Random and occasional thoughts on

I have been neglecting my blogging as of late. I apologize, but will not give excuses, even though I have plenty. Suffice it to say that there are more important things in life than blogging. Since we are half-way through the year, I thought a quick review would be a good idea to see what I have done this year that make me a better Dad, husband, employee, etc. Personal Photography has always been something I enjoy, but late last year, I decided to try and start making some money at it . While it has been fun, I have not had crazy financial success. I have however done a lot of learning and am continuing the quest. I will probably not become a full-time professional any time soon (so my boss can rest easy if he is reading this) but I will continue to work on improving my skills, both in photography as well as the supporting tasks like web development, accounting and marketing. Fitness Last year at this time, I had finished my first Ironman and was still "recovering". I h...

Hiking and computers really have nothing in common, but I have to talk about both and I'm too lazy to make to make 2 separate posts. Computers Good news is my laptop is back and mostly 100%. It did take me about a week to get most of my programs reinstalled and get the operating system patched back to a reasonably current level. Bad news is the family pc took another dump. Even worse is the timing, I am out of town and can't even work on it till Saturday. That is a bit of a problem for my oldest son will need to use a neighbors computer for his school work. It is a near catastrophe for my wife who will now be hopelessly backlogged on her FaceBook "work". Hopefully I can get it back up and running quickly, but may need to pick up a new pc since this one has now had strange problems a couple times in the past couple months. If so, I'll put Linux on this and fire up some "uptime" tracking tools to see if I can figure out if it is hardware or operating s...

A week is an eternity for someone like me to live without their main computing machine, so facing the prospect of 2 weeks of waiting and fighting with the rest of the family for computer time was daunting. But that was the only way to get my laptop back to fully working condition. Return shipping to the repair center was "next afternoon" service, so I was pleasantly surprised when the next morning I got an email (email on the phone has become vital without a laptop) saying they had received it and were starting to work on it. Estimates were 7-9 working days before they would send it back. The next afternoon (Friday) I got another email saying it was on it's way back. FedEx web site confirmed that it was on its way and should be home Monday afternoon. Now the questions are: 1. Is everything working? 2. Did I get my own hard drive back or will I spend the next 2-3 weeks reinstalling and reconfiguring things to my liking? Stay tuned for updates...

Twitter is a great tool for making connections. I think of it as a cross between email and instant messaging, combined with a dose of bulletin board and forums. What do I mean by that? Here is how I see these different technologies being commonly used: Email: Usually used for non-real time communication for things where an answer can wait anywhere from few minutes to several days or longer. All parties in the communication do not need to be present at the same time for email to be effective. Email is "directed messaging", that is to say, you specify the username(s) of the intended recipient(s). Barring security glitches or forwarding by a recipient, anyone not on the distribution list is not going to see the message. Instant Messaging: IM is usually used for interactive conversation. Very helpful for troubleshooting or actively working on a problem. If all parties are not available at the same time, IM does not work. Like email, IM is "directed messaging". ...

Though I have been an Oracle DBA for about a decade, I have only recently started taking on responsibility for some of the other tiers that are part of Oracle Applications, Portal, Enterprise Manager and Oracle Management Server. I am a part of a small team that has not had much training other than on the job experience in these areas. We are managing pretty well, but are still trying to find easier and better ways to manage things. The latest issue was discovered by one of our team as they were doing some preventative system checks. They noticed some largish log files and added them to the archive and clean script. These new files bring to 4 the number in this particular system and as we were discussing it, we wondered several things. The current list $ORACLE_HOME/mid/webcache/logs/access_log $ORACLE_HOME/mid/j2ee/OC4J_Portal/log/OC4J_Portal_default_island_1/default-web-access.log $ORACLE_HOME/infra/j2ee/OC4J_SECURITY/log/OC4J_SECURITY_default_island_1/default-web-access.log $ORA...

Value is often subjective. A gallon of gas is under $2.00 most places in the US right now, but if you needed to get somewhere urgently, you would be likely to pay a lot more. I can get a gallon of water at a machine near my house for 25 cents. If I was stuck in the middle of a hot desert, I would easily pay $100 (if I had it) for a glass of water to ensure my survival. Stimator claims to be a Real Website Value Estimator . I was not sure about it, so I took a look at it and ran a couple websites through. The first was a domain I have had for about 2 years. I use AndertFamily.net to post race reports and some family photos. I would classify this web page as "lightly used, personal information". Stimator reported this domain is worth $54 US dollars. The second was a domain I have had for about 4 months. I use FlowingDesert.com as a main entry point for my new business venture, Flowing Desert Photography. I would classify this web page as "somewhat actively used, b...

