Since taking a short break from writing books, I've been able to free up time to work on another project that has been languishing for many years. I've been frustrated over the years with all of the shortcomings in the development and management tools that Microsoft delivers with SQL Server. They do the basic job, but if you really wanted to manage an environment, you always had to write your own code and build things to run it across multiple instances. I've made several attempts over the years with various grups of people to build a bunch of utilities that provide better or additional capabilities than exist with what Microsoft delivers in the box. Each of these efforts have been derailed either by people looking for a "get-rich-quick scheme" who wanted $100s or $1000s for any of these tools or by people whose only response to any proposal was "can't, don't, won't, isn't going to work, etc." Well, I don't have to deal with any of that anymore, because it turns out, I have a very talented development team at a sister corporation, FilAm Software Technology. Over the last two months, we've been working on the first database utlity. BlowFrog Software, Inc. is being launched to develop, market, and support the database utilities that I've always wanted to have. BlowFrog Software SQL Script is our first entry on the market that can run stand-alone or as a plugin to SQL Server Management Studio. In addition to the one object at a time or one database at a time scripting that SSMS already provides, we also give you things that don't exist anywhere else - script every job in a single action, script every SQL Server Agent object in a single step, script instance level objects including configuration settings in a single step, decrypt programmable objects, and script multiple databases in a single step. All of this in the price range that I think database utilities should be $14.99. This is just version 1.0, with work starting on version 2.0 in the next few weeks. We have an Enterprise Edition of BlowFrog Software SQL Script in the works that introduces object, configuration, and data comparison across ALL SQL Server features not just a subset of objects within a database. In addition to BlowFrog Software SQL Script, we are working on a couple of other utilities that I'll be talking about on our site over the coming weeks and months.

Continuing what we started with the Greater Fort Worth SQL Server User's Group, we just finished a SQL Server 2005 and 2008 Reporting Services class in Oklahoma City. This event was sponsored by the Oklahoma City SQL Server Developer's Group and GDH Consulting. Thanks to the efforts of Galen, Integris Health graciously donated the meeting space at their state of the art facilities. We had 32 people attend the class which was taught over the course of two evenings and thanks to all of the sponsors was completely free to everyone who attended.

We recently finished another installment in our on-going training series sponsored by the Greater Fort Worth SQL Server User's Group, who has sponsored over 300 hours of SQL Server training, delivered to more than 350 attendees, for its members over the last 2 years. This was the beginning of the next chapter in my training career. For years, I delivered custom-built, high-end training classes all over the world. While these classes were popular and receive great feedback, they were also a major hurdle. When you have classes priced at $4000 per person, you wind up with a large number of classes that never make the minimum number of attendees simply because they are out of the price range for most people and most companies. When you reduce the price to the $1800 - $2500 range, you get mixed in with all of the other stuff made up of canned classes teaching very little information, usually taught by instructors who have little experience with SQL Server. Since I enjoy teaching and have been giving back to the SQL Server community that has provided so much opportunity to me for more than a decade and a half, I finally decided to combine everything together and eliminate the challenges of running classes. I now teach all of my public classes for FREE. That's right, I don't get paid a single penny for teaching the public class or for any of the hundreds of hours spent developing courseware. That eliminates all of the affordability issues, you just need to make the time to attend. The training is always done in conjunction with a SQL Server User's Group, in an area where I either live, am working on a project, or traveling to anyway, so that travel expenses don't get involved. If the SSUG has to pay for a venue, that cost is split evenly between all members attending. In order to help the user's groups out who always struggle to find sponsors to provide food and drinks for meetings as well as those who also have to pay for a meeting space, at the determination of the UG officers, we do include a $10 - $30 per person surcharge - 100% of which goes to the UG to fund expenses for their on-going monthly meetings in the event a sponsor is not available. So, from this point forward, you can attend all of the custom-built, high-end training classes that I teach publicly for less than many of you spend for gas in a week to get to work.

Andy Eggers has just organized another certification training class at TCU. The class will run from June 20 - June 28 on Saturdays and Sundays. The detailed course outline is here. The cost of the venue was evenly split between all attendees. The cost for 22 hours of SQL Server 2008 training was $10 per person.

