My T-SQL contribution for this month is about Azure Data Studio and my coffee machine. Because the two go together nicely when I am presenting.
This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by Mikey Bronowski. Mikey has invited us all to talk about outstanding tools of the trade to make our lives awesome. You can find out more about the invite by clicking here or on the image below.
So, in this post I want to cover two separate tools that I think help make my presentations awesome.
Azure Data Studio
First, I want to cover Azure Data Studio. Because I find it fantastic for use during my sessions.
Anybody who has watched one of my sessions recently will have seen me use Azure Data Studio. If I am presenting, I tend to present about Database Projects, Source control and multiple types of SQL Server instances.
Luckily, Azure Data Studio allows me to show all three easily within one application. It can sync with both Azure DevOps and GitHub as well so easy to change between the two.
For example, the below shows one way I used it last week during my ‘GitHub DevOps Duet’ for SQLFriday. It shows where I changed a column and was about to commit the change to source control. Afterwards, I synced it with the GitHub repository.
In reality, I usually use it a few times during sessions. For instance, depending on the session I sometimes show how a database project looks in Azure Data Studio. Something I covered in a previous post here.
In addition, I sometimes show how all the databases look after a pipeline has finished in Azure DevOps as below. It even connects to Azure Synapse Analytics dedicated SQL Pools as well.
Ease of use
I do this because Azure Data Studio is easy to use for many things during a session. I can get everything prepared beforehand and have it ready on a separate monitor to show the audience.
In addition, I can zoom in easily in advance to make it easier to leave for the audience to see. Another great thing about doing this is that Azure Data Studio remembers this as well when you connect up to certain instances.
Azure Data Studio in action
Since they say seeing is believing, here’s the version ‘GitHub DevOps Duet’ session that we presented last week especially for SQL Friday.
Coffee machine
Second thing that I want to cover is my coffee machine.
In reality, I was only going to cover Azure Data Studio. However, so many people keep asking about coffee machine recommendations online I thought I better cover mine.
Before I moved to the Netherlands, I tended to drink a lot of instant coffee. It was only after I was working from home over here more, I decided I wanted a good coffee machine instead.
With this in mind, me and the wife done some research. After a while we decided that a Melitta Barista-T coffee machine would be our best option. In fact, next month is the three-year anniversary of us buying it.
Features
It’s one of the best investments I have made for various reasons. Including all the below features which I think makes this machine great.
- Generous water tank with the option to fit a water filter (highly recommended).
- It has two separate bean compartments.
- Lots of pre-set drinks available.
- Great user menu, allowing you to do all kinds of things.
- Can control the strength of the coffee and the amount of milk per drink.
- Can customize your own regular drink.
- Supports being able to do two cups of coffee at the same time.
- Easy to use, if you need milk just connect the nozzle into it, press a button and wait.
We decided to go for the version without the Wi-Fi. Because we would still need to be there to load the milk anyway. I looked around and found it was cheaper to import it from Germany. I was very impressed when it was delivered, and we could change it to a variety of languages.
Currently, I use it a lot because working from home more. Especially whilst preparing for presentations. On more than one occasion I have had a double expresso whilst preparing for a session.
Of course, the better the beans the better the coffee. However, that would be a whole series of blog posts in their own right. For now, let’s just say fresh roasted coffee beans makes the experience a lot better.
So, if anybody asks you about a coffee machine recommendation in the future feel free to point them towards this post.
Final word
I hope my contribution this month about Azure Data Studio and my coffee machine has been useful.
Of course, if you have any comments or queries about this post feel free to reach out to me.
In addition, feel free to mention your own coffee machine recommendations with a comment.
That is one fancy coffe machine! Thanks for writing this post.
The coffee machine is the best! If I start drinking more coffee I will definitely go back to your post. Thank you!