I usually find things here and there, and bookmark them. For this, I use Google Chrome because it syncs my bookmarks etc based on my Google sign in, and no matter which computer I am logged in to, I find my best resources etc, easily. I usually read about Performance Tuning (SQL) from Kimberly Tripp (of SQLSkills), and about the internals from Brent Ozar and Paul Randall. Also, I read from many BI bloggers including Brian Knight and Jamie Thomson (for SSIS), and tons of other blogs from Sqlblog team. Over the time, all my bookmarks have become similar to page splits, fragmentations, and what not.

Anyways, to make it easier, I started using Yahoo Pipes. I had seen this webapp long time back, when it was in a very primitive stage. Basically, its very similar to SSIS, in terms of getting the blogs (RSS feeds), and even URLs, unioning them, and different way of organizing. I’ve made one pipe (I cloned the one made by Paul Randall of SQLSkills.com) and published this which I can access from my phone, computer, google reader and what not. If you want to be more organized, check out Yahoo Pipes and a few pipes I made to start with.

feed://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?Age=20+days+ago&_id=0589b23e29276217ff817943202f6acc&_render=rss

I just wish it was would be easier links, and I could replace that guid (and have a better permalink).

I have never been a big fan of gaming + laptops. In fact, I don’t own a desktop at all, and I don’t do any gaming. I work purely on SQL Server + some Windows Administration. Recently, I had weird applications being pushed to my laptop due to some workplace domain policy. Laptop was slower, and heard from others that they had to re-stage their laptops a couple of times because issues came back again and again. Due to the slowness, I decided to get another laptop (this one is a T400 with T9400 Core 2 Duo). I was debating with myself whether to get a Quad Core I7 or a Dual Core I7. Initially, the Quad Core sounded fantastic. I wanted to find the differences between the two in terms of speed, and how it affects everyday computing. Found something like this:

i7 720QM is a quad, but the clock speed with Turbo Mode goes like following.

620M will be faster in most cases and competitive in the worst, and with better battery life and lower heat.

This, I decided to go and get the fancy Lenovo x201 with a I7 + and 620M.

Hope this helps anyone looking for a laptop purchase.