December 13: Where do we go from here? plus “Amazon EC2 – A Free Web Hosting and Development Tool.”

Our next meeting will be next Tuesday, December 13 at 7 PM in room 122 at Devry University. Dinner will be provided beginning at 6:30 PM and there will be no charge for this meeting.

Given the recent dip in attendance, we’ll discuss the future of the group. Please consider ahead of time what you’re hoping to get from the group and what you can contribute.

In addition, we’ll have a brief presentation from member Jim Connolly titled “Amazon EC2 – A Free Web Hosting and Development Tool.”

Abstract: Are you looking for a web server for development? Review of the  Amazon EC2 web server product as a free service for a year!

One year ago, I signed up with the Free Web Server offering from Amazon. At this time, I would like to share my experiences with the group. I’ll present a review and evaluation of the Amazon EC2 web server. What can the Amazon service do for you as a developer! I can show you how to sign up and create your own web server.

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If you will be joining us for dinner, please let us know (tamar@tamargranor.com), so we have enough food.

September 13: Kevin Goff: SQL Server Reporting Productivity Tips

Our next meeting will be next Tuesday, September 13 at 7 PM in room 121 (note room change). Our speaker will be Kevin Goff and his topic is “SQL Server Reporting Productivity Tips.” He'll be raffling a $50 Amazon gift card, too.

Abstract: In this presentation, I'll show over a dozen different SSRS topics, and allow attendees to select which topics to cover.

Topics include:
- Advanced charting (sparklines, heatmaps, performance gauges)
- Subreports/drilldown reports
- Matrix  (crosstab) capabilities
- Page/Group Control Features
- Data Driven Subscriptions
- Cross-chart filtering ("hot-linking" from one section of a report to another)
- Column visibility and hiding columns from users
- Parameter handling
- Aggregations and running totals

Bio:

Kevin S. Goff
- Microsoft Data Platform (SQL Server) MVP
- Microsoft MVP since 2005
- Frequent community speaker in Mid-Atlantic region
- SQL Live/VS Live conference speaker 2012 to 2015
- Database developer/architect since 1987

Tuesday, August 9: Menachem Bazian: "Map It With Google"

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, August 9. It will feature Menachem Bazian’s postponed-from-February session titled “Map It With Google.”

Abstract: Google maps is a tremendously powerful service that can really add useful functionality to your apps. This session will introduce the Google Maps API and show an application that was built around it.

We'll be in room 128, which is a computer lab, so if you're coming for dinner, meet us in the seating area in the far hallway.

Tuesday, June 14: Bill Fitzgerald: "A VFP programmer looks at .NET – again”

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, June 14 at 7 PM in room 128 at DeVry University, 1140 Virginia Drive, Fort Washington, PA. Feel free to come as early as 6:30 PM and bring some dinner. However, because the room is a computer lab, food and drink are not permitted. So, we’ll meet for dinner in the seating area in the far hallway and move to the meeting room at 7.

Member Bill Fitzgerald will present “A VFP programmer looks at .NET – again”

Abstract: Since  I first started using C# .NET  in 2005 both the platform and the way I use it have evolved in several important ways. I’ll walk through three existing production .NET/SQL Server data processing applications which I wrote over a period of ten years and show how the language and the techniques I use with it have changed.

Finally, I’ll show my first attempt at using the recently-released multi-platform .NET core.

Tuesday, May 10--Tamar E. Granor--Crosstabs and Pivots: Turning Data on its side

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, May 10 at 7 PM in room 128 (note change of room). Because the new room is a computer lab, food and drink are not permitted. So, we’ll meet for dinner in the student cafeteria and move to the meeting room at 7.

Speaker: Tamar E. Granor
Topic: Crosstabs and Pivots: Turning Data on its Side

Abstract: While normalization is the best choice for storing data in tables, there are lots of reporting tasks that require you to turn some data into column headers and accumulate results in those columns. In this session, we’ll see how to do that using crosstabs in VFP and the PIVOT clause in SQL Server. For VFP, we’ll take a good look at an alternative to VFPXTab, the crosstab generator that comes with the product.

Tuesday, April 12--Bob Pierce: Managing mission critical, high availability VFP applications in real time

Member Bob Pierce will present this month. His topic is “Managing mission critical, high availability VFP applications in real time.”

Abstract:  In this session I will explore performance, monitoring and maintenance issues when dealing with programs that must be updated and continuously available with limited maintenance windows.  I will delve into some code that lets me maintain and monitor dozens of VFP applications running a 24/6 manufacturing operation using VFP.

We'll be in room 125 again.

Tuesday, March 8--Tamar E. Granor--Going OVER and above with SQL

Our next meeting will be next Tuesday, March 8. Our speaker this month will be member Tamar E. Granor who’ll present “Going OVER and Above with SQL."

Abstract: The SQL 2003 standard introduced the OVER keyword that lets you apply a function to a set of records. Introduced in SQL Server 2005, this capability was extended in SQL Server 2012. The functions allow you to rank records, aggregate them in a variety of ways, put data from multiple records into a single result record, and compute and use percentiles. The set of problems they solve range from removing exact duplicates to computing running totals and moving averages to comparing data from different periods to removing outliers.

In this session, we'll look at the OVER operator and the many functions you can use with it. We'll look at a variety of problems that can be solved using OVER.

You will learn:

    How to find the top N records in a group

    How to compute running totals and moving averages

    How to compare data from multiple records side-by-side

    How to divide records into n-tiles, including percentiles

    How to search for records in a particular percentile

February 9 meeting cancelled!

With snow predicted throughout the evening, and members driving long distances, we've decided to cancel tonight's meeting. See you next month!

February 9, 2016: Menachem Bazian: "Map it with Google!"

Our next meeting will be next Tuesday, December 9; we'll again be in room 125.

Our speaker will be Menachem Bazian. His topic is “Map it with Google!”

Abstract: Google maps is a tremendously powerful service that can really add useful functionality to your apps. This session will introduce the Google Maps API and show an application that was built around it.