the sidebar, replacing the AdSense skyscraper that was there previously. I'm proud to be associated with the list of other .NET developers who are all part of The Lounge's .NET Small Publishers Room.

Speaking at Microsoft SQL Server User Group in Columbus, June 5

Jason Follas — Wed, 20 May 2009 15:00:05 GMT

On June 5th, I'll be in Columbus (Ohio) speaking to the Microsoft SQL Server User Group (Result Data) about using the XML data type in SQL Server.

XML Capabilities of SQL Server 2008

Jason Follas, Microsoft MVP for SQL Server, will lead a discussion on the XML capabilities of SQL Server 2008. XML-based data is very prevalent in today's data world to the point that every database developer should know how to work with XML. Middle-tier translation of XML into relational data may be inflexible, and often leads to a loss of fidelity over time. One solution is to move the XML handling into the database itself in order to improve overall integration. SQL Server 2008 provides powerful XML processing features that allow easy access to data stored within XML without sacrificing any of the original fidelity.

Partitioning in SQL Server 2008

Andy Thissen, Database Administrator at BMW Financial Services, will lead a discussion of the use of partitioning in SQL Server 2008.

Agenda

12:45 Check-In
1:15 Introduction & Announcements
1:30 XML Capabilities of SQL Server 2008
2:30 BREAK
2:45 Partitioning in SQL Server 2008
3:30 Q&A
3:45 Raffle – Door Prize

https://www.resultdata.com/training/schedule/register.aspx?id=198020

Name Twin?!!

Jason Follas — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 12:18:36 GMT

My surname is relatively unique, and in all my life, I have never known of another "Jason Follas". Well, that changed today when I got a vanity alert from Google that "Jason Follas is on Facebook".

I am on Facebook, but it seems that there's another from the New Zealand clan of Follases (there's quite a few of "us" down under)! I'm going to befriend him for the novelty aspect. :-)

Upcoming Events

Jason Follas — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 16:50:25 GMT

There are a few events taking place in October that I would like to promote:

Day of .NET in Ann Arbor
Saturday, October 18, 2008

The fourth Day of .NET in Ann Arbor event will take place on the campus of Washenaw Community College in Ann Arbor (or is it actually Ypsilanti? I can never tell). The original conference was a collaboration between GANG, AADND, and NWNUG. This year, we have officially added GLUG.net and West Michigan to the list of groups who are assisting in the organization and promotion. So, for those of you following along at home, this event is the product of FIVE regional user groups, and like its predecessors, should be a great day of learning and networking.

The session list has been posted, and there should be something on the schedule for everyone. Registration is free, and all that we ask is that if you do sign up, then please show up. There's nothing worse than wasting sponsorship dollars by ordering too much food or too many T-Shirts (though, this year, we're going to try to get Pizza back on the menu, so food waste should hopefully be minimized).

http://www.dayofdotnet.org/AnnArbor/Fall2008/Sessions.aspx

Wally McClure appearing at Northwest Ohio .NET User Group
Monday, October 20, 2008

"Hello. I'm Wally McClure. You might remember me from my many books published by Wrox Press with my picture on them. Or, the ASP.NET Podcast, where on the website, you'll find pictures of my books with my pictures on them. Or, the very popular T-Shirt with my picture on the back...."

I met Wally this summer at TechEd Developer in Orlando, where one of the first experiences was being crammed into the back seat of a car between him and Keith Elder. He seemed to take a liking to me, and let's just say that my phone now receives more random text messages than ever before. :-)

In all seriousness, Wally was supposed to have appeared at NWNUG in June, just after TechEd, but had to back out due to work commitments (Steve Smith ended up filling in for him). We're thrilled that he was still interested in coming to Toledo, and we were able to arrange an October 20th date (note that this is a Monday, not the regular Tuesday meeting night).

Watch the NWNUG website for further details about the meeting topic.

Truck

Jason Follas — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 00:24:17 GMT

Last week, I travelled to Philadelphia to work out of my company's office in Exton for a week. Before leaving, I took my youngest daughter for a hike in the park, which was a two-fold treat for her: she got to spend time with Daddy, and as an extra bonus, she got to ride in Daddy's truck. Being a two-seater, it is not often used unless I'm spending some 1-on-1 time with one of the kids.

After returning from out hike, I parked it on the street in front of the house. It looked something like this picture that I took in 2003 right before buying it:

Well, fast forward to very early Friday Morning. I was sleeping in my hotel room, when my cellphone began to ring. I think the alarm clock took quite a few swipes of my fist before I realized that it was not the loud noise that was bothering me. I stumbled out of bed and picked up the phone, only to hear my wife tell a tale of firetrucks and flames and the entire neighborhood observing some bonfire that was taking place on the street in front of my house.

