This past week, we had an IBM guy come in for a quick-start session on implementing IBM Director. Maintaining dozens or hundreds of servers can be a chore, and Director is supposed to make it easier by automating hardware checks, firmware updates, and even phoning home when there's a problem. Part of this package is…
Oh yeah, I gotta have me one of these. Here's the deal: as of about a year ago, Apple started moving their entire lineup over to Intel processors instead of Motorola ones, which means Apple computers can run Windows. During the boot process, the user can pick which operating system they'd like to run -…
End ofa long, hard day, originally uploaded by BrentOzar.
I spent the second half of the day building and installing a couple of pizza boxes from IBM. We're cleaning up our network test lab, mounting flat panels on the walls for easier builds, and just generally making it a nicer place to spend time.
Yeah, it's been a while since my last blog post, sorry about that. Life is a blast here, having a ton of fun with things at work, but I'm going to try to catch up on the blog over the weekend. First things first: BarCamp South Beach! Woohoo! I can't believe it. My first kinda-Valley-ish…
I'm a big fan of the relatively inexpensive Case Studio as an alternative to the big database design tools. Case Studio does a very competent job at reverse engineering databases, modeling, UML, etc. The reverse engineering just got a whole lot better with the recent InferRI add-in that can infer relationships between tables even when…
The latest newsletter from the excellent SQL-Server-Performance.com had a tip about doing performance tuning on high-powered machines. If you need to test large queries running inside the server room (meaning, the app or web server runs a big query against the db server), you may not get the speed results you're expecting if you try to run that same query on your desktop. SQL-Server-Performance attributes this to low resources on the desktop, but there can also be another reason: network bandwidth and latency.
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Raising the dead...servers, originally uploaded by BrentOzar.
For the past few days, I've complained a couple of times about the lack of testing on my new Cingular 8125. My troubles continue with the MMS integration. The device has a great digital camera, and it has great email support, but do the two work together? Not so much. STEPS TO REPRODUCE: 1. Take…
I had to do some developer training last week and I wrote up a paper on the basics of primary keys and indexes. Sure, there's tons of similar stuff around the net, but this is MINE, baby.
Our Table: Phone Numbers
For our evil training purposes, let's say we work for the phone company, and we need a database table with phone numbers. We need to track:
After working with my new Cingular 8125 for a few days, I can say it's a keeper. As soon as my memory card gets here, I'll probably even stop carrying my laptop home during the week. I haven't even started putting 3rd party applications on it yet, but I can say that it's going to be my primary electronic device outside of the office.
Take two.
It's hard to write a glowing review of a piece of consumer electronics when the damn thing crashes every half hour or so.
My new job's going extremely well, having the time of my life. I'm working with a group of very competent programmers who've produced a whole lot of code, but without the luxury of having their own database administrator. As a result, the database is in truly horrendous shape. As an example, I spent about an hour tuning indexes for a nightly job that's been taking 4-6 hours to run. After tuning, it takes 1-3 minutes. MINUTES.
Change of plans. Southern Wine & Spirits, where I've been consulting since October, decided at the last minute that they wanted to bring me on permanently to work directly for them. They're a fantastic group of people, and they made me an offer I couldn't refuse.
Pictured here is my new cube. It may not even be my permanent cube - there's a slightly quieter cube available right outside Don's office, and I'll probably swipe that one instead.
Last week I wrote a series of postings for employers, and this week I'll touch base on things candidates should know. Candidates: you are a product, and your web site is your brochure. Managers: read the brochure just as you would a new product. These days, we buy everything online. We read the product's web…
A few more collected notes from my recent interviews: Sell Them On Your Company Right Away In your company's reception area, have a few pieces of relatively up-to-date reading material about your industry, or even better, about your company in specific. The company I ended up choosing, had a great marketing booklet describing the relationships…
When hiring a new IT worker, take a few minutes to give them a tour of the group's work environment. You don't have to go so far as to point out, "Here's the cube where you'd be sitting," but try to give them a general idea of what the typical work area looks like. At…
During my recent job search, I noted a few things about the hiring process for DBA's, and I figured I'd make a few blog entries out of them. This first one covers technical skill testing - finding out whether a candidate has the experience they claim. DBAs can be tough people to screen because the…
It's official: Apples run Windows.
Apple's newest machines use Intel processors, just like regular PC's from Dell and HP. That meant in theory, we could have Apples that run both Apple software and Windows software. In reality, it took some time and about $13k of bounty money to make the whole thing actually happen. After the instructions are posted, individuals should be able to install Windows on top of Apple machines.
Yesterday, one of my soon-to-be-former coworkers, Kiran, tipped me off to an NPR story on blogging and privacy. Steve Inskeep spoke with a grad student who writes a few Myspace blogs with his personal journal, political ramblings, and - whee - a blog about blogs. The student observed that he doesn't know anyone who's been…
I get a kick out of seeing quarter-million-dollar cars put in completely mundane positions. I'm not talking about things like Wrecked Exotics, a site that features expensive car accidents, but more like day-to-day tasks like a Rolls Royce at a parking meter. Sitting at a traffic light today, watching a man load his dry cleaning…
