Why all the posts about presentations

You may have noticed that I have posted a lot about presentations.
Two reasons.

1. I want to be good at presenting and so I'm linking up references to tools and tips that will help me.

2. Presenting well is about clear and effective communication of ideas and information. It is about making the information usable. I find a lot of the techniques and ideas about creating or making a good presentation also apply to making good software:

• Clear presentation of data
• Showing one thing at a time
• Logical progression of ideas/information
• Visualising data.
• ...

2 quick notes on SQL Server Triggers

Because there is a lot of misleading and contradictory information on the web about this. I encourage you to test this for yourself. Don't believe it just because someone says so on the internet! - I learnt the hard way ;)

A trigger (insert, update or delete) will get called only once, even if more than one row is affected.

Update and delete triggers will be called, even if no rows are affected.

SQL Server sample databases

While it is wise to delete sample databases from a production environment, don't delete them from your development environment.

Why?

Because, one day you are going to be looking for a way to do something you have never done before, some strange type of query, perhaps. If you are lucky you will find an example (on-line, or maybe in a book). The chances are that the example will be against one of the sample databases. If you haven't got the sample database any more, the example is no good to you.

The space you gain by removing sample database is minimal. If you are running out of space on a development machine, you will likely have bigger issues than a few small sample databases.

Keep samples, you may need them one day.

EDSK ... It's not what the software does. It's what the user does.

http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/003940.html

Introducing ... ME

Let me formally introduce myself.

Hi. My name is Matthew Robin Lacey (hence mrlacey), but you can call me Matt.

By day I am a software developer and by night a husband and father.

I live in Woking, England.

I have been a professional (as in paid) developer since 1999 and have had a varied career. I have worked in small companies (~15 people) and large multi-nationals (40,000+ people). I have also done some freelance work. I have worked in consultancies, corporate IT departments and at ISVs. I've worked on Windows and *NIX platforms. I've worked at all levels of support as well as in development. I've used more programming languages and tools than I can remember, but currently, I mostly work with Delphi and C#, but with a little PHP thrown in here and there.

I feel that covers a pretty broad spectrum and has allowed me to see a lot of good and bad within the industry.

The first program I ever wrote was a game on the programmable calculator I had for my A-Level maths course. I thought it (the game) was pretty good, considering the device had less than 1KB of programmable memory,

My main interests within software development are: web development; mobile development; and usability.

Outside of software development I have been known to play basketball and football. I also enjoy cooking and going to the cinema.

If I had more time to do things I want to do (i.e. fewer responsibilities and didn't have to work for a living) the things I'd spend my day doing would probably include (in no particular order):

• I'd still probably use computers a lot.
• I'd go to the cinema in the day.
• I'd cook a lot more.
• I'd pray and read my Bible a lot more.
• I'd spend more time with my family.