Is everyone a winner?

reedme — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 19:25:47 GMT

Without getting into the philosophical question for the ages “Is everyone a winner?”, the question came up about Finalists® over the weekend. Because we had to kick a number of entries that didn’t meet the simple rules outlined in the Official Contest Rules®, we have fewer than 15 qualified entries. This means that everybody blogged about so far is a Finalist®.

They haven’t won any prizes, yet, since the SQL Rangers have just started picking through the code with their Fine-Toothed Combs®. After all, the suspense will remain in place until morale improves (or until SQL PASS 2008) whichever comes first. Heh.

To summarize, here’s the list of SQL Heroes 2008 Contest Finalists:

SQL Hero(es)	Project
Ignat Andrei	http://www.codeplex.com/CDCHelper/
Hou Jacky	http://www.codeplex.com/hashByArrayLink
Robert Hartskeerl	http://www.codeplex.com/sqlmonitoring
Gorm Braarvig	http://www.codeplex.com/SqlClrMeasureTime
Daniel Gould	http://www.codeplex.com/SSMSAllocation
Greg Galloway (with Darren Gosbell and John Welch)	http://www.codeplex.com/bidshelper
Jason Massie	http://www.codeplex.com/QPee
John Calvin Welch	http://www.codeplex.com/ssisUnit
Jonathan Matthew Kehayias	http://www.codeplex.com/ExtendedEventManager/

Five of those projects are expected to win a Windows Home Server® very much like the one that sits quietly next to the TiVo and Xbox 360 underneath my LCD TV.

Yes, I’ve actually used the Home Server restore-from-backup feature to recover accidentally deleted Files of Great Importance® and thereby saving my marriage. Yes, the Home Server is quieter than the Xbox 360 when the DVD is spinning. (I have one of the older Elites before they got the quiet new optical drives that come with the new Xbox 360s.)

Don’t forget to vote! SQL Heroes 2008 Community Finalists Survey

Who are the judges? What is a SQL Ranger?

reedme — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 20:47:08 GMT

If you've read the Official Contest Rules™, you've seen that the Official Contest Judges™ will be members of the SQL Ranger Community™. If you know what a SQL Ranger is, you can probably stop reading now. If you know what the Microsoft Certified Architect:Database certification, it's easy to explain that the SQL Ranger program is the training regimen devoted to separating the MCDBAs, MCITP:Database Administrators and MCITP:Database Developers from the MCA:Databases.

Half a dozen SQL Rangers have already volunteered to review the contest applications and recognize the finalists and the winners. I'm hoping to sign up [read: draft] a few more. Heh.

This doesn't take away from the fact that YOU will be part of the judging process, too. The community will have a couple weeks after the contest closes to tell us which of the contest applications they think are the best. Standby for more details as we get closer to Tech*Ed.

For those of you who are current engaged in SQL Ranger camp (Rotation 4), I wish you the best of luck. Study hard. The tests and the labs aren't easy. In five short weeks, we'll know who's got what it takes to be a SQL Ranger. Hooyah!

SQL Heroes : sql ranger

Is everyone a winner?

Who are the judges? What is a SQL Ranger?