09/06/2012
by Marlon Ribunal
2 Comments

SQLskills joining Pluralsight is a good news for all

Many can boast that they were trained by Paul and Kimberly Randal at SQLskills. That company is so highly regarded in SQL Server circle that having undergone training with them is considered a great privilege.

Not all of us will have the same privilege of sitting in an Immersion Event class (IE). Finance might not always be the problem. Many just couldn’t attend because of conflict of schedule or any other logistical concern.

However legitimate that reason might be, there’s no real excuse for us for not making ourselves available for such training, specially if it’s available online.

We owe it to ourselves to become better at our craft. That is true regardless of the industry we’re in.

That is why I was stoked to learn that SQLskills is joining forces with Pluralsight to deliver quality training content to SQL Server professionals.

SQLskills is a respected authority in SQL Server training. They are known for their Immersion Events and Microsoft Certified Master Training courses. Paul and Kimberly Randal, the founders, are elites in SQL Server mastery.

When you think of SQLskills training, you think of quality SQL Server training. These phrases are almost interchangeable. I’ve never gone to any IE class. I would want to, but I just don’t have the logistics to make that happen right now.

I’m so glad that, through the Pluralsigt-SQLskills strategic content partnership, I can now equip myself with quality SQL Server knowledge to gain new SQL Server skills to better prepare myself for opportunities down the road.

09/01/2012
by Marlon Ribunal
Comments Off on Demonstration of a simple dashboard created with the Tableau Software

Demonstration of a simple dashboard created with the Tableau Software

Like I said on Twitter, here’s the post about the dashboard I created using Tableau, a BI visualization software. I’ve been hearing good things about Tableau from different people and from the social networks. A couple of friends from Twitter encouraged me to try it and see if I like it.

I’m impressed! And I only used the Tableau Public version, a free low-level version of the software. I’m sure I can do more powerful visualization with its full version.

This is my first taste of Tableau. I found it very interesting. And I heard it’s fast if you’re feeding a lot of data. I couldn’t test that because I’m only limited to 100,000 records in the Public version.

I’ll be digging into this. But for now, take a look at this interactive dashboard that I created. I’d say it’s not bad for the first try.

Some info on the data set used in this “first try” demo:

Name of data set: “Aircraft Wildlife Strike Data”
Description: “It contains Information Regarding wildlife strikes on aircraft either in the air or on the ground.”
Source: Data.gov

I’ll be writing about this dashboard in detail in my upcoming posts. I’ll be doing a step-by-step on this. So standby for that.

I embedded the dashboard below but it doesn’t fit very well. Go to the Tableau Public website instead to see the whole dashboard. Link here.

Here are some notes:

The dashboard shows the total number of wildlife-related aircraft incidents per state in the last 10 years (2002-2012). If you click a “dot” (representing the total number of incidents in that particular state) in the Symbol Map (top left-hand graph), the two other graphs will show corresponding data. Drilling down, if you hover on a “green bar” (representing total cost of repair per state for that particular year), you’ll see the bottom graph changes to show month-to-month patterns (months corresponding to the year in the green bar).

07/27/2012
by Marlon Ribunal
6 Comments

Learning solid SQL Server and Business Intelligence skills through online training

I have just signed up for a one year standard subscription of Pluralsight Hardcore Developer Training. I’m focusing on SQL Server and Business Intelligence. My training goal is to improve my technical knowledge and gain new industrial skills to get myself ready for opportunities now and the future.

I actually have an access to the full Pluralsight library. The other two courses I am interested in are Powershell and SharePoint. I’ll tackle those two right after finishing the SQL Server and BI courses.

I should mention that this subscription, worth $300.00, is courtesy of the Friends of Redgate Program. Contact Redgate if you want to avail of the 1 year complimentary Pluralsight training.

Self-studying without the aide of a training program can be difficult. Lack of organization makes self-studying cumbersome.

My usual tools for studying are technical books , magazines, and blogs. Free videos from SQL pros are also in the mix. But you have to organize these materials in a certain way so you can get the right flow.

My greatest challenge in that setup is getting easily overwhelmed by the sheer volume of materials that I have to consume. Jumping from one topic to another in no logical order makes it harder to comprehend things.

This is where a solid online training does its magic. Just like any other types of training, online courses are organized and presented in very effective manner by focusing on a particular theme and delivering the content within reasonable amount of time.

Courses on Pluralsight are authored by authorities in their respective fields, so you’re quite sure you’re getting real value.

There are other legit SQL Server and Business Intelligence online training offerings out there: Linchpin People LLC, Brent Ozar PLF, SQL Skills, PragmaticWorks, and many others.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to the Pluralsight site to continue my training. I’ll share all the knowledge I gained in future posts. Stand by.