Taltos…

I’ve had an extended break from reading fiction. I’ve never been a big fan of reading, but I’ve been trying to force myself…

After reading the 10 books that make up the “Vampire Chronicles” I moved on to the “Lives of the Mayfair Witches”. This was a three book series, but I stalled after finishing the second book (Lasher). In a fit of boredom I recently picked up the final book (Taltos) and read it. After about 10 pages I was gutted I had waited so long to start it. Whether you love or hate Anne Rice, she has a really good knack for pacing a book just right. I think this makes about 15 or so books I’ve read and she seems to get me hooked so easily.

All of the main players were familiar because of the previous books, and the later books in the Vampire Chronicles explain some of the characters lives after this book ends. This is bit weird as you already know who what happens to people, but it doesn’t spoil th fun.

I’m now moving on to “Vittorio, The Vampire”. This is the second book in the “New Tales of the Vampires” series. I left this until last as it is apparently a stand alone story, with no ties back to the other books. It’s supposed to be a bit more like a love story, which doesn’t bode well, but I bought it when I bought all the other books, so it seems a shame not to read it.

A couple of the guys at work have been telling me to read the Discworld stuff by Terry Parachett. It sounds kinda fun, but with 37 books and counting, it’s really rather daunting. I guess time will tell if I get suckered into that one.

Cheers

Tim…

War (the movie)…

I went to see War at the cinema on Saturday. I’m a fan of Jet Li and I think Jason Statham has been kind-of cool in a few films so it seemed like a safe bet.

Let’s start by saying, this is not a Martial Arts film. There is a little bit of fighting, but nothing technical or cool. At first I was enjoying the film on face value, but the true plot became evident towards the end of the film. At that point I felt a little let down because the idea was better than I expected, but the implementation wasn’t so good. I know that sounds odd, but I guess if you watch the film you will see what I mean. It could have been a lot better.

So I guess the verdict has to be not too bad for a nondescript film. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

WordPress 2.3 and VMware Server 1.0.4…

It’s been an exciting couple of days on the upgrade front…

First, VMware released VMware Server 1.0.4. Don’t expect any new functionality. I can’t see anything different here, but it allegedly contains a whole bunch of security fixes, which is nice. Still no RHEL5 in the guest OS list, and the Vista support is still labeled as experimental. Both OS work fine, but I would have thought by now they could have sorted this. I guess you get what you pay for… 🙂

Next, WordPress released version 2.3 of their blogging software. If you’re reading this, the upgrade when well. 🙂

Happy upgrading…

Cheers

Tim…

Vista is dead. Long live CentOS…

I’ve been using Vista on my Laptop for a few months, and I’ve tried hard to like it, but the truth is it annoys the hell out of me. This weekend I wiped off all traces of Vista and installed CentOS 5 (x86_64). At last some calm has returned to my world. There will be a couple of applications I will miss, but for the most part it feels like I’ve returned home.

Just for the hell of it, I’ve installed a Vista virtual machine, but I doubt I’ll use it much. If I’m ever forced to use a Windows application I think I’ll run it on an XP virtual machine and avoid the constant barrage of, “Are you sure?” questions.

Cheers

Tim…

WordPress 2.2.3 and (unrelated) Trojan Horse…

I thought I better add the “(unrelated)” into the post title before I get a flame about WordPress having nothing to do with this. Just reporting two unrelated things in a single post! 🙂

Wordress 2.2.3 was released over the weekend. I guess it won’t be long before the finished 2.3 release, but for the moment it’s just bug fixes of 2.2.x.

On a completely separate note, I got an email from someone today saying their antivirus software was detecting some malicious code when they accessed pages on my website. I asked for the full error message and checked out the suspect file and to my surprise found an extra bit of Javascript had been tagged to the end of one of my javascript files. The modification happened yesterday. I know it wasn’t me for two reasons:

  1. The code was written as a single line. I never write code like that. If it isn’t neat and indented properly it doesn’t make it to my site.
  2. The modification was done yesterday. I didn’t log on to a PC all day!

I checked the contents of my content management system and the offending line of code wasn’t there, so it had been added by someone or something else!

