Author: user

I’ve decided to leave Pythian. It’s been one of the more difficult decisions I’ve made in my career and, as people seem very interested in my original decision to work for Pythian (probably because I blogged about it and they’re well-known in the community), it’s only fair that I comment a little on the reasons… Continue reading Leaving Pythian

You probably won’t get most of them unless you’re Scottish, but it’ll be good training for those coming to the MSDBF 😉

(Oh, OK, I just used that subject line to annoy people – and whilst tipping my hat to Tim Hall, who used it a while ago. Deep breath; flame-retardant jump suit on …) For the past couple of weeks I’ve been using my new PC (with Windows Vista installed) for everything, remote DBA support work included.… Continue reading The Wow Starts Now!

I’m sitting having a cold beer, waiting to go out to DFW airport so I thought I’d offer a few closing thoughts on my Hotsos Symposium 2007 experience. It also gives me a chance to fill in a few blanks I left. Highs Receiving Austin, the Armadillo from Bill Thater. (Sadly, I don’t have the… Continue reading Hotsos Wrap-up

At the end of my presentation this week, when I asked for questions, a lady from the middle of the hall piped up to ask something along the lines of. “How can I tell the actual DOP used for my Parallel Query?” (or words to that effect) It was in the context of me saying… Continue reading How can I tell the actual DOP used for my Parallel Query?

(I have to avoid clashing blog posting titles with previous years, so introducing a day.year.fraction convention should solve that problem) This entry is brought to you courtesy of J. Lewis. More on that later. Here it is so far … 8:00 – Downstairs for the usual nice breakfast. I say ‘usual’ but the food at… Continue reading Hotsos – Day 1.07.0

When I was in Ottawa, Christo Kutrovsky asked me to talk about Parallel Execution for the series of Pythian Goodies he’s organising. After I’d done it, I insisted that he let me see the video before it was published on the web so that I could make sure that I was happy with it. After… Continue reading Pythian Goodies – PX

Well, after months of prevarication, staring into space and waiting hours for about five words to come out, I finally had the breakthrough that I was looking for with the Hotsos Symposium paper today. I wouldn’t say it was 12 hours solid work, but I haven’t done much else. It’s still not actually finished of… Continue reading Almost There

While working on the PX paper for Hotsos, I’ve been trying to show the same issue using different tools that people might have available to them and struggled to get OraSRP working on Solaris 10. From digging around the net I started to realised that the Python distribution included in Solaris 10 isn’t the best.… Continue reading OraSRP

I remember reading this posting on Mogens Norgaard’s blog, leaning back in my seat somewhat smugly and thinking – ‘Oh, yes. UK anti-money-laundering legislation. I know all about that. Poor man’. Well, without wanting to be too unkind to RBS who are just following the rules, I’ve had my own minor trials opening a business… Continue reading The Continuing Tale of RBS