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  • How to grant write permissions in Samba?

    - by Eric Fossum
    I'm having trouble with read/write permissions on my Samba server, how do I fix my smb.conf and file permissions to have a more unified access? smb.conf [global] workgroup = workgroup netbios name = LnxNAS server string = %h wins support = no dns proxy = no security = user encrypt passwords = yes panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d [homes] comment = Home Directories [Video] path = /data/eric/Videos [Music] path = /data/eric/Music [Pictures] path = /data/eric/Pictures [data] path = /data my ls -l of /data/eric/Pictures drwxrwxrwx 2 ericfoss root 4096 2011-03-13 22:09 Android Projs drwxrwxrwx 3 ericfoss root 4096 2011-03-13 22:09 Automotive -rwxrwxrwx 1 ericfoss root 2439 2010-12-17 17:03 BDD reduction.png -rwxrwxrwx 1 ericfoss root 2722 2010-12-17 16:55 BDD Tree.png -rwxrwxrwx 1 ericfoss root 7341 2010-12-17 16:46 BDD Tree.xcf -rwxrwxrwx 1 ericfoss root 72421 2007-11-22 22:59 Bum Ninja.jpg -rwxrwxrwx 1 ericfoss root 32152 2010-12-17 21:25 cell transition.png -rwxrwxrwx 1 ericfoss root 40212 2010-12-17 17:55 control graph.png drwxrwxrwx 2 ericfoss root 4096 2011-03-13 22:09 Crap -rwxrwxrwx 1 ericfoss root 82 2010-09-20 17:18 desktop.ini ericfoss@SERVER:~$ If I try to delete \Server\Pictures\Crap it says permission denied, but \Server\data\eric\Pictures\crap can be deleted... I thought security = user took care of this?

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  • Le C++ expressif n° 3 : pourquoi les erreurs de templates posent problèmes, un article d'Eric Niebler traduit par Guillaume Belz

    Bienvenue dans le troisième article de la série « le C++ expressif », une série d'articles consacrés aux Domain-Specific Embedded Language (DSEL) et à Boost.Proto, une bibliothèque pour les implémenter en C++. Dans cet article, Eric Niebler aborde le problème délicat des messages d'erreurs générés par les templates et surtout le fait que ce n'est pas une fatalité. Il insiste en particulier sur le fait qu'il est de la responsabilités des concepteurs de bibliothèques de faire en sorte que les messages d'erreurs soient compréhensibles par les utilisateurs. Le C++ expressif n° 3 : pourquoi les erreurs des templates posent des problèmes et qu'est-ce que vous pouvez faire pour ça ?

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  • Affaire Wikileaks : OVH publie une lettre ouverte et saisit le Juge après la demande d'Éric Besson d'expulser le site de ses serveurs

    Affaire Wikileaks : OVH répond par une lettre ouverte et saisit le Juge Après la demande d'Eric Besson d'expulser le site polémique de ses serveurs Mise à jour du 03/12/10 L'affaire Wikileaks n'en finit plus de rebondir. Après avoir essuyé deux attaques par déni de service, y avoir échappé en utilisant les technologies Cloud (Amazon Web Services), puis après s'être fait expulsé des serveurs du géant américain, le site de plus en plus sulfureux, et visiblement pourchassé, a décidé de poser « ses valises » (de documents) en France et en Suisse. Ne cherchez donc plus Wikileaks.org. Vous ne trouverez rien. Le site s'...

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  • CodeStock 2012 Review: Eric Landes( @ericlandes ) - Automated Tests in to automated Builds! How to put the right type of automated tests in to the right automated builds.

    Automated Tests in to automated Builds! How to put the right type of automated tests in to the right automated builds.Speaker: Eric LandesTwitter: @ericlandesBlog: http://ericlandes.com/ This was one of the first sessions I attended during CodeStock 2012. Eric’s talk focused mostly on unit testing, and that the lack of proper unit testing can be compared to stealing from an employer. His point was that if you’re not doing proper unit testing then all of the time wasted on fixing issues that could have been detected with unit tests is like stealing money from employer. He makes the assumption that that time spent on fixing these issues could have been better spent developing new features that drive the business. To a point I can agree with Eric’s argument regarding unit testing and stealing from a company’s perspective. I can see how he relates resources being shifted from new development to bug fixes as stealing based on the fact that the resources used to fix bugs are directly taken from other projects. He also states that Boring/Redundant and Build/Test tasks should be automated because it reduces the changes of errors and frees up developer to do what they do best, DEVELOP! When he refers to testing, he breaks testing down in to four distinct types. Unit Test Acceptance Test (This also includes Integration Tests) Performance Test UI Test With this he also recommends that developers should not go buck wild striving for 100% code coverage because some test my not provide a great return on investment. In his experience he recommends that 70% test coverage was a very acceptable rate.

