I’m lazy. If I can drive a screw with my cordless drill in 5 seconds vs 60 seconds, but have to walk to the garage to get it, I’ll pick the drill over the screwdriver every time. Probably because after I’m finished with that screw, my foreman will walk over and decide she wants the wall ornament moved a few micrometers to the left. I think the best developers are lazy. I say this, but…
Update for version 4.2 and higher. As often happens, my ideas for blog posts are provided by end users asking for help. Sometimes I know the answer, sometimes I don’t. This is one of the latter cases. Chet AKA @oraclenerd asked me: ‘Tell me how to find the preference in sqldev to make a tab 2 spaces?’ I knew it had to be in there somewhere. This is a pretty basic setting for any word…
Ever seen a table with so many columns you wonder if the designer had fallen out of the de-normalization tree and had hit every branch on the way down? Oracle currently allows a max of 1,000 columns per table. Please do not test this limit. Maybe you do need that many columns, but I doubt it. If you were to visualize this data model, imagine how easily you might be overwhelmed with all the white-noise,…
If you’re here to read another pro or con Klout rant, then please go somewhere else. I consider Mark Schaefer’s blog series to be the definitive take on the whole Klout business. I like Klout, and I use Klout. If you fall into this camp, please continue. Did you know that Klout has lists? You may have ignored them. And I wouldn’t blame you one bit. See, we’ve been trained to think that lists are…
So you’re in Tweetdeck and someone mentions you in Portuguese or Swedish. You have no idea what it says, but you’re pretty sure it’s not a compliment. Thank goodness there’s the one-click ‘translate’ feature to bail you out. It’s often saved me from my elementary Spanish. How many times have you used Google’s translation services for help getting something from Korean to English? I have many times. Now, how nice would it be if you…
Spatial data in its raw format is ugly. The shapes and places it represents can be very enlightening. Here’s some raw spatial data followed by their visualization. If you worked with spatial data, what would you prefer? You can probably figure out what you’re looking at, but wouldn’t it be nice if you could get a visual confirmation? 90248753668024c09c66e3_000002 To see the shapes, just right-click Map View, What’s that? Do you remember the kid’s game,…
There are many good articles out there that go into detail for creating reports with Oracle SQL Developer. I was reading my predecessor’s write up in Oracle Magazine (May 2007) on the subject, and keyed into the following snippet: Building a Chart When creating a report with the Chart style, the rule of thumb is to use SELECT group, series, data FROM table . So the basic tabular report you created earlier also has the…
If you’re looking for insight or guidance on XML, XML in the database, or XMLDB – then please keep looking. I have not much to add here. What I am here to talk about is some of the support that SQL Developer offers for XML in the database. You may have heard me say ‘I do not like XML.’ What I mean by that is ‘I do not like poor design decisions, and XML seems…
When I’m doing my ‘Tips and Tricks’ show, there is at least one trick that is guaranteed to get the audience’s attention: I’m in an editor – INSERT MAGIC – wham! I’m cycling through the SQL History list, no need to use the mouse. Here’s a set of keyboard shortcuts I want you to memorize RIGHT NOW:Ctrl+Down — NextCtrl+Up — Previous The concept of ‘Next’ and ‘Previous’ will depend on the sort order defined in…
Here is a 2 second tweak that I recommend for all users of Oracle SQL Developer. Open Tools – Preferences Database – Worksheet – ‘Grid in checkerboard or Zebra pattern’ – toggle ON Now run a query in the worksheet or open a table in the browser If you’re going to be staring at data for hours on end, give your eyes a break and mix it up a bit!