I just submitted the last chapter I was writing for the MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-433): Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Database Development (Certification) book. Now it's finally time to take a short break and catch up on all of the things that I've put off. It's kind of weird, since I've been writing one book or another for the last 3+ years, so more than likely I'll probably decide to start writing yet another book. It'll be nice to finally see this one hit the book shelves.

I just started work on MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-433): Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Database Development (Certification) along with Tobias Thernstrom and Ann Weber. The 70-433 training kit targets the second SQL Server 2008 MCTS exam - Database Development. This book should be on the shelves sometime between the end of Feb. and mid-April. Hard to believe that this will be my 9th book (8 of them on SQL Server) that I have authored/co-authored.

MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-432): Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 - Implementation and Maintenance (PRO-Certification) is now done and should be on the bookshelves by the end of January. The 70-432 training kit targets the SQL Server 2008 MCTS Database Administrator certification exam. Just like previous training kits that I've written, this book covers the topics included on the exam, but the material goes well beyond the exam to provide an on-going resource in your day to day work.

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Step by Step (Pro - Step-By-Step Developer) is now on the bookshelves. The Step by Step book takes you on a tour of every feature that ships with SQL Server - relational as well as BI. This is an introductory book that is designed to get you up and running on all of the SQL Server 2008 features.

The Rational Guide To SQL Server 2005 Security is now out and shipping. This book provides end-to-end coverage of the entire security infrastructure in SQL Server 2005.

For almost 3 years we have been delivering SQL Server training seminars in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. These seminars are always free and are designed to provide either an introduction to a large subject area such as high availability or OLAP as well as delivering comprehensive education on a more narrow topic such as security, SSIS, or partitioning. Our seminars page has the overviews of each of the seminars that we deliver. To date, we have had a combined attendance of more than 900 at these events and look forward to providing even more traininig in the future.

I have put the Rational Guide to SQL Server 2008 Replication on hold to focus on the other 3 SQL Server 2008 books that I have in progress. As soon as those are done, I'll be picking back up on this book.

In cooperation with Texas Christian University, we successfully delivered a series of SQL Server 2005 certification bootcamps with a combined attendance of 282. Each course covers the subject material for each individual exam. However, these courses are not targeted at memorizing and regurgitating on an exam. We teach you the material so that whether or not you decide to take any given exam, you have the knowledge necessary to either start a job in the SQL Server world or to dramatically expand your SQL Server knowledge. S0870-431 is the introductory course for the relational engine within the series and covers all of the basics topics across the relational engine. S0870-441 is targeted at database development for designing solutions. S0870-442 is targeted at database development for optimizing data access and performance tuning. S0870-443 is targeted at database administration for designing a secure and highly available SQL Server infrastructure. S0870-444 is targeted at database administration for optimizing and maintaining a SQL Server infrastructure. S0870-445 is the introductory course for the Business Intelltgence track covering an introduction to SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), and SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS). S0870-446 is targeted at the professional Business Intelligence developer for SSIS, SSRS, and SSAS. Each course is 32 hours of comprehensive SQL Server education for the unheard of price of $300 per course. You will NOT find more detailed instruction anywhere else and you certainly won't find instructor led training at this price range.

Merge replication has the ability to propagate DDL changes to subscribers. However, if you are not very careful, perfectly legal DDL changes will explode merge replication.

In partnership with SQLearning, we are pleased to be able to offer the second in our series of SQL Server Master classes. SQL Server 2005 Architecture, Internals, and Tuning was developed by Kalen Delaney and covers the deep internals of the storage engine to enable you to better understand how your SQL Server is operating as well as how to tune your database for optimal performance.

We have been teaching the most advanced SQL Server High Availability Course in the world for the last 4 years through partners. While we still utilize partners to deliver our training courses, we also offer this class as a private course which can be customized to your company's needs. View the HA course outline. Look for additional course offerings to be posted shortly including Reporting Services and Integration Services.

My newest book has just rolled off the printing press and is headed to a book store near you. The 70-431 Training Kit from Microsoft Press will prepare you for the first certification exam in the SQL Server 2005 certification series. With my co-author, JC Mackin, I am also working on the 70-443 Training Kit also from Microsoft Press.