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  • CodeStock 2012 Review: Eric Landes( @ericlandes ) - Automated Tests in to automated Builds! How to put the right type of automated tests in to the right automated builds.

    Automated Tests in to automated Builds! How to put the right type of automated tests in to the right automated builds.Speaker: Eric LandesTwitter: @ericlandesBlog: http://ericlandes.com/ This was one of the first sessions I attended during CodeStock 2012. Eric’s talk focused mostly on unit testing, and that the lack of proper unit testing can be compared to stealing from an employer. His point was that if you’re not doing proper unit testing then all of the time wasted on fixing issues that could have been detected with unit tests is like stealing money from employer. He makes the assumption that that time spent on fixing these issues could have been better spent developing new features that drive the business. To a point I can agree with Eric’s argument regarding unit testing and stealing from a company’s perspective. I can see how he relates resources being shifted from new development to bug fixes as stealing based on the fact that the resources used to fix bugs are directly taken from other projects. He also states that Boring/Redundant and Build/Test tasks should be automated because it reduces the changes of errors and frees up developer to do what they do best, DEVELOP! When he refers to testing, he breaks testing down in to four distinct types. Unit Test Acceptance Test (This also includes Integration Tests) Performance Test UI Test With this he also recommends that developers should not go buck wild striving for 100% code coverage because some test my not provide a great return on investment. In his experience he recommends that 70% test coverage was a very acceptable rate.

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  • After reading this article I'm thinking to move eric meyer reset to global reset, would it be wise m

    - by metal-gear-solid
    After reading this article I'm thinking to change my css reset from eric meyer reset to global reset * {margin:0;padding:0} or thinking to use like this only body, div, dl, dt, dd, ul, ol, li, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, pre, code, form, fieldset, legend, textarea, p, blockquote, th, td, a { border: 0 none; font-family: inherit; font-size: 100%; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; } table { border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0; } li { list-style: none; }

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  • What other things would be good to include in CSS reset (along with eric meyer reset) for any projec

    - by metal-gear-solid
    I know and use eric meyer CSS reset, but is there any more things which would be good to add in reset css? and can save our time and increase compatibility. This is default meyer's latest CSS reset code. /* v1.0 | 20080212 */ html, body, div, span, applet, object, iframe, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, blockquote, pre, a, abbr, acronym, address, big, cite, code, del, dfn, em, font, img, ins, kbd, q, s, samp, small, strike, strong, sub, sup, tt, var, b, u, i, center, dl, dt, dd, ol, ul, li, fieldset, form, label, legend, table, caption, tbody, tfoot, thead, tr, th, td { margin: 0; padding: 0; border: 0; outline: 0; font-size: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; } body { line-height: 1; } ol, ul { list-style: none; } blockquote, q { quotes: none; } blockquote:before, blockquote:after, q:before, q:after { content: ''; content: none; } /* remember to define focus styles! */ :focus { outline: 0; } /* remember to highlight inserts somehow! */ ins { text-decoration: none; } del { text-decoration: line-through; } /* tables still need 'cellspacing="0"' in the markup */ table { border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0; }

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  • Learn Domain-Driven Design

    - by Ben Griswold
    I just wrote about how I like to present on unfamiliar topics. With this said, Domain-Driven Design (DDD) is no exception. This is yet another area I knew enough about to be dangerous but I certainly was no expert.  As it turns out, researching this topic wasn’t easy. I could be wrong, but it is as if DDD is a secret to which few are privy. If you search the Interwebs, you will likely find little information about DDD until you start rolling over rocks to find that one great write-up, a handful of podcasts and videos and the Readers’ Digest version of the Blue Book which apparently you must read if you really want to get the complete, unabridged skinny on DDD.  Even Wikipedia’s write-up is skimpy which I didn’t know was possible…   Here’s a list of valuable resources.  If you, too, are interested in DDD, this is a good starting place.  Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software by Eric Evans Domain-Driven Design Quickly, by Abel Avram & Floyd Marinescu An Introduction to Domain-Driven Design by David Laribee Talking Domain-Driven Design with David Laribee Part 1, Deep Fried Bytes Talking Domain-Driven Design with David Laribee Part 2, Deep Fried Bytes Eric Evans on Domain Driven Design, .NET Rocks Domain-Driven Design Community Eric Evans on Domain Driven Design Jimmy Nilsson on Domain Driven Design Domain-Driven Design Wikipedia What I’ve Learned About DDD Since the Book, Eric Evans Domain Driven Design, Alt.Net Podcast Applying Domain-Driven Design and Patterns: With Examples in C# and .NET, Jimmy Nilsson Domain-Driven Design Discussion Group DDD: Putting the Model to Work by Eric Evans The Official DDD Site

