SQL Bang UG…Completed A Quarter…Sharing is fun, sharing is learning

       I joined SQL Bangalore User Group (#SQLBangUG) as one of the first 4 members and till date I am part of this “knowledge Hub”, where sharing is fun while learning.

It was Saturday, November 24, 2012 when the first SQLBangUG was hosted at Microsoft Signature Building, Bangalore, India. Vinod Kumar delivered the key note for the event with his unique style of welcoming all and introduced the speakers while explaining the core  purpose of SQLBangalore User Group.

 

"Sharing is fun, sharing is learning"

 

I was lucky enough by getting a chance to present a session on SQL Server 2012 and would like to thank Vinod and Pinal for giving  me an opportunity to deliver a a session at such a big event. Being a learner and a student this forum is going to help me a lot.

The First UG meet sessions were

1: T-SQL Pitfalls  Speaker: Vinod Kumar M, MTC – Technology Architect
2: Top 5 SQL Server 2012 functions Speaker: Manas Ranjan Dash
3: Contained databases Speaker: Sudeepta Ganguly, Sr. Systems Engineer – Atos
4: Column Store Index in SQL Server 2012 Speaker: Pinal Dave, Evangelist – Pluralsight

Also we had two surprise session by International Speaker Lynn Langit, BigData and BI consulting & Raj Chaudhuri from Microsoft, Mumbai on Index and Big Data.

 

Photo courtesy: Sandip Pani

Pinal Dave from Pluralsight gave away one year free subscription coupon of Pluralsight courses to one of the lucky audience and also he gave couple of his books and monthly coupons of Pluralsight to other attendees.

Sahal blogged about this event and  this was written prior to the event which shows the excitement level of the participants and the enthusiasm to learn something new.

http://www.get-exchange.info/2012/11/20/nosql-ug-meet-sqlbangalore-ug-meet-on-24-nov-2012/

By December 18 the group had added 300 members to its list

 

The Second UG Meet was on Saturday, December 22, 2012

The sessions were as follows

1. Better together: Excel + SQL for Database Developers By Kamlesh Rao
2. Basics of Backups with SQL Server By Balmukund Lakhani, Microsoft
3. Intro to Indexing – Basics rediscovered By Sourabh Agarwal, PFE – Microsoft
4. Knowing sp_server_diagnostics output By Amit Banerjee, PFE, Microsoft
5. Tips and Tricks Session By Vinod Kumar, MTC – Architect

Amit Banerjee wrote a blog about the event which is the fastest ever published blog on SQLBang UG http://troubleshootingsql.com/2012/12/22/sql-bangalore-ug-meet/

Also an excellent coverage by our Super Star Balmukund Lakhani in his blog http://sqlserver-help.com/2012/12/23/coverage-report-sql-server-bangalore-user-group-meeting-2-22-december-2012/

 

and we did it! Crossed 400 Mark on 1st Jan 2013 ~ Balmukund Lakhani

 

Also we wished our members on new year day with this unique poster

 

The Third UG Meet was on Saturday, Jan 19, 2013 which focused on EXCEL based visualizations

1: Tour of PowerPivot with Excel by Vinod Kumar

2: Advanced Excel Visualizations by S Anand

3: Introduction to PowerView with Excel by Selvakumar

4: Surprise SharePoint Session by Pinal Dave

SQL Bangalore se Balmukund Lakhani without Cameraman

http://sqlserver-help.com/2013/01/22/coverage-report-sql-server-bangalore-user-group-meeting-3-19-january-2013/

We were forced to postpone the SQL user group meeting (scheduled for 23 Feb 2013) by a week due to some issues with the availability of speakers.

Great Discussion and Knowledge Sharing in FB page

 

In between all these sessions the FB page of SQLBang was fully occupied by members where they discussed some live issues and shared great knowledge about SQL Server and the trend is going on with a lot of enthusiasm.

