My Past Presentations - Webinars, Shorts, and Live

I have compiled a list of my technical Webinars, "Azure Every Day" shorts, and Presentations that I could locate. 

Webinars:

Power BI Development Best Practices 

Tips and tricks for managing development backlog and keeping in the know of the Power BI features that make your reports and dashboards shine

Introduction to Azure Data Factory Data Flows 

Do you want to learn the basics of developing wrangling data flows and mapping data flows in Azure Data Factory? What are the similarities and differences between them and when should you use which type?

Azure Data Factory V2: SSIS in the Cloud or Not? 

Azure Data Factory V2 is an Azure Platform-as-a-Service with many SSIS-like features, but is it good enough to replace SSIS? In this session, we will review some of the ETL and ELT features in Azure Data Factory, discuss design patterns for ADF pipelines, review useful activities in ADF and see how closely it compares to SSIS.

Data Engineering Brick By Brick, An Intro to Azure Databricks 

Do you want to take the next step in your career as a Data Engineer?

In this introductory session, learn how to create your first Azure Databricks cluster, use notebooks, and work with data within Databricks.

Getting Started Using Azure ML 

Machine learning is a hot topic today. Learn how to get started using Azure ML, an integrated, complete data science and advanced analytics solution that allows data scientists to prepare data, deploy models in the cloud, and develop experiments. 

Azure Every Day Shorts:

• Preparing for the New Azure Certification Exams  
• What is Azure Data Studio?  
• What is Azure Key Vault?  
• Azure SQL Managed Instance  
• How to Upload and Query a CSV File in Databricks 
• How to Merge Data Using Change Data Capture in Databricks 

Live Presentations:

PASS Data Community Summit 2021 "Hitting the Bricks: an Introduction to Databricks"

Microsoft, Feb 2021, Andie with Bob Rubocki and Sharon Woloshin "Analytics in a Day"

Phoenix SQL Saturday 2019 

• "Intro to Azure Machine Learning" 
• "Azure Data Factory V2: SSIS in the Cloud or Not?"

Phoenix SQL Saturday 2018 

• "Power BI: The Magic of M"
• "Empowering Users with Dynamic Power BI Visualizations"

Lunch and Learn 2023,  "Creating Azure Functions using Python" 

Pragmatic Works Product demos:

• BI XPress demo
• Doc XPress demo
• LegiTest demo

Data Community Fun: A visit with Paul Turley

 

A few weeks ago, Paul Turley, his wife Shirley, their two spunky dogs and anti-social cat pulled up at the "Letourneau Resort" for a 3-day visit. We spent some time working together on the patio while his dogs raced around my property. The cat hid in the Data Bus and only went out when forced to do so. We shared several meals and spent many hours working at our computers (he visited Thursday, Friday, & Saturday. We both had to work Thursday & Friday). 

"Fancy" patio set-up. Just the computer, but we do have internet out there and the weather was perfect for sitting outside enjoying the fresh air while also getting a lot of work done. 

View from patio when you look up from computer. :) 

On the last day, Saturday, my boss at 3 Cloud, Kathi Vick, and her husband joined us. Paul has a blog called "Data On The Road", so he interviewed both of us before getting back on the road heading eastward. 

Guy loaned Paul his "Director's clapper" - it was the award from the Sakuracon 2005 AMV competition and was signed by a bunch of the convention guests - for the filming. The interviews took place on my patio couch. The clapper was definitely a fun way to start the videos.

I got to put the "Arizona" sticker on their "Places We've Been" map attached to the side of the Data Bus.

In early 2020, Paul and I had planned on being co-presenters at the Phoenix SQL Saturday, so I made cloud shirts for both of us so we'd match. Unfortunately, COVID came along and the Phoenix SQL Saturday never happened. 

For the interview with me, Paul and I donned our matching shirts to demonstrate how cool it would have been if we had presented with matching cloud shirts. They look pretty spiffy, eh? And the cloud earrings are of course a necessary accessory for any cloud data professional!

The above is a screenshot of the video posted to Paul's blog. I recommend you go see the video on his page, and also check out the other interviews he did with a number of other wonderful people in the data community. He also has a schedule posted telling you where he'll be and when. If he's coming to your area, reach out to him and say, "hi". 
 

I can't wait to see the Data Bus again when it next passes through the Phoenix area. 

SQL Editor “Presentation View”

I’ve often been frustrated by the lack of real estate in the standard SQL query window. Once the query has been run, the results eat up half of the screen, and if you have multiple grid view results from multiple queries in a batch, it can be difficult to examine all of the data without fighting with the UI to let you move the dividing line up.
Here’s what you often see:

I noticed during an online training session with Paul Randal (blog | twitter) that he was using a set up for his SQL query window that to me was more practical – it had the editor in one tab and the messages / other tabs next to the editor rather than below it.
Like this:

It took me a bit of searching and testing, but I finally located the setting and decided to document it here so I wouldn’t forget where it was again.
From the main menu, click on Tools then select Options…. Once the Options dialog pops up, expand Query Results > SQL Server > Results To Grid. In the list of settings, check both “Display results in a separate tab” and “Switch to results tab after the query executes”. Then click [OK].

SQL will save your settings and next query window you open will use the new view.
In addition, in the Options dialog, you may wish to change the font size. That setting is under Environment – Fonts and Colors. I’d only have it large for presentations where I have enough long queries that I need to display a large section of the window. For ones with smaller queries, I’d use “Zoom-it” because I can zoom in on the text I’m talking about and then zoom back out when finished. Zoom-it also lets you annotate the zoomed in window with drawn lines or additional text in various colors. The annotations disappear when you zoom back out, but they’re handy for pointing out key information.
Happy presenting!