DVD night with Kalen Delaney

We had a few people over last night to check out Kalen Delaney’s new  DVD from http://sqlserverdvd.com. I decided to have a database movie night and invite a few professionals from the Las Vegas area where I live.  I invited about 10 people, but due to my poor planning and short notice only a few were able to attend.  The group was distributed pretty evenly among the many faces of the DBA: a BI specialist, a software developer with responsibilities in SQL Server, and a guy who does tech support for about 150+ sites running SQL 2000/2005 but doesn’t really ever have to deal with anything more than adding accounts or moving data around.  At around 7:30PM on a balmy spring evening we plopped down on my oversize couches, snaked power cords all over the living room, calmed my dog down and got to business.

The DVD, for those of you that don’t know, is the first in what appears to be a 10 part series from Kalen Delaney that essentially mirrors her 5 day course.  Imagine, getting a 5 day training course from a seasoned professional for about $300.  That is exactly what you’re getting, without the crappy hotel and bad coffee.  Chuck Boyce has built a little community around the project and in under a few months has already recruited a new player with a new DVD.  Being that the best video training for SQL Server has been amateur and uninspired up until now, we’re seeing something really important happen.  The majority of the people who don’t like reading have been forced to in the past to learn by experience or through a mentor.  For what may be the first time in history, people who don’t like to read and don’t have the money for expensive personal training can become the kind of DBAs that the world needs : capable, well informed, and extremely knowledgeable about the details that keep the software running.  After looking at the course outline as a group, there are some subjects that people were positively frothing for…especially indexes!

The DVD was great in that there was something for everyone. Despite having read Kalen’s book about the SQL storage engine, I myself found some new and interesting information, and I think everyone in the group walked away with some information that was important to them. The video also did something somewhat unexpected, for me, and that was it raised questions about not only the content of the video (which were easily explained by at least one person in the group) but also regarding real life scenarios that were only loosely tied to the topics of the video.  People were discussing everything from strange lockout and error issues on testing servers with only two users (hint : temp tables are BAD) to asking questions like “Just what the hell is socks and how does it apply to SQL?”  (Once we figured out he was talking about Sarbanes Oxley, the explanations came quickly and easily.)

I found that about half of our four hour viewing time was spent paused and talking amongst the group.  This is a really great way to watch the DVD as it keeps the topics lively and helps you to see these lessons from perspectives other than your own.  Kalen gives you the facts, but it is up to you to creatively use the information to your benefit.  While she often gives examples for useful ways to apply her knowledge, there is no way that she can cover every possible situation, but you can get a lot closer with 4 people from different jobs putting their brainpower into figuring out how to best utilize the information.  This is not to say that you won’t get anything out of watching it alone, you’ll just have to think a little harder and watch it a few more times.  I plan on watching the DVD one more time just to make sure that I didn’t miss anything.

We spent a lot of time paused and discussing the ramifications of the DVD, especially what to do with the DMVs and how they could apply in the real world for someone like a developer (Pro tip : it is a great way to get your boss to upgrade your development machines!!)

Kalen’s speaking voice was great and she didn’t stumble much, like most presenters do. She is obviously confident and comfortable in her knowledge and being in the public eye.  She doesn’t have any strange speech patterns to distract you, and she has no facial or vocal tics which makes it very easy to watch her and focus on the material at hand.  Nothing drives me crazier than a presenter or teacher that takes over the stage and puts the subject matter in the background.  Kalen understands this, obviously, and while being fresh, personal, and well spoken she is not the focus of the lesson, the subject matter is.  One thing I did notice was that the sound changed dramatically from the lessons to the demos. I’m not sure if it was going from mono to stereo or from stereo to surround, but it was apparent on my surround setup.  Audiophiles beware, but for everyone else I recommend laughing it off and pointing fingers, because you probably won’t hear it over normal TV or computer speakers.  As for the production values on the rest of the disk, they’re great.  The picture was clear on my TV, there was no hum or static, and Kalen’s voice was right up in the front rather than her keyboard, her CPU fan, or anything else that you commonly get on instructional DVDs.  You won’t be disappointed with the quality, and it really does give you a feeling of being in a classroom environment.

It is great to see some decent video training for once.  This is a great thing for the community.  Most of all I’m excited to see the people that I know with a passing interest get more involved in the future of the database-fu, and I can only imagine that this kind of enthusiasm will spread if we get enough enthusiastic database pros passing the url to SQLServerDVD to the baby DBAs of the world.

On a side note, before you watch this DVD stick it in your computer and copy the script files.  There are some places that claim the scripts are on the website, but the only thing on the website is a quick note to let you know about the files on the DVD.   I think the scripts should be posted on the website as well as the DVD! We just typed our queries and notes in because we were too lazy to do the whole stop the movie, copy files to everyone, etc. song and dance.  It worked out fine, Kalen doesn’t move too fast and you have time to pay attention and try things out even if you have to type a few lines of code.  Hunt and peck people will have enormous trouble and should definitely copy the scripts beforehand.

It was great fun to geek out DBA style with Kalen’s video, and I really look forward to doing something similar with future videos.