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  • Introducing Glimpse – Firebug for your server

    - by Neil Davidson
    Here at Red Gate, we spend every waking hour trying to wow .NET and SQL developers with great products.  Every so often, though, we find something out in the wild which knocks our socks off by taking “ingeniously simple” to a whole new level.  That’s what a little community led by developers Nik Molnar and Anthony van der Hoorn has done with the open source tool Glimpse. Glimpse describes itself as ‘Firebug for the server.’  You drop the NuGet package into your ASP.NET project, and then — like magic* — your web pages will bare every detail of their execution.  Even by our high standards, it was trivial to get running: if you can use NuGet, you’re already there. You get all that lovely detail without changing any code. Our feelings go beyond respect for the developers who designed and wrote Glimpse; we’re thrilled that Nik and Anthony have come to work for Red Gate full-time. They’re going to stay in control of the project and keep doing open source development work on Glimpse.  In the medium term, we’re hoping to make paid-for products which plug into the free open source framework, especially in areas like performance profiling where we already have some deep technology.  First, though, Glimpse needs to get from beta to a v1. Given the breakneck pace of new development, this should only be a month or so away. Supporting an open source project is a first for Red Gate, so we’re going to be working with Nik and Anthony, with the Glimpse community and even with other vendors to figure out what ‘great’ looks like from the a user perspective.  Only one thing is certain: this technology deserves a wider audience than the 40,000 people who have already downloaded it, so please have a look and tell us what you think. You can hear more about what the Glimpse developers think on the Glimpse blog, and there are plenty more technical facts over at our product manager’s blog. If you have any questions or queries, please tweet with the #glimpse hashtag or contact the Glimpse team directly on [email protected]. [*That’s ”magic” in the Arthur C. Clarke “sufficiently advanced technology” sense, of course] Neil Davidson co-founder and Joint CEO Red Gate Software http://twitter.com/neildavidson    

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  • Is is good or bad to have the email address of a domain's registrant on the same domain?

    - by Eric Nguyen
    Say I own domain abc.com. I think it's a bad idea to use [email protected] as the registrant's (myself) email address. This will cause problems when I need to transfer the domain to another registrar e.g. GoDaddy. The new registrar will then try to send email to [email protected] which is unlikely to function normally since the DNS settings are undergoing changes. So I believe it's best to use email address independent from the domains I own as the registrant's email address. (Isn't it the practice Google Apps is using?) Have I missed something here or am I right?

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  • Slides and links for Entity Framework 4 and Azure from Devweek 2010

    - by Eric Nelson
    Last week (March 2010) I presented on Entity Framework 4 and the Windows Azure Platform at www.devweek.com. As usual, it was a great conference and I caught up with lots of old friends and made some new ones along the way. Entity Framework 4 Entity Framework 4 In Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 View more presentations from Eric Nelson. Windows Azure and SQL Azure Building An Application For Windows Azure And Sql Azure View more presentations from Eric Nelson. Entity Framework 4 Related Links Poll on Entity Framework 4 – one year on 101 EF4 Resources Recent resources on Entity Framework 4 Installing all the bits to demo Entity Framework 4 on the Visual Studio 2010 Release Candidate Azure Related Links UK Azure Online Community – join today. UK Windows Azure Site Start working with Windows Azure TCO and ROI calculator for Windows Azure

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  • Free Windows Azure event next Monday in London (29th March)

