I generally browse some of the techie blogs from blogs.oracle.com or dzone.com. Since am yet not much into blogging ,am still on lookout for the new and interesting blogs. Any suggestions to the same would be welcome.
Speaking of something interesting, came across this piece of nicely written blog from Jonathan Gennick. I wasnt aware that a query which had been running fine in versions before 10g, might suddenly fail, with far-reaching impact to some of the apps.
As I read through the article, I found it really intriguing and scary. As a matter of fact , it seems that given the new built in intelligence of the much publicised "CBO" from oracle, migrating from other versions to this new version would need a rigorous amount of testing maybe with the live data set and analysing the tables (as in this case).
Dont get me wrong. I am not against CBO. But sometimes it seems to be overdoing things.
I have been working on 10g for sometime and my experiences with it have been mixed. Had a near fatal experienceonce thanks to 10g. I wasnt aware that 10gR1 doesnt like the index rebuild to go online while the data is being loaded in direct path mode. It corrupted the whole damn index!!!!!!! Thankfully the system was still in trial.
And speaking of CBO, its way too dynamic and would certainly not recommend it if you are dealing with VLDB. My experiences with it havent been too great. Oracle certainly needs to take new steps in parallelism, if it wants scalable ETL tools to be built using PL/SQL or OWB. They have moved forward, no doubt, but yet some of the basic parallelism is still tough to implement. Take the simple case of unloading data from two tables going in parallel. Most of the ETL tools would run two threads and unload the two tables in parallel, almost by default. But I am not sure if thats the case with OWB . Pl/SQL makes it tougher to implement. It canbe done, but there isnt a simple way to do this yet. (Any ideas/suggestions welcome).
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Sunday, October 22, 2006
The diwali weekend. Its celebration time and holiday time. It was supposed to be same with me. But due to some personal reasons and the fact that am away from home(read no holidays) , this was a diwali I would like to forget, but perhaps would not be able to quite easily.
Once again, I marvel how close this e-revolution has brought us, at least in terms of keeping in touch(nah, I aint new to this… just keep getting fascinated). Its always nice to have frndz you can speak to.. talk nuisance without worrying too much about the impression thats going to make…..and yahoo(just my preferred example) certainly makes that task lot easier.
Thanks everyone for bearing with me.
And yeah, I spent some time googling for “boring diwali” and it did threw up some interesting , nice to read blog. Otherwise, it was just another weekend, shopping for the necessities, cleaning, and most part of the day: online, surfing and chatting.
Speaking of search, I do try some search engines from time to time and have almost always found google on top. The searches from MS simply didn’t match in terms of quality . But guess the new live.com is different. Unlike previous MSN search , which I considered to be the worst, live.com provides quite impressive search results.
It would be interesting to see the clash of titans in the search industry. For me, google is the preferred option and likely to remain so . Its just the simplicity and the comfort factor it provides with the search that awes me. Its email service though is one area where it can take some tips from Yahoo.
And yeah, every time I sit for lunch and dinner, it just reminds me that cooking is not my forte. I can cook good enough to survive, and have been doing so almost an year. But then, I feel like I have almost forgotten how good food tastes like and the different dishes you can cook. Maybe I am just lazy.
Had mentioned the performance benchmarking about my notebook and its unexpectedly low results. Have been doing a bit search on this and then using my friend’s working DELL power adapter, re-ran the tests. The results… Phew… amazing.
Apparently, the SpeedStep technology of the Intel, which varies the processing power, when running on battery (in my case the faulty adapter) , was causing the low benchmark for my notebook. The Speedstep doesn’t interfere with the processing speed when running on AC power or if it has been explicitly disabled from the BIOS.
Once again, I marvel how close this e-revolution has brought us, at least in terms of keeping in touch(nah, I aint new to this… just keep getting fascinated). Its always nice to have frndz you can speak to.. talk nuisance without worrying too much about the impression thats going to make…..and yahoo(just my preferred example) certainly makes that task lot easier.
Thanks everyone for bearing with me.
And yeah, I spent some time googling for “boring diwali” and it did threw up some interesting , nice to read blog. Otherwise, it was just another weekend, shopping for the necessities, cleaning, and most part of the day: online, surfing and chatting.
