Twitter came through for me in a big way again today. I’m constantly being asked why I do ‘the Twitter’, and this experience sums it up nicely. Updated 10-05-2010 First things first. # – denotes a hashtag, useful for finding/categorizing posts on Twitter FTW – acronym for ‘For the Win’, geeky way of saying ‘Woohoo!’ I am an idiot. I recently bought a wiring harness for my car stereo, this was going to let me…
I am continuously chiding my customers to upgrade their software, particularly the software they bought from Quest. Why? Well, for starters it’s in my financial best interest to do so. But, I have no problems sleeping at night because it’s also in their best interest. Why? Companies spend a lot of money on software maintenance renewals. Anywhere from 10-25% of the list price every year goes to this. Software companies love that revenue stream. It’s…
I recently had the opportunity to attend a SQL Saturday event, #46 in Raleigh, NC. Techie Training, on a Saturday. Really? Yes, really. And I had some reservations before attending. However the fact that this event was free, minus $10 for breakfast/lunch, and the entire #SQL universe on Twitter has had nothing but good things to say about the event convinced me to give it a shot. Why does an Oracle guy care about SQL…
Don’t you just love managing your 3,247 accounts and passwords in cyberspace? Imagine being a DBA who manages several hundred databases and requires a password for each of those. And of course said passwords expire after X days, right? Password rules, which cover things like limit of failed login attempts password lifetime reuse max password expiration grace time are defined by Profiles. You can view profile information by querying SYS.DBA_PROFILES. I was approached for help…
On Thursday, September 30, 10:30AM EST, Bert Scalzo and I will be doing a Quest sponsored Webcast – “DBAs Versus Developers.” Sign Up/Register for the Webcast That sounds awfully contentious, Jeff! When visiting customers I am often talking to a group of developers in the morning and DBAs in the afternoon. In the morning, I tell my DBA jokes. In the afternoon, I make friends by piling on the developers. From time to time we…
Updated for 2015! If I were attending as a developer/DBA, here are the things I would be doing: Take notes, collect materials. Come back to work, put on a lunch seminar sharing the biggest things you learned during the week – make it EASY for your boss to approve #OOW16. Put Twitter handle on name badge. Plan for sessions in advance using the Schedule Builder Only pack in carry-ons. You won’t want to be waiting…
I have never been really good at telling people ‘No.’ Let me clarify that – I have never been really good at telling people I work with ‘No.’ This trait put me in an interesting position recently when both @BrentO and @CHasker Instant Messaged me at work. Apparently I was the lucky guy to run Quest’s new Wiki/Blog site, OraDBPedia. If you are plugged into the wacky world of SQL Server, then you know all…
I travel quite frequently for my job. Number one on my list of ‘must have things’ on the road is a Navigation device. This used to be my trusty Garmin, but now thanks to my new Android device, I have Google Maps. There have been times and places where I don’t have the device available – either the GPS satellites cannot be acquired or i’m in D.C. where the accuracy of the positioning seems artificially…
One of the downsides to moving off the Apple technology platform for your mobile device is not being able to use iTunes to mange your media content on said mobile device. Enter doubleTwist! I have received two recommendations to try out the program after bemoaning the ‘drag and drop’ methodology of synching content to my new Android device. It is interesting to note that the Verizon reps are being trained to push people to doubleTwist.…
I had to check out Brent’s LinkedIn account to see just how long he had been at Quest. Wow, 2.25 years. It was only about a year ago that I became aware of Brent’s presence. I actually can’t remember if I stumbled across his blog first or heard his name mentioned in a conference call. Ahhh, as I type this, I now recall how I ‘met’ Brent. Via Twitter. @BetsyLM had compiled a list of…