Of Databases: As a Database Administrator (DBA) by profession and training, I understand a bit about database technology. I have learned about the early versions that required data to be read sequentially. If you had to use a phone book sequentially, that means in order to look up someone with the last name Smith, you would first have to scan past every other name in the book that came before Smith. Anderson, Barker, Cadwell, etc. For some purposes, this was acceptable, since machines were doing the work and it was much faster than a human could do the same thing. The next major improvement became what is called a Relational Database. This allows the data to be retrieved from any place in the table without needing to read all the records before it. This makes a database more efficient and practical for data sets with very large numbers of records. This allowed what we consider random data access. Of Snack Machines: Snack machines allow for the buyer to choose which product (reco...

I logged in to a bill paying site I have used for several years and got this message: Please note that you will only see this message once and must take immediate action on it. We take great care to keep your personal information secure. As part of these ongoing efforts, we are notifying you that the computer you use for online bill payment may have been exposed to software that puts the security of your computer's contents at risk. This letter will help you determine if your computer is actually infected and advise you how to fix the problem and protect yourself against future risk. The malicious software affects some but not all customers who accessed online bill payment on Tuesday, December 2, 2008. For a limited period of time, some customers were redirected from the authentic bill payment service to another site that may have installed malicious software. Your computer may be infected if all of the following are true: * You attempted to access online bill payment between 1...

A friend just passed this link on to me. Besides the expected low price, this laptop looks like it would meet the needs of upwards of 90% (my guess) of home computer users. Based on only this one post, as long as the drivers for printing are available, my suspicion is that this machine has the potential to be a best-seller. The prototype they are showing looks like something Fisher-Price would make (that is a compliment in my book) and would be pretty reliable which would make it a great addition to any household with kids or new computer users. I look forward to the continued progress of this product and hope it doesn't languish in development due to the current financial struggles. What do you think? Would this find it's way into your house? Would it replace some or most of what you do with a laptop? Let me know in the comments .

My wife had an appointment at the Mayo clinic yesterday. Her migraines have been coming back and she has fainted a few times. Her regular doctors have been chasing this for awhile and are not making any progress so based on the recommendation from friends, she called and got this appointment. It was a long day but we think it was well worth it. They did a very complete exam and ordered additional tests and specialist consultations. Their scheduling group already had an itinerary for the rest of the day. I don't think we waited more than 5 or 10 minutes for any of the remaining steps. At the end of the day, they had several more appointments added to our updated itinerary. They gave us clear instructions for next steps and contact information in case we have any questions before the next appointment. I think that this could be the start of finding the root cause of her health problems. One reason is that everyone is on the same page and has access to the same information. ...

Just read this. Kind of scary since upgrading to a newer version should make you safer. Even worse, the browser (IE) seems to be the entry point for many of these attacks. Maybe people and companies should start insisting on an alternate browser instead of simply allowing it in some cases.

Ever try to find a file that you know you have, only to later realize you only have it on your work pc or you laptop or the upstairs computer? DropBox is a new service to help those of us with multiple computer disorder. I have been using Google Docs and Spreadsheets for some things and a 20GB USB drive for others, but DropBox appears to be much better than either of those solutions. The downside to the Google tool is you need to upload any document or spreadsheet you want to access from somewhere else. The downside to the USB drive is you need to carry the drive around with you and remember to copy stuff to and from it. You can simply use the USB drive for all files, but then if it dies or gets lost you are up the creek without a drive. This is a great tool to share with yourself and keep those handy SQL or shell scripts in sync automatically. It is also useful to keep versions as DropBox allows you to get earlier versions. You can share with others either by invitation or by m...

Well, I've update my profile and added a link to my photo site. It is easy to add a link in postings, but to do it in the description took a little bit of research. Turns out it was pretty easy with some simple html code and I found it with a quick Google search and following the instructions on this page. I've also spent some time adding a bunch of friends blogs into the Google Reader . This should make it easier to keep track of what friends are up to. I will also be marking particularly interesting posts/blogs as "shared" so if you sign up, you will be able to see what I have marked shared.