 

Next UG meet on 2nd March 2013

So What are you waiting for… join the SQL Bangalore User Group and experience the power of sharing through learning and be a part of the next UG meet on 2nd March 2013

This UG meeting is about multi-dimensional concepts. This is completely different from the relational engine we are aware off. Register at here

1: Start your journey with Multidimensional using SSAS -by Sudhir Rawat (Microsoft)
2: Introduction to Cubes -by Deepthi Anantharam (Technology Evangelist)
3: SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services – Tabular Mode by Karan Gulati (Microsoft)

   Today the group has welcomed its 791th member   

 

What & where

 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SQLBangalore/

Events Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SQLBangalore/events/

Twitter: @SQLBangalore

Twitter Hash Tag: #SQLBangUG

Download PPT from the Past sessions

https://www.facebook.com/groups/SQLBangalore/files/

 

SQL Bangalore UG se Manas Ranjan Dash

Till next “Keep Smiling”

Gift from SQL Server (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond)

 

Last year in December I participated in a unique contest by Microsoft SQL Server (FB page).

The contest page says…

Enter the New Year Cover Photo Challenge and help us ring in 2013 with a ‘Happy New Year’ themed message to the SQL Server community! Submit an image or photo of your own design that we can use as our SQL Server Facebook page cover photo in January, and if your entry is selected as one of our four winners, you will also receive a SQL Server Swag Set worth over $150!

 

On 29th of December 2012 I got  a mail from the Microsoft SQL Server team saying…

Hi there Manas,

Congratulations! You’ve been selected as a winner our New Year’s photo challenge!

 

They published the photo in their FB page and here is the link for the same SQL Server Cover Photo Challenge

 

On 18th February I received a parcel from USA where I found the following gift.

 

*** Sports Bottle, T shirt, SweatShirt, USB Flash Drive, USB Hub, Speaker

Thank you SQL Server and the team and special thanks to Katrina Munsell    

 

Till next time “Keep Learning and Sharing”

“Be helpful, wh…

“Be helpful, when you see a person without a smile…
Give them one if yours “
~Zig Ziglar

#1 MS-Office Gyan for the day (PowerPoint 2013)

This is the first blog post on tips or tricks for MS-Office by me and am excited to start this series, but it may not be a series of post that you get everyday. When ever I come across a new features or some interesting things to share I will just summarize my learning here. I consider all my blog post as my personal database of my learning and for future use. It may or may not help you and all the blog post are just my learning , there may be better idea and process or option which you can go for. Feel free to read and think before you implement if its useful.

 

So here we go with one of the feature of Power Point 2013 …

Most of the time we get confused (am for sure) during color selection for a logo or a picture we saw somewhere say in a website and we need the same color for our logo.

So today we will take the help of Power Point and one of its new feature “eye dropper” which can be found form the format menu.

So Lets try to mimic the design (its a copy)  of the new logo of Microsoft here. Check the below screen shot taken from Microsoft Power Point 2013 Preview and I will take you through designing this logo from Microsoft.com website

 

So start Power point 2013 and then take those four square (from Insert menu and select shape). Now when you copy and paste the first square and create other three you can see those are not in proper order and alignment with each other as required).

Even when you organize them in order Power point will help you by providing exact line-up from all the possible ways (Line-up and space objects equally). You can see those horizontal and vertical lines while moving the object and placing them in line-up with other.

 

Now you got the four square, its time to choose the color, look at the color at your target image. You have to decide the exact color, say for the first box whether its  Orange…no its a red.. I think its a  mix of orange and red. Oooopss!!!! Don’t worry lets ask Power point.

Select the First box, Go to Format – Shape Fill and select Eye Dropper. Now with out releasing the left mouse button go to the Internet explorer and click the first square in the Microsoft Logo(which you have opened already as www.microsoft.com).

 

Immediately you will find that your box (part of the logo) in Power Point is filled with the color that you selected from the website.

       Now continue the same for all the four boxes and and the design is ready. You can select the borders to none from Shape Out line. Once you are done with all the finishing touch your logo is ready. If you want save the same as a png or a jpeg format and you have one image ready. Now choice is yours whether you want to design something with all the colors in the world .

 

 

Power point 2013 has more features and options like this and you can learn More From Here & Here.

Till next time “Happy Learning & Sharing”

2012 in review

Thank you  WordPress.com stats helper monkeys who have prepared a 2012 annual report for my blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 3,600 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 6 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

Happy Diwali

Happiness, brightness, joy and all those other flavours are there to add to our live on this special day Deepavali. People in India (most of them) celebrate 5 days of Diwali, they are as follows.

