It’s been a while!

Hello everyone…I know I haven’t posted in quite a while, and I’m not about to start now. Things have been extremely busy lately, starting with my 10g RAC course aboard the Carnival Glory on a 7-day Caribbean cruise (more on that later).

So I will be posting again soon, and hope to have some feedback on RMOUG (where I will be presenting three topics this week) and other things.

Until then, read the Tao of Oracle by Roby Sherman. It’s probably the single most hilarious piece of Oracle literature I’ve ever read!

I was speaking at a small User Group meeting yesterday. A crowd of about 20 was sitting at tables in a “U” configuration. About 70% of the way through the presentation, I asked the fateful question.

Me: “How many of you are DBAs?”

To my surprise, the right side of the room raised their hands. Roughly 10 people, without a single gap in the line.

Me: “How many of you are Developers?”

And the left side raised their hands, roughly 10 people, no gaps, all developers.

How the hell did the DBAs and Developers sit apart like that without any planning? They didn’t ALL know each other, they just happened to sit in such a way that they were 1) apart from each other, and 2) facing each other with the battlefield in between.

We all had a good laugh about it, but it still made me think. Is there some fundamental subconscious difference, some sort of projected vibe, between DBAs and Developers? We fight so often, but that could be easily attributed to the fact that we rely on each other to do a good job. I even did a humorous presentation/discussion on it once, an epic fairy tale explaining the peril DBAs and Developers put a company in with their bickering. You can download it here if you like.

But if it’s just the fact we work so closely yet compete, like siblings, how the heck did they all manage to sit part like that? It reminds me of the “group mind” concept from various science fiction and fantasy books (like the Borg). We are the IT Conglomerate, Developers to the left, DBAs to the right, no further communication is required, thank you.

Hey, maybe it’s pheromones.

Hello all! It’s been quite a while due to the holidays, but I’m back online and doing fine. I hope all of you had a great holiday season.

And after all this time, what do I have for you? The 10 most dangerous toys of all time, of course!

It’s amusing, though the descriptions of consequences can be a bit frightening at times. Have a look.

Radar Online

My favorite has to be the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab.

For a mere $49.50, the kit came complete with three “very low-level” radioactive sources, a Geiger-Mueller radiation counter, a Wilson Cloud Chamber (to see paths of alpha particles), a Spinthariscope (to see “live” radioactive disintegration), four samples of Uranium-bearing ores, and an Electroscope to measure radioactivity.

And what nuclear lab for kids would be complete without an Atomic Energy Manual and Learn How Dagwood Splits the Atom comic book? (The latter was written with the help of General Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project.)

I’ve gotten quite a few requests to do another parody song (probably thanks to Lisa for mentioning me in in the Oracle Newbie’s Blog!), so I went ahead and wrote one. This is is The Life of DB Admins, sung to the tune of Hotel California by the Eagles. Enjoy!

—
Late at night at the office, I’m the only one there
Many new tasks to get done, lots of things to repair.
While setting up some table grants, to keep security tight
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I want to stop for the night
There it was on the display;
A piece of query hell
And I was thinking to myself
Let’s give up Oracle and just go Excel
But I made a new index, and I started to pray
For an ending to the query war,
That it would end today…

Welcome to the life of DB Admins
Fix the database
At an urgent pace
Always at work in the life of DB Admins
Any time of year, you will find us here.

Their queries don’t use indexes, and the, where clause never ends (uh)
They got a lot of inefficient joins no DBA recommends.
How they fill up the ORDER BY, disk sorts galore
And then for no reason, they add even more.

So I grow the PGA
Hoping sorts will decline
But then I have to free up some more RAM from my well planned design
And now there’s more full table scans, tons more each day.
With every new line of code that they write
I feel more dismay.

Welcome to the life of DB Admins
Fix the database
At an urgent pace
Living to work in the life of DB Admins
What a nice surprise, loads are on the rise….

CBO is reeling,
Gathered stats once or twice
And I thought, ‘maybe I should just query for some DB_CACHE_ADVICE,’
Or I’ll add a new MView,
Hints are last but not least
I’ll do anything I can do
Until disk reads have all ceased.

Last thing I remember, I was
Looking to explore
A way to get the whole server
Off the rack to smash to the floor
‘Relax,’ said my manager,
Though the code does make you grieve.
You still have a lot of work to do,
Get it done or you’ll never leave!

I have a habit of writing parody songs about things I like, and Oracle is one of those things. I’ve never seen a full on Oracle parody song, so I will make the claim that this is the first. If it’s not, I’m sure it’s the first of this magnitude!