The code in question didn’t cause my AV software to log a problem, so I guess this guys AV software was more sensitive than mine. In my haste to correct the problem, I didn’t keep a record of the offending Javascript, so I don’t have any evidence to supply to my hosting provider, other than an error message that was emailed to me.

 

I would be interested to know if anyone else saw got any AV messages when accessing my site over the last 24 hours. Hopefully not!

Cheers

Tim…

Update: It seems the file I fixed yesterday has been compromised again. I contacted my hosting provider and they claim there is nothing wrong on the server. They believe this additional line is being added manually, or via an exploit on my site. I’ve fixed the file again and changed every password I can ever remember having. I’ve now got to try and identify anything on my site that could possibly be exploited. Bummer!

Of course, if this is down to WordPress or phpBB I’m in trouble!

PL/SQL updates in Oracle 11g

On the surface, the changes to PL/SQL look rather minor, but there is some seriously cool stuff in there. I originally intended to write a single article, but some sections got too big so I thought it was worth sectioning them out into separate articles.

As usual, I’ve tried to keep the explanations brief and include cut & paste examples.

There are a couple more things I might add, but I’m not sure if they are too niche. I’ll see what I think over the next couple of days.

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle ACE Program…

If you read Oracle blogs, you will probably have noticed a few lively debates about the Oracle ACE program. The announcement of the Oracle ACE Director category caused a bit of a stir, causing several people, including myself, to throw the toys out of the pram. I’m not totally sure what I want to say in this post, but I feel I need to say something, so here goes…

I was very flattered when I was nominated as an Oracle ACE. I’ve spent a lot of years writing about Oracle and it was nice to get a thank you from someone for my efforts. It was not something I expected, or really thought I was worthy of, but it felt good. I never considered it to be more than a pat on the back, but when I looked at the names of existing members it was a little daunting.

Worth to the community is a very difficult thing to judge. Some people have great technical skills, but quite a small readership, so they are not helping the wider audience, but they are raising the bar by which we all measure ourselves. Some people are less technical, but have a very wide readership, so they are helping to get the message out there. In my opinion, both of these groups of people have equal importance to the community, but service it in different ways.

I think we can also be a little myopic about the Oracle community, assuming it means the big names in the English speaking world. There are many large Oracle communities where English is not the first language. I don’t read articles or attend seminars in these regions, so I’m not in a position to “rate” these individuals and their contributions, but just because I can’t rate them doesn’t mean they have no value.

I think the Oracle community is still very database-centric, by which I mean value seems to be judged on the level of skill in the core database technologies. Oracle has moved on, so should we. My passion is still the database, but it is almost irrelevant to others, who could still arguably be called world leaders in their field, which is Oracle technology.

As for the Oracle ACE Director, it is now clear to me it’s just a pat on the back with some extra commitments. If people think it means more than that they are wrong.

I’m starting to bore myself now… 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Windows NT 4

I had to install Windows NT 4 today. Don’t ask…

I remember waiting for this OS to be released. I was really excited because I had been using Windows 95 and Windows NT 4 was going to look similar… Fast forward a few years and I am totally depressed at having to install it. The installation process is a pain and expecting such an old OS to auto-detect new kit is nieve to say the least.

It’s a sad day when you find yourself wishing you were installing Windows XP. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Rush Hour 3…

When watching Rush Hour 3 you could be forgiven for thinking you were watching either of the first two films, except Chris Tucker has put on some weight and Jackie Chan is looking that bit older. Once again, it plays heavily on stereotypes of Chinese and African Americans, but this time it includes the French in the mix. I know it’s meant to be comedy, but this kind of stuff is getting very old these days. It is funny in parts, but it’s more of DVD film for those occasions when you’ve got nothing better to do.

The only real thing of note in the film is Noémie Lenoir. She’s one of the models in the current advertising campaign for Marks & Spencers in the UK, amongst other things. As you would expect from a model-turned-actress, she looks great, but when you see her with her head shaved she is off the scale. If I were her I would keep my head shaved, or have very short hair all the time. She looks amazing.

Cheers

Tim…

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