Agloves: Great Gift for the Twitter Addicted

Last year while waiting for the Olympic Torch to pass by I was wearing my patriotic Vancouver 2010 giant red mittens.  There was a sea of these red mittens lining the street and it was wonderful…until I had to take my mittens off to to use my phone to capture pictures or to tweet. The windchill that day was about –20 and I was seriously in danger of getting frost bite.

While shopping one day I found a pair of gloves that I thought were the solution.  I called these my “Twitter gloves” even though I think they were called ‘texting gloves”. They were regular gloves that you could fold back the index finger and thumb from, but this still meant that my fingers were exposed to the elements. 

My friend Bryan snapped a pic of these gloves in action in Chicago when I was working there.  Those tips actually fold back and button down, but that was a pain, so I just left them flying out.  These gloves were cheap: I think I found them at Target.

Now I was only in danger of frostbite for 4 out of 10 digits.

I recently ordered 3 pairs of Agloves from agloves.com.  These sliver-thread-infused gloves let you use touch screen devices without having to remove your gloves, use fingerless gloves, or use the foldback gloves like the ones above.  Get the name?  Agloves – with Ag being the symbol for silver.

I’ve just now tried them on two devices, my iPhone and iPad.  They actually work, although I have to press a bit harder than I’m used to.  It’s only slightly more, so I don’t believe it’s going to be a problem.  Hitting the right keys in portrait mode on my iPhone took a little bit more concentration, but again, it won’t be a problem.

These gloves work with capacitive touch screens due to the silver threads, which you can see clearly in the iPhone photo above.  They are soft.  The attached tag says they are Made in the US and of the following materials:

60% Polyester

29% Nylon

7% Silver nylon

3% Spandex

1% Acrylic

One of the things I did not like about my previous gloves is that they were 100% Acrylic, which I don’t like the feel of. 

There are currently two sizes available. I have small hands, so I ordered the S/M version and I got a M/L size for Rob. Both seem to fit, but I get better accuracy out of the S/M, with goes along with their recommendation that these have a snug fit.

Agloves are washable; in fact, they claim that washing them make them work better.  They feel warm to wear, unlike my previous set of acrylic gloves.  I hope to post a future review when I’ve done more field testing.  I’m thinking my trip to NYC coming up might be the perfect field test.

My other targeted use is for running.  I use running apps like MapMyRun, Nike+, etc. and when I have running gloves on it’s difficult to use the book controls, runner controls, or even to get a time/distance update from these apps.  And since theses gloves are made with runner-friendly materials (Anything But Cotton), they will work well.

Agloves offers a very generous return period of 90 days in case they don’t work for you.  The current price of these gloves is a very affordable $17.99 USD.  I’m betting these will be in high demand for the upcoming gift season; I recommend you order now.

Oh, and I also wanted to thank the folks at Aglove for having very, very reasonable shipping rates to Canada.  We are nice people, but we hate being ripped off for postage and handling.

NOT Attending SQLPASS. But I am Going to Seattle

In less than 2 days we’re heading off to the airport to start the trek to Seattle.  Truth be told, I don’t really want to fly to the West Coast again, but I’m really looking forward to being there.  You see, the PASS Summit is next week and @datachick is attending and speaking.  I’m not a SQL person so it didn’t make sense for me to attend.  There are other conferences for me to attend and speak at, but I’m passing on this one (no pun intended).

Even though I’m not attending, there are a lot of great people attending that I’ve met in person and even more that I talk to/follow/stalk on Twitter.  I want to be able to get together with people and network and have a great time with everyone so I’m hitching a ride with Karen.  I find that at conferences and events like this it is just as much the networking and socializing as it is the conference itself.  In fact, I learn a lot about what’s happening in IT, business, and the world by just talking to people from all over.  So, I’ll be hanging around the conference and “extra-curricular” events (I’m already signed up for 3) to socialize and soak up the atmosphere and knowledge of all these great people.

And while everyone is in their sessions during the day, I’ll be out exploring (and Tweeting about) all there is to see and do in Seattle as I’ve never had a chance to do it before.

I’m looking forward to seeing everyone next week and if you see the silly looking Canadian that looks a little lost, say Hi and I’ll say Hi back and we’ll take it from there.

Fun At SQL Saturaday Southern Florida

Yesterday I spent the day at the Southern Florida SQLSaturday. SQLSaturdays are free SQL Server training events made possible by sponsors in the data-related industry. It’s amazing that volunteers can pull of a conference-like event for 375+ people and not have to charge them a dime. Breakfast, coffee, lunch and after party were all free. An amazing thing, this culture of FREE.

Check to see if there’s a SQL Saturday coming to your city at www.SQLSaturday.com.

This SQL Saturday had 600+ registrants, with about 375 attending. There were 9 tracks to choose from and like most conferences I had a tough time choosing sessions. I knew many of the speakers and attendees from Twitter, so these sessions reminded me quite a bit of DAMA/EDW sessions. Plus, there was the “other conference” going on in the Twitterverse at the same time.

During the day I attended mostly the Microsoft Azure and BI-related sessions, but managed to fit in a great session on PowerShell, too.

In the BI session I attended, Mike Mollenhour of Pragmatic Works used a physical cube, much like a Rubik’s Cube, to demonstrate the dimensions on a fact table. He demonstrated SQL Server Analytic Services. I want to play with those when I get back, for certain.

I next attended Joe Healy’s session on Introduction to SQL Azure. Azure is Microsoft’s cloud-based application offering based on SQL Server. Joe, a Microsoft Evangelist, did a wonderful job explaining the features and limitations of Azure as it is right now. I appreciate it when vendor staff, especially evangelists, can pull of real-world discussions about the costs, benefits, and risks of their products. I want to hear Joe present again.