    - by Eric Nelson
    I just heard that we still have spaces for this event happening next week (29th March 2010). Whilst the event is designed for start-ups, I’m sure nobody would notice if you snuck in :-) Just keep it to yourself ;-) Register using invitation code: 79F2AB. Hope to see you there. The agenda is looking pretty swish: 09:00 – 09:30 Registration 09:30 - 10:15 Keynote  ‘I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now....’– John Taysom, Active Seed Investor 10:15 - 10:45   The Microsoft Vision for Cloud Computing – Steve Clayton, Director Software + Services, EMEA 10:45 - 11:00   Break 11:00 - 12:30 “Windows Azure in Real World” – hear from startups that have built their business around the Azure platform, moderated by Alistair Beagley, Azure UK Developer and Platform Lead 12:30 - 13:15 Lunch and networking  13:15 - 14:15  Breakout Tracks, moderated by our Azure Experts 1. Windows Azure Technical Overview - David Gristwood, Application Architect, Microsoft 2. SQL Azure Technical Overview – Eric Nelson, Application Architect, Microsoft 3. Commercial insight into Windows Azure and what this means for BizSpark Start-ups - Simon Karn, Commercial Lead, UK Windows Azure Incubation Team, Microsoft 14:15 - 14:30 Session change over 14:30 - 15:30   Breakout Tracks, moderated by our Azure Experts 1. SQL Azure Technical Overview (repeat) - Eric Nelson, Application Architect, Microsoft 2. Deep dive into Windows Azure – Neil Kidd, Architect, Microsoft Technology Centre 3. Lessons Learnt - Windows Azure in the Real World interactive session – Two customers hosted by Matt Deacon, Enterprise Architect, Microsoft 15:30 - 16:00 Break & Session change over 16:00 - 17:00 Breakout Tracks, moderated by our Azure Experts 1. PHP / Ruby on Azure Simon Davies, Architect, UK Windows Azure Incubation Team, Microsoft 2. Commercial insight into Windows Azure and what this means for BizSpark Start-ups (repeat) - Simon Karn, Commercial Lead, UK Windows Azure Incubation Team, Microsoft 3. Lessons Learnt - Windows Azure in the Real World interactive session #2 Two customers hosted by Matt Deacon, Enterprise Architect, Microsoft 17:00 - 18:00 Pitches and Judging 18:15 Wrap-up and close 18:15 - 20:00 Drinks & Networking

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  • Call for authors for new eBook on the Windows Azure Platform

    - by Eric Nelson
    I intend to pull together a FREE eBook on the Windows Azure Platform – but I need your help to make it rock! If you have detailed experience of any aspect of the Windows Azure Platform and can spare a few hours of time to turn that into a short article (400 to 800 words) then please get in touch. This is not a big commitment but my suspicion is the end result will make for a cracking good read. I am hoping for a mix – everything from lessons learnt from early adopters to introductions to elements of the platform to getting technologies such as Ruby up and running on Azure. 10 to 20 articles sound about right – which means I am after 10 to 20 authors :) All I need from you right now is: One or two suggestions of topics you would like to cover A pointer to any example of your previous work – which could be as simple as a blog post or a work document. For simplicity, just drop me an email direct to eric.nelson A@T microsoft.com. BIG THANKS! Eric The provisional dates are: Confirm authors and topics by 3rd May Get first draft from all authors by 10th May Complete reviews by 17th May Final versions by 24th May Published by 31st May And finally, an example: To give you an idea of what I have in mind, check out the eBook we pulled together last December which has had several thousand downloads. However I’m thinking of making this one a little bit more fun/informal. More on that later. UK MSDN Flash eBook Best Technical Articles #2 - ericnel Related Links: Spread the word – 6 Weeks of FREE Azure Training UK Azure Online Community – join today. UK Windows Azure Site Start working with Windows Azure

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  • Launchd item no longer firing in Snow Leopard

    - by ridogi
    A launchd item that was working in 10.5 is no longer working after my upgrade to 10.6. I am running 10.6.2 and I have recreated the launchd item and given it a new name and that one doesn't run either. I have found a link of people with the same problem on google groups but none of the advice in that link helps. My launchd item is not listed in /private/var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd/overrides.plist or in any of the overrides.plist files in the subdirectories of /private/var/db/launchd.db/ I have also tried to set this up as both a user agent and a user daemon. My launchd item simply runs a shell script, which I have no problem launching manually. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> <plist version="1.0"> <dict> <key>Label</key> <string>com.eric.tmnotify.launchd</string> <key>ProgramArguments</key> <array> <string>/<path_to>/tmnotify.sh</string> </array> <key>StartInterval</key> <integer>3600</integer> </dict> </plist> I have tried to load it by overriding the disabled key (even though it is not disabled in any of the overrides.plist files) with both: sudo launchctl load -F /Users/eric/Library/LaunchAgents/com.eric.tmnotify.launchd.plist sudo launchctl load -w /Users/eric/Library/LaunchAgents/com.eric.tmnotify.launchd.plist and after running either of them I can see that it is running by using sudo launchctl list but the shell script never fires. Edit: I have also put this in the formerly blank file at /private/var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd.peruser.501/overrides.plist : <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> <plist version="1.0"> <dict> <key>com.eric.tmnotify.launchd</key> <dict> <key>Disabled</key> <false/> </dict> </dict> </plist> I also tried inserting this alphabetically: <key>com.eric.tmnotify.launchd</key> <dict> <key>Disabled</key> <false/> </dict> into the file /private/var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd/overrides.plist but still no dice.

