Posts by Brent Ozar

Ernie with her ears up

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I can say with absolute certainty that our ittle Ernie is the most adorable little dog on the planet. Period. Several times a week, Erika and I try various tricks to get her ears to pop up. Ernie quickly gets accustomed to these efforts like a virus resisting penicillin, and adapts her state of relaxation…
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Tropical Storm Katrina update

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Brent Cantori here for the Panic Channel. The 11am advisory has come out, and the Panic Center is forecasting a large “H” in our immediate vicinity. Don’t be fooled by the bright sunshine outside, the cloudless sky, or the fact that when I walk Ernie in a few minutes, I’ll be wearing flipflops, shorts, a…
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We’re moving to Miami!

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I’ve been waiting to blog about this for a little while, but had to hold off while we got a few things handled. Now it’s official – we’re moving to Miami! Erika’s going to quit work and go to school full time for the next couple of years. Why Miami? The school had specific advantages,…
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How to make your web site popular

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I gotta confess that I don’t really give a rip whether my site is popular or not. I rarely look at my web site statistics. Every now and then I pull it up just out of curiosity to see what people find interesting about my site. The statistics packages I use gives me a vague…
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This week blows

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I was leaning back yawning when my browser opened, and I saw my own image on my webcam. Hello. Had to grab a copy of that. Yes, it’s 3:36pm, and I’m dead tired. Not a good week. Having a rough time at work. I’ve always made a policy of not discussing work stuff here on…
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Busy weekend planned

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The photo’s courtesy of Mom, who is playing around with picture mail on her phone. Nice picture, actually. I don’t remember this one. Got a busy weekend planned. This morning I’m helping clean up the neighborhood by doing a trash walk down Airline in front of our subdivision, picking up trash with a few neighbors.…
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It’s a bomb! No, wait, it’s THE bomb

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My purchasing philosophy is to either buy the best designed product out there, something that’s going to last ten or twenty years, or else buy the all-out cheapest thing that meets my needs. Everything in between usually involves too many compromises, and I end up wishing I’d saved my money or else I pine for…
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Ernie has her first bath at home

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Been a long couple of weeks. Ernie’s doing well, but battling a touch of diarrhea. Okay, more than a touch – more like she got pounded with a diarrhea stick, but you get the idea. For three days I’ve been following her around the house with a spray can of Woolite Heavy Traffic carpet cleaner.…
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Ernie’s getting used to the house

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Ernie’s settling into her new home and getting used to the place. Her comfort level is indicated by her newfound confidence in chewing on magazines, which we’ve always kept in a basket in the living room on the floor. That will probably need to change. I’d rather remove the temptation than try to explain to…
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Ernie on my lap

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I still need to get better photos of our new little family member, but as I was going through my checklist this morning, one of the items was getting the webcam working again. Ernie always wants to climb up in my lap while I’m working, make herself as comfortable as possible, and then fall asleep.…
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Made the local news

SQL Server
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Sleepy Houstonian Well, whaddya know. The coffee shop interview I did with the TV reporter ended up making it to the local news that night. I got a laugh out of the subtitle they showed during the interview. I’ve got an agent, and I’m planning a new TV show called “The Sleepy Houstonian.” I figure…
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Losing servers at work

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When a mission-critical server dies at a business, the timeline can best be described using the first thing that a person says when they call your cell phone. It went something like this: Day 1: “I wouldn’t be calling you at 5 AM unless it was really important….” Day 2: “You won’t believe this, but…
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Total Commander and Tortoise CVS – finally!

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Total Commander 6.5 came out yesterday from Ghisler. It’s my favorite Windows shell program – it replaces Windows Explorer, and it’s a lot like the old Norton Commander from the DOS days. I wrote a review of Total Commander a while back when I was writing for HAL-PC Magazine, and I’m an even bigger fan…
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Score! Drafting table

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Picked up a drafting table last night for $25 off CraigsList, an online classified system. I’ve always wanted one of these: I like to work standing up, and this will let me set my laptop and some papers out in a comfortable way. It’s got tons of character, too – the last guy who had…
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Bought a new Jeep

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When I was in high school in Michigan, we had a black Jeep CJ7. I loved it – I thought it was fun, rambunctious, and laid-back. I remember driving Melinda Scott around in the snow, thinking I was king of the world. A few years ago, when I moved to Texas, I briefly owned a…
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I’ve been TP’ed!

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I came into the office last night to check up on my fantasy football scores (thank you, Priest Holmes, you record-setting devil you) and found that my office had been TP’ed for my upcoming birthday. They did a masterful job, down to hanging TP from the ceiling as streamers. I couldn’t stop laughing for several…
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Trashing Julian’s cube, racing Toyotas

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Last week, a few of the programmers got together (it was Lan’s idea) and, uh, “decorated” Julian’s cubicle with aluminum foil, post-it-notes, and balloons. We originally wanted to fill the cubicle with balloons, but we didn’t have quite enough time and got bored after inflating a few hundred balloons. Gallery of Julian’s Birthday Cube That…
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Another good week

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Just got back from a week up in Dallas where I had all kinds of fun. We trashed Julian’s cubicle for his birthday, complete with balloons, aluminum foil, and post-it notes. I’ll put together a separate photo gallery of that this weekend. Erika drove up to Dallas and surprised me on Thursday for dinner. She…
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5 keyboards in the closet

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You know you’re a geek when find five separate keyboards in a closet, none of which have been hooked up to a computer for any discernable length of time. The big black Toshiba has to be at least six years old. I got it when I was working as a network admin and we got…
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