InstantForum.NET v2.9.0SQLServerCentralhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/notifications@sqlservercentral.comSat, 25 May 2013 03:00:32 GMT20http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspxGreat subject! To my mind I think the arrival of the internet, and the constant availability of information at our figure tips is simply a change. It doesn't make us better or worse, but it does change the level at which we can operate. In the past a really good IT professional would have learnt everything they needed to know, and be able to call on that knowledge when ever required. Now however that level of knowledge is still handy, but it's not the most critical thing. By having the minutia of what we do handily available online it leaves us more capacity to expand into more areas, and to focus on the what rather than the how. What sets us apart from the normal users now is our understanding of how things work, and what needs to be done to achieve the require goals, and it's that which we memorise instead since it is much harder to reference that kind of knowledge.A person who fully understands how a technology works under the hood can easily search a reference source to find how to do something specific. Someone else however who has just memorised that reference source is unlike to be able to do much with it, since they lack the understanding of what they need to do.Tue, 09 Nov 2010 07:41:11 GMTKeith Langmeadhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspxLoved this analogy... [quote][b]Ron Porter (11/2/2010)[/b][hr]I think that the Internet is just one more step along the 'just in time' path...There are risks associated with not keeping our own gardens and livestock and we lose a specific kind of self-sufficiency, but overall our food delivery system provides a massive net benefit to both society and the individual...[/quote]On the one hand I would argue that the local grocery store is not offering up as good of meat as what you can raise at home and so while the quantity of options have increased, the quality of options have decreased - there's more to choose from but a lot of it's garbage (just like the internet). Thankfully there are little boutiques (like SSC) where quality is still the norm.Man this topic is getting a lot of hits... struck a chord.Thu, 04 Nov 2010 14:51:37 GMTold accout - will shttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspxFirst let me thank the author for the article and the contributors for the comments. All together it has been a good intellectual exercise allowing us to share opinions.Dynamite is good and bad or maybe isn't good or bad but useful or not. My point is that as almost everything the good and bad of technology depend on how we use it.Wed, 03 Nov 2010 10:40:29 GMTFranl Quintanahttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspx[quote][b]GSquared (11/2/2010)[/b][hr]... Internet isn't very useful if you can't read. ...[/quote]You obviously don't visit the more profitable segments of the internet. :Whistling:Wed, 03 Nov 2010 08:48:47 GMTdavid_wendelkenhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspx[quote][b]Eric Russell 13013 (11/2/2010)[/b][hr][quote][b]CirquedeSQLeil (11/2/2010)[/b][hr]Just a week ago I too had one of those experiences of being unable to access the Net. I had an ISP failure and two air cards that would not work. Each air card was a different carrier. One air-card the drivers had stopped working. The second air-card could not connect or find service in the area. I was flying blind and it was aggravating.[/quote]Back in the early '90s when I was programming in MS-DOS, I had a 3.5" diskette with all my essential tools on it: Norton Commander, Hex editer, drivers, virus scanner, a stripped down version of Borland C++. Today I have a thumbdrive on my keychain with SQL Server books online, serveral pdf versions of reference books, portable applications, hundreds of sql scripts and archived articles. I still frequently fall back to using it. Not only is it necessary when I'm in a hotel room or in the lower levels of a granite federal building with no internet connection, but it also helps to have all my stuff oraganized in one place. I even used my Hex editer a while back to recover data from deleted records in a .mdf file.[/quote]I have thumbdrive(s) with the same essential tools - except the hex editor. I'm thinking I should throw my hex editor onto a thumbdrive as well.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:42:56 GMTSQLRNNRhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspx[quote][b]CirquedeSQLeil (11/2/2010)[/b][hr]Just a week ago I too had one of those experiences of being unable to access the Net. I had an ISP failure and two air cards that would not work. Each air card was a different carrier. One air-card the drivers had stopped working. The second air-card could not connect or find service in the area. I was flying blind and it was aggravating.