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  • Slides and Links from SQL Azure session at BizSpark Azure Day in London

    - by Eric Nelson
    A big thanks to all who attended my two sessions on SQL Azure yesterday (29th March 2010). As promised, my slides and links from the session. SQL Azure Overview for Bizspark day View more presentations from Eric Nelson. Related Links: UK Azure Online Community – join today. UK Windows Azure Site Start working with Windows Azure SQL Azure maximum database size rises from 10GB to 50GB in June TCO and ROI calculator for Windows Azure SQL Azure Migration Wizard

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  • What Counts For a DBA: Simplicity

    - by Louis Davidson
    Too many computer processes do an apparently simple task in a bizarrely complex way. They remind me of this strip by one of my favorite artists: Rube Goldberg. In order to keep the boss from knowing one was late, a process is devised whereby the cuckoo clock kisses a live cuckoo bird, who then pulls a string, which triggers a hat flinging, which in turn lands on a rod that removes a typewriter cover…and so on. We rely on creating automated processes to keep on top of tasks. DBAs have a lot of tasks to perform: backups, performance tuning, data movement, system monitoring, and of course, avoiding being noticed.  Every day, there are many steps to perform to maintain the database infrastructure, including: checking physical structures, re-indexing tables where needed, backing up the databases, checking those backups, running the ETL, and preparing the daily reports and yes, all of these processes have to complete before you can call it a day, and probably before many others have started that same day. Some of these tasks are just naturally complicated on their own. Other tasks become complicated because the database architecture is excessively rigid, and we often discover during “production testing” that certain processes need to be changed because the written requirements barely resembled the actual customer requirements.   Then, with no time to change that rigid structure, we are forced to heap layer upon layer of code onto the problematic processes. Instead of a slight table change and a new index, we end up with 4 new ETL processes, 20 temp tables, 30 extra queries, and 1000 lines of SQL code.  Report writers then need to build reports and make magical numbers appear from those toxic data structures that are overly complex and probably filled with inconsistent data. What starts out as a collection of fairly simple tasks turns into a Goldbergian nightmare of daily processes that are likely to cause your dinner to be interrupted by the smartphone doing the vibration dance that signifies trouble at the mill. So what to do? Well, if it is at all possible, simplify the problem by either going into the code and refactoring the complex code to simple, or taking all of the processes and simplifying them into small, independent, easily-tested steps.  The former approach usually requires an agreement on changing underlying structures that requires countless mind-numbing meetings; while the latter can generally be done to any complex process without the same frustration or anger, though it will still leave you with lots of steps to complete, the ability to test each step independently will definitely increase the quality of the overall process (and with each step reporting status back, finding an actual problem within the process will be definitely less unpleasant.) We all know the principle behind simplifying a sequence of processes because we learned it in math classes in our early years of attending school, starting with elementary school. In my 4 years (ok, 9 years) of undergraduate work, I remember pretty much one thing from my many math classes that I apply daily to my career as a data architect, data programmer, and as an occasional indentured DBA: “show your work”. This process of showing your work was my first lesson in simplification. Each step in the process was in fact, far simpler than the entire process.  When you were working an equation that took both sides of 4 sheets of paper, showing your work was important because the teacher could see every step, judge it, and mark it accordingly.  So often I would make an error in the first few lines of a problem which meant that the rest of the work was actually moving me closer to a very wrong answer, no matter how correct the math was in the subsequent steps. Yet, when I got my grade back, I would sometimes be pleasantly surprised. I passed, yet missed every problem on the test. But why? While I got the fact that 1+1=2 wrong in every problem, the teacher could see that I was using the right process. In a computer process, the process is very similar. We take complex processes, show our work by storing intermediate values, and test each step independently. When a process has 100 steps, each step becomes a simple step that is tested and verified, such that there will be 100 places where data is stored, validated, and can be checked off as complete. If you get step 1 of 100 wrong, you can fix it and be confident (that if you did your job of testing the other steps better than the one you had to repair,) that the rest of the process works. If you have 100 steps, and store the state of the process exactly once, the resulting testable chunk of code will be far more complex and finding the error will require checking all 100 steps as one, and usually it would be easier to find a specific needle in a stack of similarly shaped needles.  The goal is to strive for simplicity either in the solution, or at least by simplifying every process down to as many, independent, testable, simple tasks as possible.  For the tasks that really can’t be done completely independently, minimally take those tasks and break them down into simpler steps that can be tested independently.  Like working out division problems longhand, have each step of the larger problem verified and tested.

