[Hot news from England]
David Cameron (C) isn't the sure winner of the general election after all! The country is totally fed up with Labour, but Nick Clegg (Liberal Party) is up there with Cameron. A quick primer on party politics in the UK:

• Conservative ("Tories"). Traditionally the more right-wing of the major parties. Think Thatcher, Churchill, etc.
• Labour ("Socialists"). Founded around the turn of the 19/20 centuries, first came to power in the 1930s. The 1920s in the UK saw coalition governments.
  
• Liverals - now "Liberal Democrats" ("Whigs", traditionally, although the nickname has vanished now). Last in power during WWI, last in coalition in 1974.
  

In the mid-70s the Liberals almost got into power in a Lib-Tory coalition, but it failed to get sufficient seats in parliant and Labour took power for six months, followed by the disastrous Labour pre-Thatcher government. Certainly in the last 50 years the received wisdom in British politics has been that a Liberal vote has been a wasted vote - a point of view endorsed, naturally enough, by both Conservatives and Labour!

In the mid-70s some polls put Lib support at around 25%; today it appears to be agreed to be in the low-30s! The Libs passed Labour some time in the last month as both Labour and Conservatives have been trending down in support percentages. Traditionally the numbers suddenly resolve on election night with lots of people suddenly deciding not to vote for the smaller party after all, despite their poll answers.

It seems like the Libs may soon hold the balance of power as they so nearly did in 1974. The results of this will be huge. The political system in the UK is described as "winner takes all" - every seat is a separate election and the winner is the winner; the party with over 50% of seats is the winning party, and results are very quickly known - within 4-6 hours of polling closing.

The Liberal Democrat party will almost certainly look for electoral reform in exchange for parliamentary support, as proportional representation would suddenly make their position in politics immeasurably stronger.

So my pick-of-the-month is watching the UK election. It'll be exciting like so many elections aren't, and it certainly beats watching bankers in the euro-zone getting ready to pay billions to bail out Greece.

[Tech Stuff]

• Just finished a two-week data migration. Worst part: the pain of working with Windows 95 (I skipped Win/9X and went from 3.11 to NT4!). Frustrating part: the way that the documentation had to be written to demonstrate that we had done "it right". The best part: the happy customer!!
• Hopefully I have another contract coming up very soon, and that'll keep the rent paid, at least.
• Just finished a course on Reporting Services 2008 from Pragmatic Works. I've seen another of their courses, on Integration Services, and also a number of their one-hour events that they put on periodically at no cost for the benefit of anyone in trouble in this economy. They're very professionally produced, very effectively presented, and chock-full of useful information, explanations, and techniques. I give them an 11 out of 10! Be warned, though: their information density can be very high, so make sure you don't blink!
• Still working away on the MCTS DBA stuff from Insider Training: there's jst so much to try to get your head around before being ready to put down your $125 for the exam!
• Going to be assisting a friend in learning PL/SQL in a couple of weeks: after that I might just try for an Oracle SQL Certified Expert exam!
  

[Wool]
Nothing this week, but next weekend is the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, and we're going, just like last year. Hopefully it'll be sunny but cool: rain's no fun and blazing heat'll just make it miserable.

Well, that's all for now: see you all when I do! To those with new phones: "Text On!"

TTFN

Life goes on!

[Hot news from England]

Just finished a two-week data migration. Worst part: the pain of working with Windows 95 (I skipped Win/9X and went from 3.11 to NT4!). Frustrating part: the way that the documentation had to be written to demonstrate that we had done "it right". The best part: the happy customer!!

TTFN

Sometimes Trusting isn't Enough

If you use anti-virus from Comcast - or McAfee in general - you'll have received an update this afternoon. Be careful about installing it, as it's apparently got an error. Please look here for problem and solution.
Personally I use Avast! from Alwil, but the choice is yours.

TTFN

Addition: Fox News caught up on the story; however, I'm not at all sure how a piece of inanimate code could "go berserk" !

Back on the Road

Over a month ago I was asked, because I work with SQL Server and because I used to work with a database system called Paradox (think "Access the way it should have been"), to go to a meeting at a pretty well-known company and meet on of their manager. It seems that they found a program with data that they need to have access to, but they don't know how to run the program and/or get at the data. Turns out that the program is a DOS version of Paradox, believe it or not, and the PC it's sitting on is equally old. No problem -- should take a week or two to do. Finally -- a month later -- we get the go-ahead to do the thing, so I'll be commuting about 70 miles daily for a couple of weeks to do the job.

It'll make a nice change from studying for a while, but very soon I'll be back listening to one of Brian Knight's pals from Pragmatic Works in a course on SSRS 2008. Meanwhile the study for an MCTS (SQL 2008 DBA) goes slowly on -- eventually I'll get to doing the exams (I'm almost finished the SSIS stuff!). Studying isn't the most enthralling stuff, but it matters in the end.