[/quote]Back in the early '90s when I was programming in MS-DOS, I had a 3.5" diskette with all my essential tools on it: Norton Commander, Hex editer, drivers, virus scanner, a stripped down version of Borland C++. Today I have a thumbdrive on my keychain with SQL Server books online, serveral pdf versions of reference books, portable applications, hundreds of sql scripts and archived articles. I still frequently fall back to using it. Not only is it necessary when I'm in a hotel room or in the lower levels of a granite federal building with no internet connection, but it also helps to have all my stuff oraganized in one place. I even used my Hex editer a while back to recover data from deleted records in a .mdf file.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:25:42 GMTEric M Russellhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspxJust a week ago I too had one of those experiences of being unable to access the Net. I had an ISP failure and two air cards that would not work. Each air card was a different carrier. One air-card the drivers had stopped working. The second air-card could not connect or find service in the area. I was flying blind and it was aggravating.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:39:32 GMTSQLRNNRhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspx[quote][b]WayneS (11/2/2010)[/b][hr][quote][b]blandry (11/2/2010)[/b][hr]So, when you want to know a veteran techie, just ask "Whats a BBS?" I wonder how many SQL Central devotees can answer that question![/quote]This is aging me, but I can. I used to "surf" them on a 300-baud acoustic-coupled modem.[/quote]+ 1 ;-)Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:21:11 GMTniall.bairdhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspx[quote][b]Gift Peddie (11/2/2010)[/b][hr]The net is the great equalizer it is the reason very few code sets impress me because most are modified Microsoft or now Oracle code. I have also met very few impressive people who type C# code faster than a secretary type a letter so I know I need better books. what part of it is yours because all I see is modified Microsoft code?;-)[/quote]See my current sig. ;-) Just because they can copy it doesn't mean they know how to use it well.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:08:49 GMTEvil Kraig Fhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspxThe net is the great equalizer it is the reason very few code sets impress me because most are modified Microsoft or now Oracle code. I have also met very few impressive people who type C# code faster than a secretary type a letter so I know I need better books. what part of it is yours because all I see is modified Microsoft code?;-)Tue, 02 Nov 2010 14:47:05 GMTGift Peddiehttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspx[quote][b]blandry (11/2/2010)[/b][hr]So, when you want to know a veteran techie, just ask "Whats a BBS?" I wonder how many SQL Central devotees can answer that question![/quote]This is aging me, but I can. I used to "surf" them on a 300-baud acoustic-coupled modem.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 13:09:04 GMTWayneShttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspx[quote][b]roger.plowman (11/2/2010)[/b][hr]Face it, in the days before the internet systems were far less complex, it was *possible* to know just about everything there was to know about a system.Today? Not so much.Take SQL server. Thousands of developers over tens of years. No documentation worth having. (What ever happened to the art of clarity in documentation?) Of *course* you're going to need the net, with all its deeming masses squirreling away tidbits of knowledge gleaned through serendipity. It isn't a matter of *our* laziness, it's the vendors cutting corners and trying to beat everyone else to market with the latest whiz-bang.Simplicity is *hard*. Elegance is *extremely* hard. So the vendors slather the new goodness on top of the old, till you have the monstrosities we have today.*Undocumented* monstrosities, I might add...because clarity is also hard and takes time.Given that, I'll take the net. I'd rather have a system that was well thought out and does most of the grunt work for me, but failing that (and given vendor realities) I'll take what I can get.[/quote]This brought to mind...A few months ago, I submitted a "connect" item for a technical clarification in BOL. MS denied it - they'd leave it up to the 3rd party books to provide that deeper technical knowledge, and what they had was good enough. BTW... it would just be adding one character to a few places.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 13:07:31 GMTWayneShttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspx[quote][b]Ron Porter (11/2/2010)[/b][hr][quote][b]Eric Russell 13013 (11/2/2010)[/b][hr][quote][b]Ron Porter (11/2/2010)[/b][hr][quote][b]Tobar (11/2/2010)[/b][hr][quote][b]Ron Porter (11/2/2010)[/b][hr]... most Emergency Measures Organizations recommend keeping about 3 days of water [/quote]A germaine aside to water reserves - if for whatever reason water is no longer flowing to your house don't forget you have anywhere from 50 -100 gallons of water in your water heater.