Speaking of search, I do try some search engines from time to time and have almost always found google on top. The searches from MS simply didn’t match in terms of quality . But guess the new live.com is different. Unlike previous MSN search , which I considered to be the worst, live.com provides quite impressive search results.
It would be interesting to see the clash of titans in the search industry. For me, google is the preferred option and likely to remain so . Its just the simplicity and the comfort factor it provides with the search that awes me. Its email service though is one area where it can take some tips from Yahoo.
And yeah, every time I sit for lunch and dinner, it just reminds me that cooking is not my forte. I can cook good enough to survive, and have been doing so almost an year. But then, I feel like I have almost forgotten how good food tastes like and the different dishes you can cook. Maybe I am just lazy.
Had mentioned the performance benchmarking about my notebook and its unexpectedly low results. Have been doing a bit search on this and then using my friend’s working DELL power adapter, re-ran the tests. The results… Phew… amazing.
Apparently, the SpeedStep technology of the Intel, which varies the processing power, when running on battery (in my case the faulty adapter) , was causing the low benchmark for my notebook. The Speedstep doesn’t interfere with the processing speed when running on AC power or if it has been explicitly disabled from the BIOS.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Am quite satisfied with my new workhouse which has 2.0 Ghz dual core, 667 Mhz FSB processor, 1 GB 667MHz RAM, 7200 rpm HDD and discrete nVidia graphics card.... good enuff to be a business workhorse and satisfy my needs of running different servers from time to time to play around with the latest technology. Plus its too silent. No Noise. Curious, I went about to benchmark my state of the art (at least on 32 bit platform) workhorse . Installed my trusted SiSoft sandra to benchmark my notebook and to look into each config in detail. With high expectations and pride , I started the CPU benchmarking suite and waited patiently for the results.
I was disappointed . The results were way below the expectation, even when comparing the benchmarks with the preset benchmarks for even single core 1.5 G CPU , the latter scored.
Curious, started my research (aka googling) and as advised by my research results , started the tests again with the power monument as Always ON. The idea being to reduce the CPU throttling used by Windows Power management and to extract the full performance.(Anyway my adapter being faulty and still waiting the replacement from Dell, my battery wont charge and hence can run only on AC power)/
Continuing my search , stumbled upon this article from MS
http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?id=896256
Apparently there is a bug in Microsoft XP, even in SP2. The OS was not designed for multi core or multi processor systems and hence cant extract the full performance. I was keen to see if MS can help me out of this glitch. Help was available, but not readily. Apparently this is a HOTFIX , which i guess means that you call up MS or contact them and then convince them to give the fix to you....Phew!!!!
Searching further found that this problem is much generic and quite widespread. Users have reported drasitc imprvement in performance after applying the fix and following the instruction in the MS article. The results from various sites were tempting me to try this out.
Some more googling and I could find that some nice soul had uploaded the hotfix on one of the servers . Now I am the bit adventrous type. I take the precautions, like scanning my downloads for malicious programs and the stuff an keeping backup of my docs in the external poertable USB HDD, because I like to try out the new things. So I went ahead and based on number of user inputs downloaded the hotfix and installed it along with the reg hack suggested by MS.
My results after that : I havent seen any noticeable improvement in my benchmarks , but there seems to be improved performance on MS Need for Speed Underground 2 Trial version. I am not sure, cause I havent been timing it much earlier or playing it too often.
So wat next!!! My search continues and am also looking for some notebok specific benchmarking tools.
A note though: Whatever be my performance benchmark results, I am happy so far with the performance. But if the statistics are true and I am able to extract more performance, I would be happier. All comments/suggestions are welcome.
Waiting eagerly for my dell notebook AC adapter.
I was disappointed . The results were way below the expectation, even when comparing the benchmarks with the preset benchmarks for even single core 1.5 G CPU , the latter scored.
