Author: user

A blog from Dominic Giles.

Some books are useful long after the first reading because I can refer back to them when I hit new situations or need a reminder. There are one or two exceptionally useful books, few more useful than Tom Kyte’s Expert One-on-One Oracle. I suppose Professional Apache 2.0 might surprise you a little more, though. I… Continue reading Useful Books

… you should always aim high (or desperately low would be more accurate). I was sitting at my desk today, deleting some old databases (that phrase in itself should be warning enough) when I typed in the following dunha1e:oracle#rm -fR * I looked down at my notes to have a think about what I was… Continue reading If you’re gonna screw up …

Oh, look … here comes Peter Robson again. This is a follow-up on a pub chat that I simply insisted he supply, rather than just moaning to me and his pint glass. I don’t have enough experience of XE to comment on the veracity of his claims, but here’s an unhappy user I’ve been ranting… Continue reading An Oracle XE user speaks

Howard Rogers has an interesting post on his blog at the moment that is particularly timely from my perspective and that I agree with whole-heartedly. Companies seem increasingly loathe to commit adequate funds and, probably more significantly, staff time to training (although that could be my imagination). Having said that, a couple of weeks ago… Continue reading The Devaluation of Training

Almost believable …. until the last point!

There’s been lots of chat in the Blogosphere (that link’s one of many – here’s another) about the upcoming Openworld conference and I know a few people who’ll be attending. Personally, because all of my trips are self-financed (including the time off), I need to make decisions about which conferences I can afford to attend… Continue reading My Openworld Story

I’m working on our script to change the oracle owner unix account password across our server estate at the moment and it occurred to me it might be worth mentioning the expect utility for anyone who might not have come across it. It allows you to write scripts that automate ssh, ftp, telnet (etc.) sessions.… Continue reading Great Expectations

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/5290278.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/5292948.stm

You have to laugh. Yesterday I received a mail-shot from Apple Frustrated with your PC? Time for a Mac. In the past 30 days has your PC: A. Crashed B. Frozen C. Made you want to pummel your screen with a sledgehammer D. All of the above It just works. Another great reason to own… Continue reading An Open Letter to Steve Jobs