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NoVa CodeCamp 2008.02 is in the books and was a success.  We fought freezing temperatures, dodged runners on the way to the venue and even left amidst a flurry.  Thanks to everyone that came out, all our speakers, volunteers, contributors and organizers.

There’s still one more thing left to do: submit evaluations.  We know there are a couple things we could have improved on (publicity for one) but we’d like to get your opinion on it.  We’re offering three lucky evaluators an O’Reilly book of their choosing.  Winners will be selected next Wednesday, December 17, 2008.

To fill out your eval, go to codecampevals.com and select the NoVa CodeCamp 2008.02 link.

Safari

I mentioned in the keynote that you could use your Montgomery County Public Library card to access O’Reilly’s online book catalog Safari.  David mentioned that Loudoun County library users had the similar benefits. If anyone knows about Fairfax or Prince William respond in comments and I’ll update the post.  Seems there is a way for public libraries to have up to date technical books after all.

Steve Andrews had a great idea:

I challenge all user groups to hold a food drive at their meeting this month. There is plenty of need, especially this year!

I don’t have a usergroup meeting coming up, but I do have NoVa CodeCamp 2008.02 this Saturday.  So we’re going to do a food drive and donate all the collected items to a local shelter in Reston, VA: Reston Interfaith.  I got in touch with Laura and she sent over a pantry wishlist:

• Pasta Sauce
• Cereal, Oatmeal, other breakfast items
• Peanut Butter and Jelly
• Macaroni and Cheese
• Bagged rice (white or brown)
• Bottled juice
• Canned veggies (all sorts)
• Canned fruit
• Canned Tuna, Salmon, Chicken, Ham
• Tea, Coffee (regular & decaf – instant)
• Snacks (crackers, fruit & granola bars, etc.)
• Dry Goods (sugar, sweetener, flour, salt, spices)
• Condiments (mayo, ketchup, mustard, etc)
• Cooking Oil & Olive Oil

They can also take baby items:

• Diapers (all sizes)
• Formula (all types)
• Baby Wipes
• Baby Food (all stages)

To help bolster donation I thought it would be a good idea to have a separate, donators only, drawing for prizes.  1 Ticket per item.  Below is a teaser for what items could be given out (based on donations).

Prizes (we have over 150 people registered):

• 60 Items – Microsoft Expression Web
• 120 Items – Microsoft Office 2007
• 240 Items – Microsoft Vista Ultimate
• 480 Items – MSDN Subscription

Every milestone adds another prize to the pot.  If you’d like to donate a prize to the pot let me know, I’ll update the post and give you credit. 

We’ll drop the food off shortly after lunch (they’re only open until 1:30), so if you plan on donating come in the morning.

Please help out.  We’re feeding you breakfast and lunch so take your lunch money for a day and buy a couple items on the wish list.

Tweet this, quote it, email it, get food from your coworkers, getting the picture?

I’m working on an FAQ application that orders questions.  Questions have a position column and my INSERT stored procedure is supposed to add the newly inserted question to the last position ( MAX(position) + 1).  Turns out I forgot to include that and all my questions had a position of 1.

Once they’re ordered I can move up and move down, I just need to get them ordered.  Here’s how I did it with Common Table Expressions (CTE) in SQL Server 2005.  Hopefully this won’t come up again for me, but it doesn’t hurt to have this around.

WITH Questions_Ordered (id, position)

AS

(

   SELECT

       [id]

      ,ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY [id] ASC) AS [position]

   FROM

      [dbo].[Questions]

)


UPDATE

   q

SET

   q.[position] = q2.[position]

FROM

   [dbo].[Questions] q

INNER JOIN

   Questions_Ordered q2

   ON q.[id] = q2.[id]

I create a CTE with the two columns I need, the question id and the new order.  I’m getting the order by a simple ROW_NUMBER() over id.  You could use more complicated criteria if you needed it.

From there it’s an UPDATE query with an INNER JOIN on id.

Just a reminder that NoVa CodeCamp 2008.02 is this Saturday, 12/6/08, at the Microsoft offices in Reston, VA.

The NoVa CodeCamp website has been updated and now lists the session abstracts and speaker bios, start planning your day…

Excella is providing breakfast of the carb and caffeine variety.

Microsoft is providing lunch of the pizza and carbonated caffeine variety.

Important information:

• There is no public internet access, don’t ask.
• We need volunteers, if you’re interested email me: jeff at novacodecamp dot org
• Schedule
• Directions