Curious, started my research (aka googling) and as advised by my research results , started the tests again with the power monument as Always ON. The idea being to reduce the CPU throttling used by Windows Power management and to extract the full performance.(Anyway my adapter being faulty and still waiting the replacement from Dell, my battery wont charge and hence can run only on AC power)/
Continuing my search , stumbled upon this article from MS
http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?id=896256
Apparently there is a bug in Microsoft XP, even in SP2. The OS was not designed for multi core or multi processor systems and hence cant extract the full performance. I was keen to see if MS can help me out of this glitch. Help was available, but not readily. Apparently this is a HOTFIX , which i guess means that you call up MS or contact them and then convince them to give the fix to you....Phew!!!!
Searching further found that this problem is much generic and quite widespread. Users have reported drasitc imprvement in performance after applying the fix and following the instruction in the MS article. The results from various sites were tempting me to try this out.
Some more googling and I could find that some nice soul had uploaded the hotfix on one of the servers . Now I am the bit adventrous type. I take the precautions, like scanning my downloads for malicious programs and the stuff an keeping backup of my docs in the external poertable USB HDD, because I like to try out the new things. So I went ahead and based on number of user inputs downloaded the hotfix and installed it along with the reg hack suggested by MS.
My results after that : I havent seen any noticeable improvement in my benchmarks , but there seems to be improved performance on MS Need for Speed Underground 2 Trial version. I am not sure, cause I havent been timing it much earlier or playing it too often.
So wat next!!! My search continues and am also looking for some notebok specific benchmarking tools.
A note though: Whatever be my performance benchmark results, I am happy so far with the performance. But if the statistics are true and I am able to extract more performance, I would be happier. All comments/suggestions are welcome.
Waiting eagerly for my dell notebook AC adapter.
Monday, October 16, 2006
I had commented about Dell in my last post. In all fairness, I should update the status, if there is any change. But some hectic work schedules and the fact that I am still new to blogging (so yet not a true blogger) I missed updating the blog....
As for my Dell notebook, luckily for me after a series of events : part to be replaced being out of stock , me waiting for dell technician to turn up on a promised date(taking off from work) , dell tech support apologising later in a call which i had to wait for 45 min in queue and then finally resolving the issue....But thankfully got my problem resolved and the resolution was to my satisfaction though it took 20 days to resolve the issue covered under Next Business day on site warranty...
Overall I would rate Dell personnel excellent in terms of customer service, but the process to reach them is way too bad.. takes all the sheen out of their hard work. Imagine being in queue for 1 hour on a premium rate number(0870), and the much publicised email support simply doesnt work. No replies whatsoever can be obtained . Even escalations the case (via have unresolved issue web link) will not help you.Even these escalations fail to elicit any reply from Dell.
My 2 cents: Dell still reminds of the great customer support it was famous for. The quality of their systems is in general excellent , but if you are like me, interested in support, then go for Dell UK , if and only if, you are ready to spend time waiting in queue for 60 mins on a premium rate number.
Incidentally had another issue with my notebook (faulty AC adapter). Same story. Waiting time : 60 mins. Resolution time : 5 mins(Hopefully this time the delivery will be on time). Excellent tech support backed up with poor,unresponsive, unhelpful systems to reach these people.
As for my Dell notebook, luckily for me after a series of events : part to be replaced being out of stock , me waiting for dell technician to turn up on a promised date(taking off from work) , dell tech support apologising later in a call which i had to wait for 45 min in queue and then finally resolving the issue....But thankfully got my problem resolved and the resolution was to my satisfaction though it took 20 days to resolve the issue covered under Next Business day on site warranty...
Overall I would rate Dell personnel excellent in terms of customer service, but the process to reach them is way too bad.. takes all the sheen out of their hard work. Imagine being in queue for 1 hour on a premium rate number(0870), and the much publicised email support simply doesnt work. No replies whatsoever can be obtained . Even escalations the case (via have unresolved issue web link) will not help you.Even these escalations fail to elicit any reply from Dell.
My 2 cents: Dell still reminds of the great customer support it was famous for. The quality of their systems is in general excellent , but if you are like me, interested in support, then go for Dell UK , if and only if, you are ready to spend time waiting in queue for 60 mins on a premium rate number.
Incidentally had another issue with my notebook (faulty AC adapter). Same story. Waiting time : 60 mins. Resolution time : 5 mins(Hopefully this time the delivery will be on time). Excellent tech support backed up with poor,unresponsive, unhelpful systems to reach these people.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)