[/quote]People in apartments or with demand heaters will have much less. People with flush toilets will have a couple of gallons assuming they manage to not flush the one time that flushing actually works.[/quote]Well, screw the city folk with their fancy tankless water heaters and low flow toilets. :-PIn the even of a total collapse of civilization, drinkable water and canned beans will be worth more for barter than gold coins.[/quote]:-D Good, because my underground cistern holds over 5000 litres. [/quote]Cool. Send me your address! ;-)Tue, 02 Nov 2010 12:57:46 GMTTobarhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspx[quote][b]Jeff Moden (11/1/2010)[/b][hr]What I'm even more concerned about is lost learning due to the fact that certain programs and formats are no longer available. Imagine, for instance, if someday in the future that MS no longer supports the .DOC format. Only those lucky enough to have a legacy copy of Word will be able to recover the information. Oh, but wait... will the legacy copy actually work on that future operating system? Think about it... even most printer aren't actually capable of printing a simple text file using the DOS copy command anymore. Instead, "DOS" prints through Windows and without the necessary drivers, you can't even print a text file without some form of Windows interaction anymore.[/quote]There are 3rd party .doc and .docx file viewers and editers, however, I could more easily imagine a scenario where 15 years down the road we have trouble recovering data from old Red Gate or Idera database backup files, especially if they're encrypted and the people responsible for holding the keys are long gone.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 12:49:47 GMTEric M Russellhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspx[quote][b]Jeff Moden (11/1/2010)[/b][hr]What I'm even more concerned about is lost learning due to the fact that certain programs and formats are no longer available. Imagine, for instance, if someday in the future that MS no longer supports the .DOC format. Only those lucky enough to have a legacy copy of Word will be able to recover the information. Oh, but wait... will the legacy copy actually work on that future operating system? Think about it... even most printer aren't actually capable of printing a simple text file using the DOS copy command anymore. Instead, "DOS" prints through Windows and without the necessary drivers, you can't even print a text file without some form of Windows interaction anymore.[/quote]And that is why I will be drug into the Kindle world kicking and screaming. While it is obvious that there are advantages to digital media that cannot be overlooked, in general, my books will not be "outdated technology". Whereas who knows whether your Kindle book will work in 10 years? (Don't get me started about the fact that in some cases the powers that be can control the contents of a Kindle). Digital has its uses, but IMO it will never completely supercede the value of paper in some circumstances.Besides, if you are out in the country for hours, you don't need to recharge a book's batteries....Tue, 02 Nov 2010 12:36:50 GMTjeff.masonhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspx[quote][b]Eric Russell 13013 (11/2/2010)[/b][hr][quote][b]Ron Porter (11/2/2010)[/b][hr][quote][b]Tobar (11/2/2010)[/b][hr][quote][b]Ron Porter (11/2/2010)[/b][hr]... most Emergency Measures Organizations recommend keeping about 3 days of water [/quote]A germaine aside to water reserves - if for whatever reason water is no longer flowing to your house don't forget you have anywhere from 50 -100 gallons of water in your water heater.[/quote]People in apartments or with demand heaters will have much less. People with flush toilets will have a couple of gallons assuming they manage to not flush the one time that flushing actually works.[/quote]Well, screw the city folk with their fancy tankless water heaters and low flow toilets. :-PIn the even of a total collapse of civilization, drinkable water and canned beans will be worth more for barter than gold coins.[/quote]:-D Good, because my underground cistern holds over 5000 litres. I can't help you out with the beans, though; I'm stockpiling black pepper. There was a time when people risked their lives and fortunes to haul it 1/4 way around the world and I never heard of anybody doing that for beans!Tue, 02 Nov 2010 12:31:06 GMTRon Porterhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspx[quote][b]Ron Porter (11/2/2010)[/b][hr][quote][b]Tobar (11/2/2010)[/b][hr][quote][b]Ron Porter (11/2/2010)[/b][hr]... most Emergency Measures Organizations recommend keeping about 3 days of water [/quote]A germaine aside to water reserves - if for whatever reason water is no longer flowing to your house don't forget you have anywhere from 50 -100 gallons of water in your water heater.