I took a few hours off the other day and read Michael Lewis' book about the current recession, The Big Short. This is an absolutely excellent book, and I recommend it to you without any reservation at all. It really offers a clear insight into what was going on in Wall Street from 2004-2008 and how what people were doing, and what they didn't understand, caused the financial crash.

[Tech]
You can get a copy of MS SQL Server 2008 Developer's Edition for just $50. This is exactly the same as the Enterprise version, except that you can run it on, for example, a copy of Windows XP and you mustn't use it for your production system. OK, fine; why do you want it if you're working in, for example, Oracle or MySQL? Well, the SSIS part alone does neat things like give you tools for programming import and export processes in and out of almost any database (I'll probably be using it for import from Paradox), which definitely helps the perpetual emergencies we all get run down by!

TTFN

Databases

[Tech]
Here are some useful links that I've been coming across in my recent travels. These ones are mainly for DBAs.

• Using dynamic management views to monitor and tune performance of SQL Server. New in 2005 and expanded in 2008, these allow you to query aspects of the DBMS
  
• Data collection the automated way in SQL Server 2008. A blog on one of the new features of SQL Server 2008.
  

TTFN

SQL & Saturday

I was going to have a rant today on why I think the political setup in this country doesn't work (which it obviously doesn't, given the inability of Congress to pass legislation to fix the health care situation). But I'm not going to bother, as it wouldn't do any good whatsoever. The political establishment in this country has taken a very nicely designed system and, because the two sides are able to put nearly-equal numbers of representatives into each house, the whole system has ground to a halt.

The system is designed to stop one side with a large majority from taking over the system entirely, giving the other side no further hope. With the two sides so polarised, as they are now, and with the "middle" either apathetic or equally split, we have a system where nothing gets done at all.

So I'm going back to repairing my bed - which fell apart again because the screws won't hold into wood that's dried out over 35 years of use - and trying to work out some sort of furniture for a kitchen that is more like a closet than anything else. Americans, they say, are spending less and less time in the kitchen. I'm not surprised! The kitchens these days are too small to swing a kitten in, let alone a dwarf cat!

TTFN

New Digs - and a New Symbiote.

We moved two weeks ago. Yep, just upped and moved. About 10 miles down the road. New place has a smaller kitchen ([bad], and only one (larger) bathroom ([mixed]), but the same space overall. It's about 35% cheaper and has free gas ([good]) for heat and cooking. Now to get back to cooking with gas - I haven't done that since I lived at home with my parents, and that's a very very long time ago.

New apartment does have a floor problem, so cannot set up some furniture: have to wait for floor repair so floor is level. Why do people build houses here in the USA in such a way that, after 30 years, they're in the same dilapidated condition that you'd expect to find in Britain or Germany after about 250 years? I've lived in houses in England that are 150 years old and they're in far better condition than apartments here after 30 years!

DD rang the other night and then later next day. Very stressed: had got into much-wanted photography class in school, but had no camera. Possible end-of-world scenario imminent! Problem fixed by immediate dispatch of cameras & lenses: film and filters to follow. Many sighs of heartfelt relief.

As for me, I'm still looking for a new job (SQL Developer) and waiting on some people to come back with interview requests. One company that said that they wanted me to do some work for them, but since agreeing on the work we've heard nothing. Internal politics are just something crazy that you have to live with.

Oh yes! The symbiote. I came down with a cold. Yesterday. At about 7 pm! I know pewcisely because that's when I realised that I needed to mop my runny nose [grin]. About every 2-3 years I get this problem, and then I have a semi-permanent symbiote until it dies (obviously sometime in the last few days!) . Last night I felt terrible when I got home, and went to bed. Today hasn't been any better at all, so it's been bed rest all day today, and now I'm writing this while listening to last Tuesday's lecture. Another starts live at 8 this evening and I'm coughing and snuffling and getting a red nose from blowing and mopping it all the time.

Oh yes - I never said. I'm taking a course from Insider Training in Coeur d'Alene. Hopefully I'll be taking the MS exam in a month or so's time, to get certification as a DBA for SQL Server 2008 (an MCTS cert.). After that I suppose it'll be time to start trying to take the exams for Oracle PL/SQL programmer. I keep on helping people out with PL/SQL so I might as well get some recognition [grin]! After that I'll have to start looping at the second step for SQL Server - an MCITP certification.

Right now, however, it's first things first: getting on with learning enough to get the MCTS cert. It's when you start doing learning like this again that you realise just how tough learning without very much hands-on experience really is. Practical experience is easy to get when you're doing it at work, but if you're not in work, or if you can't get the experience at work 'cos you're not doing quite that work, then it gets difficult.

[Tech]
So I'm getting told all about partitioning tables so that one can place parts of a table where they can be best stored. That part was find, but the explanation of how lost me. So I looked it up - MS KB was weird, but this article by Mike Chapple on About.Com made it so simple!

Anyhow, I have two possibles waiting out there for me to work at tomorrow. Have fun, everyone.

TTFN