The Da Vinci Code…

I’ve not yet seen anything positive about The Da Vinci Code film in the UK press. I saw a bunch of people leaving the premier in Paris saying it was awful, predictable and boring. One woman said it was the worst two and a half hours of her life. I all I can say is she must have had a pretty exciting life if that’s the worst she has had to endure!

With all the bad press and the fact that Tom Hanks gets on my nerves, I wasn’t really into the idea of going to see it, but I thought I ought to know something about it for reference sake, since everyone has been banging on about this story for a ages…

I went to see the film last night and I thought it was quite good. I don’t cope well with overly long films, but I coped OK, so it couldn’t have been too boring. It was a little predictable at times, but since most of the literate world seems to have read the book, that’s hardly a problem. Notice, I don’t count myself in that group 🙂

If you haven’t read the book, go and see it so you can nod politely while people spout rubbish about the factual accuracies/inaccuracies of the story. Maybe seed the conversation with controversial statements like, “I think it’s totally blasphemous!”, or “It’s an accurate account of history!”, then sit back and watch as people have the vapors… It’s like trying to teach evolution in America 😉

Cheers

Tim…

PS. XMen 3 next week.

Web Scripting for Oracle Update…

I’ve amended my Web Scripting for Oracle article to include ASP.NET (VB and C#).

I don’t claim to be an expert in any of these languages, so I can’t guarantee I’m using the best practices, but I like to keep some simple examples for those, “You’ve got to use bind variables!”, conversations 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Should Oracle charge for patches?

I can understand Oracle charging for support and product upgrades, like 9i to 10g. I can even see the point of charging for releases upgrades, like 10gR1 to 10gR2. What I think is a little cheeky is to charge people for regular patchsets.

This line of thought came about because of a post on the Dizwell Forum, where someone mentioned they were running a production system without support. This person is working with 9.2.0.1.0 because they don’t have access to 9.2.0.7.0 as a result of not having a support and updates contract. Personally, I think this is more than a little mean of Oracle. Afterall, these patchsets are only fixing bugs in the product that was bought in good faith. Even Microsoft don’t charge for basic Windows Updates, only for version upgrades.

Personally, I believe patchsets on an existing product should be free to those who have a product license. Access to new releases and new product versions could still be restricted.

I just hope I’m never put in th same position as this guy!

Cheers

Tim…

Holiday, passport photos, films and music…

Holiday:
I’ve just got back from a weeks holiday. When I left home it was cold and raining. On holiday it was very hot and dry. I managed to get sun burn using SPF50! When I got home it was cold and raining again. My holiday was 40 miles away from home. That’s British weather for you 🙂

Passport Photos:
My passport was due to expire, so I sent off the renewal form just before I went on holiday. When I got back there was a letter saying my passport photos had been rejected. There was not enough contrast between my skin and the white background of the photo booth. Yes, I really am that pale. I like to think of my skin tone as alabaster, but in truth I look kind of deathly. Perhaps I need a spray-on tan before the next shots are taken 🙂

Films:

  • Silent Hill (Cinema) – Dull! I’m not prepared to say any more about it 🙂
  • Revolver (DVD) – I missed this at the cinema. I really liked it. Not your typical gangster film.
  • Doom (DVD) – This got slated when it was at the cinema. I thought it was an OK film. Guys running round a lab complex on Mars shooting mutant monster things. It does what it says on the tin!
  • Casshern (DVD)- Japanese futuristic superhero type film. I haven’t got a clue what was going on and I gave up about 15 minutes before the end.

I’ll probably go and see The Da Vinci Code this weekend. I don’t read books, so it will give me an idea of what everyone has been waffling on about over the last few years. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it…

In contrast, I can’t wait for X-Men III!

Music:
Tool – Not sure what I think of this CD. I guess I will need to play it a bit more.
Fall Out Boy – I love this CD. I’ve played it to death over the last couple of weeks. Time to rest it I think 🙂

There are so many cool bands out, it’s hard to find the time to listen to everything!

Cheers

Tim…

Mission Impossible 3…

I went to see Mission Impossible 3 last night. My thoughts are:

Shaking the camera so you can’t see what’s going on does not make everything more exiting! It makes it hard to watch the film without having an epileptic attack!

The film went on and on. I guess it ran for about 2 hours and 10 minutes. This is really a 1 hour 30 minute film, max. Why does hollywood insist on making overly long films these days. I wasn’t as boring as Lord of the Rings 2 or Matrix 2, but it was close!

The Ethan Hunt character is so uninteresting, and a little thick if you ask me. It’s all just so run of the mill. I found myself not caring if he lived or died. In contrast, Mat Damon’s character in The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy has some interest value.

MI3 is like James Bond without the humour and style, so what’s the point?

Cheers

Tim…

OCFS2…

I’m nearing the end of my “I wonder what RAC is like on other platforms?” phase. I ran through a basic setup of a cluster file system using OCFS2, just to prove it worked:

OCFS2 On Linux

As I say in the article, the only reason to use it as far as I can see is to provide a shared location or UTL_FILE and external table operations. I can’t see the point in using it for the OCR location or voting disk as raw devices work fine and it’s not recommended for sharing datafiles…

I guess it’s nice to know it’s there if I ever need it 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

ASM with ASMLib or Raw Devices?

I’ve been trying to figure out if it’s better to run ASM on Linux using ASMLib or raw devices. Some of the Oracle documentation claims ASMLib gives better performance that raw devices with 10g Release 2, while other sources claim it only affects candidate disk discovery time…

Whilst setting up a test I wrote this article:

ASM using ASMLib and Raw Devices

I’m sure the configuration information will be useful to others, but my first performance test only convinced me that using VMware on my kit at home is pointless for performance tests. You don’t say!!! 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Just like buses…

Earlier in the week I wrote about receiving an ADSL modem three months after I switched ISPs (how long?). Well, today I received another one, hence the title of this post. You wait for ages, then two come along 🙂

So now I have a wireless ADSL router and three speedtouch ADSL modems. I was considering selling the modems on ebay, but looking at the price they go for, it hardly seems worth the effort…

Cheers

Tim…