I have been writing a series of posts here under the heading of Doing Business. I have received great feedback on this series and have enjoyed writing it very much. I expect that I will continue to post on this subject since I have been self-employed since 1992 and consider it one of the greatest things anyone can do.
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Thinking about going into business for yourself? Check out my list of the Top 15 Myths About Business in the Business Articles section of this site.
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There are a lot of misconceptions, myths, bad advice and outright lies about what it takes to be successful in business. And most of those are continually spread by people who have never gone into business for themselves.
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Update: Call for Speakers Closed. Thank you to those who responded.
I'm working on the PASS program committee to help put together the speaker list for this September's Community Summit. The PASS conference will be at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, the last week of September, 2005.
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I just returned from attending the latest MSDN Event (Winter 2005) where once again, we had Rory Blyth as our presenter. The three segments today were WinForms Bonanza, Debugging ASP.NET Web Apps, and Visual Studio Team System.
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I was catching up on some blog reading tonight and ran across a post by Bob Parsons (formerly of Parsons Technology, now CEO of GoDaddy Software) where he lists his 16 Rules to Live By.
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As we rapidly approach the end of the first month of 2005, let's talk about fixing some of those Top 15 Business Mistakes I listed a while back. The first two mistakes on our list are 1) Forgetting to bill the client; and 2) Losing track of unpaid invoices.
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Today, I was surrounded by celebrities. I went to the MSDN Event in downtown Seattle today where the infamous Rory Blyth, was the speaker. His boss, Paul Murphy was also there.
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The planning for the PASS Community Summit for 2005 has begun. This year, I am happy to be participating on the Program Committee, helping to build the schedule of speakers and subjects for the Summit in Grapevine, Texas (there is also one in Munich, Germany this, errr, next year).
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The new CDs are here! The new CDs are here! I'm a DBA!
If you are a member of PASS (Professional Association for SQL Server) then you have been inundated (in the newsletter if nowhere else) with advertisements and reminders to purchase the PASS 2004 Community Summit CDs.
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In my Self Employment 101 post, I emphasized the need to have a lawyer look over contracts before you sign them. Scott points to a post by Dave Taylor that brings this point home clearly with examples.
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At tonight's meeting of the Pacific NorthWest SQL Server User's Group (a.k.a. PNWSQL) we had Craig Freedman from the Query Execution Team at Microsoft talk. Also, as a special treat, Scott Stauffer (a.
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Rob (a.k.a. dotRob),
Please explain to me why you have copied and posted my article on your site as if it were your own.
If you like the article, that is great, but you should instead post your own comment on your site encouraging others to read it and then provide a link to my site so they can read the original.
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OUCH! My head hurts! A little while ago I finished taking a Brainbench test on SQL Server 2000 Programming and my brain still aches. I haven't been in test-taking mode for many years and it was quite an experience.
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Just got back from the local SQL Server User's Group meeting tonight where the topic of discussion was Native Web Services in SQL 2005. There were a few points that stood out, which I will share with you here.
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Do you read software licensing agreements when you install software? Maybe you should. I must confess that most of the time I just quickly skim them to see if anything dramatic jumps out at me.
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When is a vendor presentation not just a sales pitch? When it actually provides information that is useful whether you buy their product or not. And during the first half of the keynote session on Thursday, Veritas did it right!
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Kevin Kline, current President of PASS and author of SQL in a Nutshell was giving out free, autographed copies of his book at the Exhibit Hall Reception. Several people waited in line to get theirs and were happy to have a free book.
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Bill did a GREAT job presenting on new features in Profiler in SQL 2005. He definitely looked more comfortable and in control this year. Of course last year he was fighting a cold which didn't help.
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Integration Services. A couple of weeks ago, I posted about the local PASS chapter meeting I went to and the talk about DTS. One of the points was that they were going to change then name, and the new name is Integration Services.
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