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  • What Counts For a DBA: Ego

    - by Louis Davidson
    Leaving aside, for a second, Freud’s psychoanalytical definitions, the term “ego” generally refers to a person’s sense of self, and their self-esteem. In casual usage, however, it usually appears in the adjectival form, “egotistical” (most often followed by “jerk”). You don’t need to be a jerk to be a DBA; humility is important. However, ego is important too. A good DBA needs a certain degree of self-esteem…a belief and pride in what he or she can do better than anyone else can. The ideal DBA needs to be humble enough to admit when they are wrong but egotistical enough to know when they are right, and to stand up for that knowledge and make their voice heard. In most organizations, the DBA team is seriously outnumbered by headstrong developers and clock driven managers, and “great” DBAs will often be outnumbered by…well…the not so great. In order to be heard in this environment, a DBA will not only need to be very skilled, but will also need a healthy dose of ego. As Freud might have put it, the unconscious desire of the DBA (the id) is for iron-fist control over their databases, and code that runs in them. However, the ego moderates this desire, seeking to “satisfy the id in realistic ways that, in the long term, bring benefit rather than grief“. In other words, the ego understands the need to exert a measure of control and self-belief, but also to tolerate and play nicely with developers and other DBAs. The trick, naturally, is learning how to be heard when it is important, but also to make everyone around you welcome that input, even when you have to be bold to make the “I know what I am talking about, and you…well…not so much” decisions. Consider a baseball team, bottom of the ninth inning of the championship game, man on first and down one run. Almost anyone on that team will have the ability to hit a home run, but only one or two will have the iron belief that they can pull it off in this critical, end-game situation. The player you need in this situation is the one who has passionately gone the extra mile preparing for just this moment, is bursting at the seams with self-confidence, and can look the coach in the eye and state, boldly, “Put me in, I am your best bet“. Likewise, on those occasions when high customer demand coincides with copious system errors, and panic is bubbling just beneath the surface, you don’t need the minimally qualified support person, armed with the “reboot and hope” technique (though that sometimes works!). You need the DBA who steps up and says, “Put me in” and has the skill and tenacity to back up those words and to fix the pinpoint and fix the problem, whatever it takes, while keeping customers and managers happy. Of course, the egotistical DBA will happily spend hours telling you how great they are at their job, and how brilliantly they put out a previous fire, and this is no guarantee that they can deliver. However, if an otherwise-humble DBA looks you in the eye and says, “I can do it”, then hear them out. Sometimes, this burst of ego will be exactly what’s required.

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  • What Counts For a DBA – Decisions

    - by Louis Davidson
    It’s Friday afternoon, and the lead DBA, a very talented guy, is getting ready to head out for two well-earned weeks of vacation, with his family, when this error message pops up in his inbox: Msg 211, Level 23, State 51, Line 1. Possible schema corruption. Run DBCC CHECKCATALOG. His heart sinks. It’s ten…no eight…minutes till it’s time to walk out the door. He glances around at his coworkers, competent to handle many problems, but probably not up to the challenge of fixing possible database corruption. What does he do? After a few agonizing moments of indecision, he clicks shut his laptop. He’ll just wait and see. It was unlikely to come to anything; after all, it did say “possible” schema corruption, not definite. In that moment, his fate was sealed. The start of the solution to the problem (run DBCC CHECKCATALOG) had been right there in the error message. Had he done this, or at least took two of those eight minutes to delegate the task to a coworker, then he wouldn’t have ended up spending two-thirds of an idyllic vacation (for the rest of the family, at least) dealing with a problem that got consistently worse as the weekend progressed until the entire system was down. When I told this story to a friend of mine, an opera fan, he smiled and said it described the basic plotline of almost every opera or ‘Greek Tragedy’ ever written. The particular joy in opera, he told me, isn’t the warbly voiced leading ladies, or the plump middle-aged romantic leads, or even the music. No, what packs the opera houses in Italy is the drama of characters who, by the very nature of their life-experiences and emotional baggage, make all sorts of bad choices when faced with ordinary decisions, and so move inexorably to their fate. The audience is gripped by the spectacle of exotic characters doomed by their inability to see the obvious. I confess, my personal experience with opera is limited to Bugs Bunny in “What’s Opera, Doc?” (Elmer Fudd is a great example of a bad decision maker, if ever one existed), but I was struck by my friend’s analogy. If all the DBA cubicles were a stage, I think we would hear many similarly tragic tales, played out to music: “Error handling? We write our code to never experience errors, so nah…“ “Backups failed today, but it’s okay, we’ll back up tomorrow (we’ll back up tomorrow)“ And similarly, they would leave their audience gasping, not necessarily at the beauty of the music, or poetry of the lyrics, but at the inevitable, grisly fate of the protagonists. If you choose not to use proper error handling, or if you choose to skip a backup because, hey, you haven’t had a server crash in 10 years, then inevitably, in that moment you expected to be enjoying a vacation, or a football game, with your family and friends, you will instead be sitting in front of a computer screen, paying for your poor choices. Tragedies are very much part of IT. Most of a DBA’s day to day work has limited potential to wreak havoc; paperwork, timesheets, random anonymous threats to developers, routine maintenance and whatnot. However, just occasionally, you, as a DBA, will face one of those decisions that really matter, and which has the possibility to greatly affect your future and the future of your user’s data. Make those decisions count, and you’ll avoid the tragic fate of many an operatic hero or villain.