I had actually had a bad dream just a bit earlier, and was relieved to find out that it was only a dream. I think part of me expected the same to happen in this case, but no such luck. My truck - the one that I had just paid off a few months ago - was ablaze.

Now, the truck looks a little more like this:

Notice if you will that there is no hood on the truck. It was a steel hood, and is nowhere to be found. So, it was either removed by the firefighters and they took it with them, or it simply melted away.

The worst part now is that we have to wait until Monday (2 more days as I write this) for the insurance company to tow the shell away to their evaluation center... once there, the lady told me, they would then make the determination as to whether it could be repaired or not. I just giggled to myself.

But, until then, there's a tarp-wrapped burned-out truck serving as a landmark for those trying to locate my house. It's the one with the nose sitting on the asphalt.

UPDATE: The truck was hauled away shortly ago. While speaking with the neighbors who came out to watch, I learned that another neighbor filmed it AND UPLOADED TO YOUTUBE! Thanks, Andy!

Renewed

Jason Follas — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:53:34 GMT

Thanks again, Microsoft!

Software Development Meme

Jason Follas — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 14:56:43 GMT

This meme is brought to you by Michael Eaton, who just so happens to be a huge fan of my spatial talks. ;-)

How old were you when you started programming?
Well, we might need to better define "programming" here.

I started tinkering with computers when I was about 6 or 7 (is that right, Dad?). In those days, it was more about reading a book about BASIC and typing in the program to run. Then I would make changes to the program to see the results. If modifying an existing program is considered "programming", then this is my epoch.

I really didn't start creating my own programs from scratch until I was a little older, maybe 8 or 9.

How did you get started in programming?
My father would give me and my siblings time on the computer (TRS-80s), which I spent going through books about BASIC. I wanted to make the machine do something rather than just use the machine to do something, like play a game. (Don't get me wrong, though: I spent plenty of time playing games, too)

What was your first language?
BASIC

What was the first real program you wrote?
I don't remember the small ones. But an early one that sticks out in my mind was a "catch the falling egg in a basket" game, where a chicken would move randomly across the top of the screen, drop an egg, which you then had to catch in a basket at the bottom of the screen that you controlled using a joystick. I think that was on my Commodore 64, so I had to be maybe 10 years old (side note: it's amazing how hard it is to pinpoint when these events take place as the years pile on).

What languages have you used since you started programming?
BASIC, Visual Basic, C/C++. C#, SQL, Java, JavaScript, LUA

What was your first professional programming gig?
I was a PC Technicial (and, later correctly changed to Programmer/Analyst) in the IT department at the BAX Global Hub facility. There I helped maintain a variety of home-grown systems, and created some of my own (like the Automated Load Planning System that was used to assign where freight should be placed on aircraft for optimal center of gravity).

If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming?
I don't see why not. I really haven't been jaded in my career, or anything, and it still holds my interest.

If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be?
Choose a technology that you are passionate about and become an expert in it... and then evangelize that technology to share your passion. There is so much stuff out there that nobody can be an expert in everything. Developers that are only able to do a little bit of everything are a commodity resource that can be replaced by cheaper labor at any time. However, if you have exceptional expertise in one or more select areas, then you become that much more valuable to somebody.

What's the most fun you've ever had ... programming?
I don't know that the actual task of programming has ever been "fun" for me, in the same sense that riding a roller coaster would be. But, I've done some quirky things while programming just to have fun and be different. Like implement a Z-Machine emulator in SQLCLR (as my submission to a programming competition) so that I can play Zork using only stored procedure calls... Or use data from the WoW Armory site to demonstrate how to use SQL Server's XML functionality... Or write Project Euler solutions in LUA and execute them in-game using WoW.

So Long, Dustin!

Jason Follas — Fri, 16 May 2008 12:22:17 GMT

Today is Dustin Campbell's last day as a resident of Ohio. As announced last month, he has left DevExpress and joined the Blue Monster where he'll surely be doing great things as a Program Manager on the Visual Studio team.

So, tomorrow morning, his family will embark on a one-way trip to Seattle and take up residence there. I cannot imagine the whirlwind of emotion that they must be experiencing at the moment! And, I can't imagine that his wife is doing all of this without ever having been to Seattle!

Over the past couple of years, Dustin has become one of my best friends, so seeing him leave is certainly bittersweet. I was fortunate enough to spend a little time last night with him, his Trophy Wife, his absolutely adorable little baby, and his dog (who, funny enough, was hung-over the entire time since they did a trial run of a doggie sedative yesterday). These are great people, and they'll surely be missed.

So, with mixed emotions, I say: So Long, Dustin! Thanks for all of the Scotch! (and I'll see you in two weeks in Orlando!)