Don’t just take my word for it

Story time: I was recently in the market for a vacuum.

Any time I need (or want) to purchase anything, I open up a web browser and I type in “best <thing> wirecutter” (because they’re like a techie Consumer Reports). What I love about The Wirecutter is that they do real-world testing on products ranging from gadgets to dining room tables and they always breakdown their reviews into “tiers.” And I’m definitely not alone in this process, because if you pull up one of their recommendations on Amazon, you’ll see a slew of reviews that pretty much make them top-rated products.

So about that vacuum: the one we had at home was pretty old (it was a wedding present, which means it was… wait, how long have I been married?) and had some problems (including this weird problem where it kept sucking up dog poop*) so it was time. I fired up Amazon and went with the main recommendation from the site and I’ll be honest: it’s great. Stuff is coming out my carpets now that… well, you probably don’t want to know, but I think I found where all my hair went.

The point is: user reviews matter, regardless of what the product is. While The Wirecutter gives you a great starting point on products, that doesn’t mean you should discount other people’s opinions on things. So whether you’re in the market for a new sweeper or training, you should take other people’s experiences into account.

I’ve conducted three live training classes as part of Brent Ozar Unlimited’s offerings now, and there’s a fourth coming up in January of 2019. Here’s the thing, though: even if you don’t sign up for my PowerShell class, there’s a ton of great training here at a 50% discount as part of his “Black Friday” sale (that goes on the rest of the month of November). If you head over to the site and pull up a particular class you’re looking at, there’s a section for user reviews under each. I’ve had some pretty great feedback on my classes so far, and they just get better each time. The same holds true for each instructor; I’m part of a pretty spectacular group of experts that can teach you all manner of things related to your career, from performance tuning, automation, CI/CD, HA, ETL, and even some data visualization. Oh, and as an added bonus, if you can’t commit to the (usual) multi-day live class, there’s on-demand recordings too (which, if you buy mine, might even feature cameos of my dog or some other cool people).

If you didn’t meet your training goals or budget this year and want to get some real good, practical, hands-on training from some rad people, Brent’s got you covered. I don’t even care so much that you don’t sign up for mine. This is some stupid-good value for money, and if you have the means I highly encourage you to check it out. But don’t just take my word for it, read the reviews and if you’re still not convinced, reach out and talk to the instructors themselves. Each of them is approachable and ready and willing to help.