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  • Latest Edition of Security Inside Out Newsletter Now Available

    - by Troy Kitch
    The latest edition of Security Inside Out newsletter is now available. If you don't get this bi-monthly security newsletter in your inbox, then subscribe to get the latest database security news. This bi-monthly edition includes: Q&A: Oracle CSO Mary Ann Davidson on Meeting Tomorrow's Security Threats Oracle Chief Security Officer Mary Ann Davidson shares her thoughts on next-generation security threats.  Read More New Study: Increased Security Spending Still Not Protecting Right Assets Despite widespread belief that database breaches represent the greatest security risk to their business, organizations continue to devote a far greater share of their security resources to network assets rather than database assets, according to a new report issued by CSO and sponsored by Oracle. Read More

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  • What Counts For A DBA: ESP

    - by Louis Davidson
    Now I don’t want to get religious here, and I’m not going to, but what I’m going to describe in this ‘What Counts for a DBA’ installment sometimes feels like magic. Often  I will spend hours thinking about the solution to a design issue or coding problem, working diligently to try to come up with a solution and then finally just give up with the feeling that I’m not even qualified to be a data entry clerk, much less a data architect.  At this point I often take a walk (or sometimes a nap), and then it hits me. I realize that I have the answer just sitting in my brain, ready to implement.  This phenomenon is not limited to walks either; it can happen almost any time after I stop my obsession about a problem. I call this phenomena ESP (or Extra-Sensory Programming.)  Another term for this could be ‘sleeping on it’, and while the idiom tends to mean to let time pass to actively think about a problem, sleeping on a problem also lets you relax and let your brain do the work. I first noticed this back in my college days when I would play video games for hours on end. We would get stuck deep in some dungeon unable to find a way out, playing for days on end until we were beaten down tired. Once we gave up and walked away, the solution would usually be there waiting for one of us before we came back to play the next day.  Sometimes it would be in the form of a dream, and sometimes it would just be that the problem was now easy to solve when we started to play again.  While it worked great for video games, it never occurred when I studied English Literature for hours on end, or even when I worked for the same sort of frustrating hours attempting to solve a homework problem in Calculus.  I believe that the difference was that I was passionate about the video game, and certainly far less so about homework where people used the word “thou” instead of “you” or x to represent a number. This phenomenon occurs somewhat more often in my current work as a professional data programmer, because I am very passionate about SQL and love those aspects of my career choice.  Every day that I get to draw a new data model to solve a customer issue, or write a complex SELECT statement to ferret out the answer to a complex data question, is a great day. I hope it is the same for any reader of this blog.  But, unfortunately, while the day on a whole is great, a heck of a lot of noise is generated in work life. There are the typical project deadlines, along with the requisite project manager sitting on your shoulders shouting slogans to try to make you to go faster: Add in office politics, and the occasional family issues that permeate the mind, and you lose the ability to think deeply about any problem, not to mention occasionally forgetting your own name.  These office realities coupled with a difficult SQL problem staring at you from your widescreen monitor will slowly suck the life force out of your body, making it seem impossible to solve the problem This is when the walk starts; or a nap. Maybe you hide from the madness under your desk like George Costanza hides from Steinbrenner on Seinfeld.  Forget about the problem. Free your mind from the insanity of the problem and your surroundings. Then let your training and education deep in your brain take over and see if it will passively do the rest for you. If you don’t end up with a solution, the worst case scenario is that you have a bit of exercise or rest, and you won’t have heard the phrase “better is the enemy of good enough” even once…which certainly will do your brain some good. Once you stop expecting whipping your brain for information, inspiration may just strike and instead of a humdrum solution you find a solution you hadn’t even considered, almost magically. So, my beloved manager, next time you have an urgent deadline and you come across me taking a nap, creep away quietly because I’m working, doing some extra-sensory programming.

