OK. I’ve had a small blogging holiday so here’s a quick update:
Book
Over the weekend I finished the first draft of the new book. It’s now off to tech-edit, then copy-edit and it’s done. I didn’t realize how much pressure I had put on myself with this book until I was done. I’ve been really busy and adding to my workload was not a great idea, but it’s done now and I’m pretty happy with it so far. Let’s see what the comments are like 🙂
Linux
I’ve been using Windows XP recently as I killed my main Linux box during an FC4 upgrade. Until this weekend I didn’t have the time to fix it, so I was left with only my Windows XP. It’s been ….. Real…
Anyway, I decided to give up on FC4, I’ve done a few installs and upgrades and there have been issues with all of them. Instead I’ve opted for CentOS 4.1, a clone of RHEL 4.0. I’ve used the latter at work and it’s been pretty cool. I was a little worried about using a clone as I thought there would be some issues with it, but it installed with no issues and even did an up2date without any problems. I’m a CentOS guy all the way now 🙂
The main reason for picking a RHEL clone was that I wanted a stable base for all my virtual machines. Every kernel update on FC4 filled me with dread because they kept breaking VMware. Sometimes it would recompile, sometimes it wouldn’t 🙁
The next plan is create a new virtual machine and install Oracle 10g Release 2 in it again. I haven’t done too much with this release, apart from install it on a number of Linux releases. I guess I might go CentOS for this VM too 🙂
Illusion
I found this – The Amazing Dots…
Cinema
I went to the cinema yesterday afternoon to see “The Cave”. Anyone who read my review of “The Descent” will know I discovered I was claustrophobic whilst watching that film, so going to watch another film about caving, but this time underwater caving, didn’t sound too clever…
Apart from one scene, there were no really claustrophobic moments, but there were loads of really cool underwater shots. From a visual point of view the film was great, but as a whole it was a bit lame. It laid its cards on the table too early, which meant there was almost no suspense. Never mind…
Cheers
Tim…
you finish the entire book before a tech edit???? wow. that just doesn’t seem right.
I’m used to “do a chapter, send it out, start next, get feedback, readjust remaining book based on feedback and so on”
I cannot imagine doing an entire book without a comment, that would be a nightmare!
You need continous feedback throughout the process. What if you had a fundemental “mistake” in your thoughts in the beginning??
I’ve added/removed chapters based on tech-edits. Just doesn’t see right.
change readjust to re-adjust..
Tom: I did the first book the way you do, finish a chapter tech-edit and move on. It doesn’t work for me. The process drains me and I lose the will to live.
I’d rather get a full draft done and rewrite the whole lot if it needs it. I guess I need to feel like the guts of what I want to say are down before anyone else looks at it.
Also, I don’t do chapters in order. It’s just not the way I work. So it’s hard for people to see where I’m going until it’s complete. If I remember correctly the order I wrote the chapters was 3, 2, 5, 4, 6, 7, 1, 8. Some of the work builds on previous chapters, so if I gave them it out of order I’d be getting comments like, “But what about …?”, when I’d already got it covered, just not written. Not the most logical route for an outsider to follow, but crystal clear for me.
I guess you just have to pick a way that suits you, and this suits me.
Cheers
Tim…
Tim,
What’s the book about?
It’s called “Harry Potter and the …”, I figure that could guarantee a few sales 🙂
It’s actually called “Oracle PL/SQL Tuning” and as the name suggests, it’s about writing efficient PL/SQL code. Lot’s of cut and paste examples with lots of proofs.
It covers versions from 8i to 10g, so there’s plenty of stuff that experienced PL/SQL developers will find new, and a few surprises for those who consider themselves gurus.
You’d be surprised how many undocumented changes happen between versions. You start writing a proof and think your going mad when they don’t work, only to find you’ve discovered an undocumented change. Of course the reply from Oracle is, “Whoops, our bad! We forgot to mention that change…”
It’s all good 🙂