Next up was Aaron Nelson (@SQLVariant) of SQLVariant.com and SQLPowerShell.com demonstrated great things that can be automated with PowerShell. PowerShell is a free tool that is similar to a macro language that you can run on servers and workstations to automate tasks. I’m thinking of ways I might use it to automate some data modeling tool publishing and printing tasks. I’ve always said that the best data architect is a lazy data architect, so I believe that PowerShell can be an important item in the Data Architect’s toolkit.

Back to the Azure track, I attended Scott Klein’s (@ScottKlein) presentation on Developing Applications with SQL Azure. Scott, founder of BlueSyntax, has authored a soon-to-be-released book, Pro SQL Azure. This session covered the how’s and why’s of using SQL Server technologies in the cloud. When Azure was first released, I did open a trial account to check it out, but never seemed to find a few hours to figure it all out. Definitely going to do this soon.

The final session I attended was by Jack Corbett (@UncleBigguns) on “Don’t Be Trigger Happy”. I get many requests to have system functionality be implemented via triggers and these requests are usually not approved as they don’t meet good practices for the cost of using triggers. Jack’s presentation confirmed that.

Did I forget to mention the swag? I ended the day with 3 t-shirts (one from Aaron Nelson from CodeStock with a stylized Rose the Riveter to recognize Women in IT), one free book (a coupon), and many great small swag items from the sponsors. There were many, many prizes, including an iPad, $500 cash, other cash prizes, an Xbox 360, 40-50 books, an Ultimate MDSN subscription, and many other nifty items.

This event was possible due to the support of the sponsors. The event was held at DeVry University, who hosts many of these SQLSaturday conferences. Platinum sponsors were Redgate (also a SQLCruise sponsor), Fusion-io, expressor, swiftknowledge, and BlueSyntax.

Gold and Silver Sponsors were Microsoft, JumpstartTV, TekPartners, QQSolutions, SQL Server Magazine, PASS, Quest Software, Sapien Technologies, SQL Share, Confio, and Sherlock Technology Staffing.

If you engage with these companies, tell them that you appreciate their sponsoring events in our profession.

Finally, none of this could have happened without months of volunteering from many great Floridians. Volunteers, you did a great job.

I’m on a Boat – Sponsors of the the SQLCruise

In my previous post, I wrote about how SQLCruise sponsors are going to reach a lot more people than just the 15 cruisers/attendees.

Who are the sponsors? (pulled from the SQLCruise website)

SQL Sentry

SQL Sentry, Inc. delivers software products that optimize the performance of Microsoft® SQL Server® environments. SQL Sentry Performance Advisor® for Analysis Services provides unparalleled insight into Analysis Services performance, including bottlenecks related to memory, storage systems, aggregation usage, queries and processing. SQL Sentry Performance Advisor for SQL Server delivers an advanced performance dashboard with relevant Windows and SQL Server metrics in a single view along with detailed insight of heavy SQL, blocking, deadlocks, and disk bottlenecks. SQL Sentry Event Manager® is the ultimate scheduling, alerting and response system for managing SQL Server jobs and other events that impact performance.  Download a Free Trial today!

Red Gate Software

Red Gate Software makes tools that pay their way. Tools such as SQL Compare, SQL Backup, SQL Data Generator, SQL Prompt and many others radically simplify the business of working with Microsoft SQL Server. That’s why they’re used in most Fortune 500 companies. At Red Gate we’re mostly obsessed with getting the UI right, so that you don’t have to figure out how to use the tool. It’s just obvious. Also fun. That matters a lot.  Download a free 14-day trial of all our tools at www.red-gate.com.

MSSQLTips.com

MSSQLTips.com is a free community website focused on Microsoft SQL Server.  The site offers tips, tricks, scripts, sample code, whitepapers, webcasts, tutorials, giveaways and more all related to SQL Server.   Subscribe to our newsletter and get tips sent directly to you.  If you have a SQL experience you want to share, we are always looking for new contributors.

Quest Software

Now more than ever, organizations need to work smart and improve efficiency. Quest Software creates and supports smart systems management products—helping our customers solve everyday IT challenges faster and easier.  At Quest, we focus on our customers first. Our products and people are dedicated to helping customers manage their critical applications, databases, Windows infrastructure and virtual environments. The combination of our proven, award-winning software and strong customer relationships makes Quest a smart, reliable technology partner.  Visit us today.

Not only did these sponsors give cash to off-set the cost we cruisers had to pay for the training, they did some AWESOME things to make the event even better:

• SQL Sentry donated FOUR registrations and cruises. They initially set out to donate one, via a contest, but once they saw the fabulous entries, they decided to pony up for 4 prizes.  I just about fell out of my chair when that was announced.
• Redgate has donated 2 licenses of SQL Source Control, plus other fun swag.
• Redgate Press is donating two books, Defensive Database Programming by Alex Kuznetsov and Dynamic Management Views written by one of the SQL Cruiser trainers – Tim Ford and Louis Davidson
• Each sponsor donated a loaded up Netbook. That means 4 of us will be going home with a free computer. I’ve left room in my bag for the one I’m hoping to get.
• Quest Software gave us Amazon gift certificates to load up on books for the cruise

Also included in the swag was a beach towel, sun lotion, lei, and other fun cruise-wear.

Do you want to see more events in the data world? Do you want them be less expensive, plus be more fun?  Then you should also help thank and promote the sponsors of these events, whether or not they are your local DAMA meeting, Enterprise Data World, PASS Summit, or your local user group.  These events could not happen without their sponsors.  Make sure you thank them for participating…and help share the thanks by many by tweeting about them and posting your appreciation to your networks.

Thank you SQL Sentry, Redgate, MSSQLtips.com, and Quest Software.