Now, the tragic epic of a DBA that allowed his system to go on without backups, to the tune of American Pie by Don McLean. It’s a bit long, so I have it with a “read more” link. Enjoy!

—
A long, long, time ago…
I can still remember
How an index used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance
The database would be enhanced
And maybe it would run well for a while.

But doing upgrades made me shiver
With every version I delivered
Bad news in the GUI
The progress bar was screwy.

I can’t remember if I cried
When the data dictionary came out fried
I just wanted to run and hide
The day the DB died.

So bye bye to the database guys,
Sent a TAR to MetaLink,
But we got no reply
And the managers asked, “Is that all you can try,”
I said, this will be the day that it dies…
This will be the day that it dies.

(more…)

I had made a post about the 80GB iPod, how much I loved it, and how great it was, and now suddenly it’s deleted. Ah well, c’est la vie, no?

Anyways, I don’t remember everything that was there, but suffice it to say that the iPod is amazing. You can store around 20,000 songs, over a hundred videos, TV shows, and the new iPods even have games in brilliant color.

Not only that, but the new 80GB iPod has a better battery life with up to 20 hours of music playback and 6.5 hours of video playback which is GREAT for plane rides without having to pull out the laptop. If you run out of battery, you can plug the iPod into your laptop via USB and leech battery power from it. Perfection!

The new iPod also has clarity enhancements. Videos can be larger and squeezed onto the iPod’s screen for great playback on a TV. The brightness has also been adjusted, which allows a beautiful retina-burning display of video.

Take a look at the old vs. new pics below:

While the actual video watching is not THAT bright, it is what my camera picked up, and this camera was using NO flash. A visual feast, the likes of which will make you want to stare at the sun to cool your eyes off after a movie.

The best part is that Apple lowered their prices at the same time. The new 80GB iPod is only $350.00, whereas the old 60GB one was $400. You can’t beat the price for this much space and such great features.

Yes, tomorrow is national SysAdmin day, which includes DBAs.  SysAdmin day is the day for all end users to get together and thank their SysAdmins and DBAs for all their hard work, long hours, requests, emails, and God knows what else.

For all you who fit into this category, congratulations on surviving another year as a system administrator!  The next promises to be filled with loads of fun.  But for now, enjoy yourself, because tomorrow is your day.

For anyone who is NOT a sysadmin, this is the day to get gifts for your overworked SysAdmins and DBAs!  Maybe this shirt?

A math professor has reportedly discovered an equation that will tell parents how long it will take for the kids to say “are we there yet?”

The equation created by Dr. Dwight Barkley of the University of Warwick uses a multitude of factors to mathematically predict the exact moment.

T = (1 + a)/(k^2) + r

Where:

• T = The time for the child to ask
• a = The number of activities to do
• k = The number of kids
• r = How long it took to get ready

If we take this equation in minutes and say it took us 30 minutes to get ready, we have 2 kids, and we’ve given them each three travel games, we get:

T = (1 + 3)/(2^2) + 30 = (1)/(1) + 30 = Exactly 31 minutes, or exactly one minute after you get into the car.

Let’s try 30 minutes to get ready, 3 kids, and 20 games.

T = (1 + 20)/(5^2) + 30 = (21)/(9) + 30 = 32.3 minutes, or exactly 2.3 minutes after you get into the car.

Ouch! Looks pretty hopeless to me, either way. I think we need an equation that shows what size car you will need, and therefore how much gas you will expend on trips, in order to hold all the kids activities (a) in order to keep them quiet for at least 10 minutes.

I’m a Mac user, and I have to say I love my Mac. Not because I think it’s horribly superior to a PC or any of that; I just got tired of the Windows interface, and I love the slickness of OSX. It’s nice having a BSD backend to my operating system, so I can pull a ‘kill -9′ when something’s not working right.

I’m actually looking forward to getting my hands on a Macbook soon, so I can dual boot both. You know, the funny thing is that PC users will gripe, moan, and grumble about Windows, they’ll joke about blue screens, and then when a Mac guy says, “Macs are better!” they get all defensive and start ripping on Macs. Hey, at least we like our OS.

Anyways, it all boils down to those commercials. You know the ones with the nerdy PC in a suit and the hippy Mac in the trendy mall gear? I think they’re very funny, but I couldn’t help but giggle when I saw this picture from Worth1000.com. But hey, at least we know that according to #5 of Microsoft’s new principles, there will be no shots fired once Vista comes out.

Enjoy the pic!