About Ron

I am the father of two wonderful boys, and the husband of one wonderful wife.

A New Toy

My cell phone contract was up not too long ago and I wanted a smart phone, so I decided to splurge and purchase iPhones for Me and Beth. I have always had a very basic phone, so this is quite a change for me. I have been quite addicted to twitter on this thing.

So I downloaded the wordpress application and am giving it a run for its money. Maybe I can turn some of my down time into some quality blogging time.

WordPress Nightlies

I have been running the nightly versions of WordPress for a while. I have not run into hardly any issues until a few weeks ago. After an upgrade, I could not access the admin area.

I figured that I would clean it up in time, but then i started getting seriously spammed, and had to clean that up. So, for now, there are no plugins running on this site, since they were causing the issue.

And the spam is all gone.

New Theme

Well, it isn’t a new theme, but it is certainly new to me. Please pardon any bugs or formatting issues. I have always used very customized themes, so using an “out of the box” theme will take some getting used to.

Going Beta

I decided to change this site over to the WordPress beta releases. I have had a local copy of the nightly builds running for a while, but got tired on syncing the content back and forth. I do daily backups, so I am not terribly worried about losing anything.

So, if you are poking around and notice something a little wonky, please use the contact me link at the top of the page and let me know, or just leave a comment.

SQL Server Deep Dives

SQL Server Deep Dives

SQL Server Deep Dives

I finally received my copy of SQL Server Deep Dives in the mail today. I have waited for this book for several weeks, and am already through the first chapter. With what little I have read thus far, I really like this book. This makes hard copy book number three that I have read this year. (I know that does not sound like very much, but I have read countless eBooks this year. And I really mean countless … ummm … because I can’t tell you how many.)

If this is something that you think might interest you, consider buying a copy. The author royalties go to support War Child International.

My Great Google Reader Purge

I use Google Reader almost on a daily basis. I wake up in the morning, get a cup of coffee and read the news. To me, it is the newspaper of the new millennium. I fluctuate between 100 – 200 subscriptions at any given time. I go through over 400+ articles on  daily basis. I thoroughly read well over half of those. I have my subscriptions tagged with “Must Read”, “Should Read”, “Would Like to Read” and “Will Read if I get Around to it.” (These are not the actual tag names, but hopefully you get the picture.)

I an average day, I will visit Google Reader five or six times, mostly to clear out the articles that I am not terribly interested in reading. What ends up happening most of the time when I am in these moods is I Star the articles I am going to read more thoroughly later.  This leads to a plethora of Starred articles by the end of the week.

Saturday morning is my time to go through those articles in-depth. (These are mostly professional development type articles, so thoroughly reading and comprehending most if not all aspects of them is time-consuming.) At the end of the week, I read most of the articles, but some are left behind. They are left, not because they are unimportant, but simply for lack of time. My goal for the remainder of 2009 is to “clear” my Google Reader Starred Items.

I have spent almost four hours this morning going through my Starred Items, and have cleared over 25% of the backlog. With a wife and kids and Christmas and work and … well, you get the picture. This is my great Google Reader purge, and I am adamant about consuming every piece of information possible.

Themes

I tried to upgrade the Open Air theme that I was using, but things started getting a little wonky. That being said, I reverted to a previous theme. As I built this one, I am sure that it will work the way I intent it to work.

MCITP Database Administrator

I received my new certification card for my MCITP certification in the mail yesterday. I have been like a little kid expecting a package. I don’t know why I was so excited by this, but it was almost like receiving a diploma. (I think I actually worked harder at this than I did to receive a diploma.)