 

Day 1: Dhanteras

Day 2: Choti Diwali

Day 3: Lakshmi Puja

Day 4: Govardhan Puja

Day 5: Bhai Duj

 

To know more about Diwali and the way its being celebrated in different parts of India visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwali

HTML5 Session with BDOTNET (Part I)

BDOTNET the user group in Bangalore have just started a series of session on HTML5. Last Saturday (1st September 2012) it was kick started with two beginners or Level 100 session by two all time great speakers Amar Nityananda and Lohith G N.

 

Windows to Go by Vinod

As the first 5 minutes are dedicated to “Quick Learning Session”, Vinod kumar From Microsoft  took us through the “Windows to go”. Windows To Go is an enterprise feature of Windows® 8 that enables the creation of a Windows To Go workspace that can be booted from a USB-connected external drive on PCs that meet the Windows 7 or Windows 8 certification requirements, regardless of the operating system running on the PC.

 

HTML5 – What you need to know by amar

 

Amar Nityananda started with answering couple of questions to set the platform for HTML5.

What is HTML 5?

HTML5 is a markup language for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. It is the fifth revision of the HTML standard (created in 1990 and standardized as HTML4 as of 1997) and, is still under development. Its core aims have been to improve the language with support for the latest multimedia while keeping it easily readable by humans and consistently understood by computers and devices

 

HTML 5 = new markup + CSS 3 + JavaScript

 

HTML 5 and Windows 8?

 

Thumb rules

understand that it’s “working draft”

use the features that’s most widely supported

graceful degradation – don’t alienate users

 

Frameworks Available

jQuery jQuery UI modernizrknockoutJSDotlesskendoUI

 

Some websites which were built in HTML5 for example “The Story of Less and Russ”

 

"HTML5” – More than just HTML5 by Lohith Goudagere Nagaraj

 

The web standard authority WHATWG says “ HTML is the new HTML5”

Map of HTML5

Specification lifecycle

 

Specification W3c

http://dev.w3.org/html5/html-author/

New elements in HTML5

Doctype

The DOCTYPE or the DTD is much easier now its only

<!DOCTYPE html>

Now you don’t need a third party plugins for MULTIMEDIA

video

<video id="myVideo" controls>
<source src="videos/video.mp4" type="video/mp4"/>
<!–- insert sorry message here or fall back to SL/Flash -->

</video> 

Audio

<audio src="audio.mp3" id="audioTag" autoplay controls>
<!-- Only shown when browser doesn’t support audio -->
<!-- You could embed Flash or Silverlight audio here --> 
</audio> 

 

SVG

Its just XML so it can be Scriptable, extensible, easily editable. An example of SVG http://slides.html5rocks.com/#svg-example-slide

Canvas

Using Javascript this is an easiest way to draw graphics. Most of the browsers are capbale of the 2D capabilities of the canvas.

example: http://www.williammalone.com/articles/html5-canvas-example/

GeoLocations

Check this how easily you can find the location http://html5demos.com/geo

CSS3

The best thing I like about the new CSS3 is the rounded border . The other cool features are CSS3 colours, Shadows, Backgrounds, media queries , selectors etc.

Borders
div.top { 
border-radius: 152px 304px 228px 152px; 
border-style: double; 
border-width: 42px; 
padding: 12px; 
} 

 

WOFF Fonts and Font Face

Web Open Font Format allows you to package and deliver fonts as needed for more info http://www.w3.org/TR/WOFF/

 

Prize for Blogging about DEVCON2012 by BDOTNET

I got a INTEL EXO PC from INTEL as my blog was selected for the competition for blogging about DEVCON2012 organised by BDOTNET. I got the prize from Jadeja Dushyantsinh  (Software Business Manager at Intel Corporation) and Vinod Kumar M (MTC – Technology Architect at Microsoft). Many thanks to INTEL, BDOTNET and Microsoft for organising and encouraging us to explore these areas of life. I must be thankful to Pinal Dave, Vic Parmar, Lohith Goudagere Nagaraj , Sudeepta Ganguly, Kamlesh Rao, Sandip Pani and Praveen Prajapati the members to make the BDOTNET forum platform friendly.

   

 

For some further links of HTML5 check this link http://manasdash.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/html5-where-to-start/

uwww.beautyoftheweb.in

uwww.ietestdrive.com

www.html5labs.com

uwww.w3c.org

 

Lets meet in the next part of the series on Saturday 8th of September 2012. Book your tickets https://www.facebook.com/events/349210711833078/