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  • What Counts For a DBA: Replaceable

    - by Louis Davidson
    Replaceable is what every employee in every company instinctively strives not to be. Yet, if you’re an irreplaceable DBA, meaning that the company couldn’t find someone else who could do what you do, then you’re not doing a great job. A good DBA is replaceable. I imagine some of you are already reaching for the lighter fluid, about to set the comments section ablaze, but before you destroy a perfectly good Commodore 64, read on… Everyone is replaceable, ultimately. Anyone, anywhere, in any job, could be sitting at their desk reading this, blissfully unaware that this is to be their last day at work. Morbidly, you could be about to take your terminal breath. Ideally, it will be because another company suddenly offered you a truck full of money to take a new job, forcing you to bid a regretful farewell to your current employer (with barely a “so long suckers!” left wafting in the air as you zip out of the office like the Wile E Coyote wearing two pairs of rocket skates). I’ve often wondered what it would be like to be present at the meeting where your former work colleagues discuss your potential replacement. It is perhaps only at this point, as they struggle with the question “What kind of person do we need to replace old Wile?” that you would know your true worth in their eyes. Of course, this presupposes you need replacing. I’ve known one or two people whose absence we adequately compensated with a small rock, to keep their old chair from rolling down a slight incline in the floor. On another occasion, we bought a noise-making machine that frequently attracted attention its way, with unpleasant sounds, but never contributed anything worthwhile. These things never actually happened, of course, but you take my point: don’t confuse replaceable with expendable. Likewise, if the term “trained seal” comes up, someone they can teach to follow basic instructions and push buttons in the right order, then the replacement discussion is going to be over quickly. What, however, if your colleagues decide they’ll need a super-specialist to replace you. That’s a good thing, right? Well, usually, in my experience, no it is not. It often indicates that no one really knows what you do, or how. A typical example is the “senior” DBA who built a system just before 16-bit computing became all the rage and then settled into a long career managing it. Such systems are often central to the company’s operations and the DBA very skilled at what they do, but almost impossible to replace, because the system hasn’t evolved, and runs on processes and routines that others no longer understand or recognize. The only thing you really want to hear, at your replacement discussion, is that they need someone skilled at the fundamentals and adaptable. This means that the person they need understands that their goal is to be an excellent DBA, not a specialist in whatever the-heck the company does. Someone who understands the new versions of SQL Server and can adapt the company’s systems to the way things work today, who uses industry standard methods that any other qualified DBA/programmer can understand. More importantly, this person rarely wants to get “pigeon-holed” and so documents and shares the specialized knowledge and responsibilities with their teammates. Being replaceable doesn’t mean being “dime a dozen”. The company might need four people to take your place due to the depth of your skills, but still, they could find those replacements and those replacements could step right in using techniques that any decent DBA should know. It is a tough question to contemplate, but take some time to think about the sort of person that your colleagues would seek to replace you. If you think they would go looking for a “super-specialist” then consider urgently how you can diversify and share your knowledge, and start documenting all the processes you know as if today were your last day, because who knows, it just might be.

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  • Oracle Solaris 11 Developer Webinar Series

    - by Larry Wake
    This coming Tuesday, a new series of webcasts (not to be confused with a series of tubes) is kicking off, aimed at developers. Register today Next week's session covers IPS and related topics: What: Modern Software Packaging for Enterprise Developers When: Tuesday, March 27, 9 AM Pacific Who: Eric Reid, Oracle Systems ISV Engineering We've got several more queued up -- here's the full schedule, with registration links for each one. Or, see the series overview, which includes a link to a "teaser" preview of all the sessions. Topic Date (all sessions 9 AM Pacific) Speaker Modern Software Packaging for Enterprise Developers March 27th Eric Reid (Principal Software Engineer) Simplify Your Development Environment with Zones, ZFS & More April 10th Eric Reid (Principal Software Engineer)Stefan Schneider (Chief Technologist, ISV Engineering) Managing Application Services – Using SMF Manifests in Solaris 11 April 24th Matthew Hosanee (Principal Software Engineer) Optimize Your Applications on Oracle Solaris 11: The DTrace Advantage May 8th Angelo Rajadurai (Principal Software Engineer) Maximize Application Performance and Reliability on Oracle Solaris 11 May 22nd Ikroop Dhillon (Principal Product Manager) Writing Oracle Solaris 11 Device Drivers June 6th Bill Knoche (Principal Software Engineer)

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