Since the Kangaroo PC was announced in June 2015, I have looked forward to being able to put it through its paces. Quite a few hardware manufacturers have played around with the idea of a small device that can be used as an entertainment device in the home. The Kangaroo press releases seemed to point to using the Kangaroo as an interface into entertainment, with your television being using to view the content. I also wanted to see if it could be used as a type of thin-PC, possibly for those who don't want to deal with a larger machine or a cheap alternative for schools. According to the Kangaroo website, the Kangaroo…
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Unboxing of the Kangaroo PC
When InFocus announced they were building a PC that was small enough to fix in your pocket, had HDMI, USB 3.0, expand-ability via microSD, and would cost less than $100, I knew I had to buy one. There has been a tremendous amount [PCWorld] of press coverage [Engadget] for the release [VentureBeat] of the Kangaroo PC, so I won’t do a review of the concept here. This first post is to cover the unboxing of the product and give you an idea of what you get for $99 (NewEgg). First the box itself – the front and sides are very plain. The back of the box includes the specs for the…
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Twin Cities SharePoint Saturday 2015
I was really excited to be selected to speak at this year’s SharePoint Saturday Twin Cities in Minneapolis. It is known as one of the best SharePoint Saturday (SPS) events and I now was going to see the event first-hand! I had a little fun with the promotion of my session at the event, given that #SPSTC was only a few days after #BackToTheFutureDay (October 21st, 2015). The speaker dinner was excellent; great location, food, and a relaxed atmosphere. I had the opportunity to catch up with organizers and other speakers, some of which I hadn’t seen since the Microsoft Ignite conference in May. The organizing committee was awesome and…
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Cincinnati SharePoint Saturday 2015
I was honored to speak at this year’s installment of SharePoint Saturday (SPS) Cincinnati – is was a spooktacular event! Every year the organizers of #SPSCincy do a Halloween theme and this year, all the speakers were given football jerseys to help them with their costume. Others, well, they brought there own: When I arrived at the event, the theme was in full swing – decorations and people dressed as their favorite gorilla, princess, or Star Wars character. I attended several great sessions during the day – if you aren’t attending SPS events, you are really missing out on high-quality, free content! As I prepared for my session, I grabbed…
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SharePoint 2016 and Maximum Degree Of Parallelism (MAXDOP)
I was a speaker at five SQL Saturdays this year and at each one of them I was asked why SharePoint requires the SQL Server Maximum Degree Of Parallelism setting to be set equal to 1. After explaining the reason, I would get a blank stare and then a response like “so SharePoint is inefficient and is hard-coded to look for MAXDOP=1?” Knowing that I would be asked the same question again at the next SQL Saturday, in late July I sent out a tweet trying to get an answer to the question: “Will SharePoint Server 2016 require MAXDOP to be equal to 1?” The only response I received was…
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SharePoint 2016 Email Settings, Sending Encrypted Email
With the introduction of SharePoint 2016 (Preview), we now have the ability to encrypt emails sent from SharePoint using SMTP connection encryption. First of all, your SMTP server must support STARTTLS and have it enabled. It must also support the TLS 1.0, TSL 1.1, or TLS 1.2 protocol. The MSDN New and improved features in SharePoint Server 2016 page also notes that SSL 2.0 and SSL 3.0 protocols are not supported. Compared to the 2013 Outgoing E-Mail Settings page, the SharePoint 2016 Outgoing E-Mail Settings page has two new settings – Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and SMTP server port. To use email encryption, select ‘Yes' in the Use Secure…
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SharePoint Server 2016 (Preview)
On August 24th, 2015, Microsoft announced the availability of SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview with a blog post by Bill Baer, senior technical product manager for the SharePoint team. I of course started downloading the software and began the SharePoint farm build. I built a small environment to begin testing: I am using two servers running Windows Server 2012 R2 – one with the Active Directory role & SQL Server 2014 with Service Pack 1 installed & on the second server I performed a simple install using the GUI. There is plenty of coverage on the web describing the different installation options (MinRole), so i won't go into a lot…
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Louisville SQL Saturday 2015
As it turns out, my last scheduled SQL Saturday event for 2015 was one of the closest – #SQLSat403 was my first time at the event held in Louisville, but I hope it won’t be the last! The speaker dinner was held at a great restaurant that was known for is delicious food – even featured on one of the TV cooking shows! We all gathered around tables and talked shop, family, work, and stuffed our faces with a lot of pizza. My session, Keys to Successful SharePoint Administration for the DBA, was slated later in the day, so I was able to attend several sessions throughout the day. I…
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Indianapolis SQL Saturday 2015
I traveled up to the great state of Indiana for SQL Saturday Indianapolis this past weekend. My session went well, except for the demo. I performed a SharePoint 2013 install using PowerShell but the installation didn’t finish. The most likely reason is that the virtual server host was busy (disk I/O). Oh well, the process had completed some steps and I was able to show databases without the GUID – which is kinda the point. I also attended Mike Lawell’s Execution Plans for Mere Mortals session. A lot of the information was new for me, but that is why I love going to SQL Saturdays – I stretch my knowledge.…
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Chattanooga SQL Saturday 2015
It was a such a great pleasure being part of the first SQL Saturday in Chattanooga! I arrived on Friday for the speaker dinner. Larry Ortega and the rest of the organizing crew did an excellent job with the dinner and getting #SQLSat410 started off. Another plus for the event – right outside my hotel was the Jurassic Park vehicle and the Mystery Machine (Scooby Doo van). On Saturday, everything seemed to run very smoothly and attendees were ready to get their learn on. My presentation went well – even the demo worked! The group was awesome and we had a productive conversation. Download the deck from my Tuning SQL…