[/quote]People in apartments or with demand heaters will have much less. People with flush toilets will have a couple of gallons assuming they manage to not flush the one time that flushing actually works.[/quote]Well, screw the city folk with their fancy tankless water heaters and low flow toilets. :-PIn the even of a total collapse of civilization, drinkable water and canned beans will be worth more for barter than gold coins.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 12:13:28 GMTEric M Russellhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspx[quote][b]Tobar (11/2/2010)[/b][hr][quote][b]Ron Porter (11/2/2010)[/b][hr]... most Emergency Measures Organizations recommend keeping about 3 days of water [/quote]A germaine aside to water reserves - if for whatever reason water is no longer flowing to your house don't forget you have anywhere from 50 -100 gallons of water in your water heater.[/quote]People in apartments or with demand heaters will have much less. People with flush toilets will have a couple of gallons assuming they manage to not flush the one time that flushing actually works.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 11:42:24 GMTRon Porterhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspxThis topic has been on my mind since my last vacation where I was in Europe with difficulty in connecting to the net. It brought home how much I rely on it for everyday common information not just technology. I found my self agitated and frustrated that "knowledge" was not at my fingertips. I believe it does promote some degree of laziness but then maybe we never really tried to keep so much information in our heads. There was a time when I could be an expert on a product or technology because it required a finite amount of knowledge. That doesn't exist anymore. I have to say I was shocked and almost embarrassed at my reaction. From a person with a previous, "back to the woods" pride to "what do you mean you don't have wifi". Maybe I'm just getting old.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 11:33:58 GMTdhermanhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspx[quote][b]Ron Porter (11/2/2010)[/b][hr]... most Emergency Measures Organizations recommend keeping about 3 days of water [/quote]A germaine aside to water reserves - if for whatever reason water is no longer flowing to your house don't forget you have anywhere from 50 -100 gallons of water in your water heater.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 11:05:23 GMTTobarhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspxYou can't even pick up your own modem, but make your wife do it? Geez...Tue, 02 Nov 2010 11:00:36 GMTjcrawf02http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspxOft times I find that the Internet is a reminder of items that I don't know. However, I am glad that there is a community of users that can share all of this knowledge. We all benefit.If I did not have the Internet, I would be at a severe disadvantage on many levels!Tue, 02 Nov 2010 10:46:46 GMTJeffrey Irishhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspx[quote][b]thisisfutile (11/2/2010)[/b][hr][quote][b]Ron Porter (11/2/2010)[/b][hr]------snip-----------Are there risks? Certainly. Are we losing something? Probably. There are risks associated with not keeping our own gardens and livestock and we lose a specific kind of self-sufficiency, but overall our food delivery system provides a massive net benefit to both society and the individual. There are risks associated with becoming dependent on the Internet and there too we lose a specific kind of self-sufficiency, but I'd argue that it provides a massive net benefit to both society and the individual.[/quote]A fine, fine comment. I actually feel better having read it, but unfortunatley it's that risk you mention that I never thought about until it actually looked me in the face. Living in Ohio, we don't see a lot of natural disasters. In 2008, Hurricane Ike plowed through Texas and continued to make his way all the way up through the south and the mid-west wreaking havoc across many states. When he got to Ohio he was still sustaining 60MPH winds. Electricity was out in huge areas and word was quickly spreading that it could be up to 2 weeks or longer for some to get electric back. I remember going to the store to get some supplies to prepare for the worst. By the time I went to all the surrounding stores in the area (2 had power, 4 or 5 did not and therefore weren't open), everyone else had already been there. There was no batteries, no candles (except for some really bad smelling ones), no lamp oil, no generators, no flashlights, and no canned or dry foods. When the system fails, it fails big. Fortunately, a mere 22 hours after it all started, my section of town got its power back. During that time though, I realized I never thoroughly understood how dependant I was on electricity and the food supply chain. I'm not a hunter or a fisher so I'd have to learn really quick in a crisis (or start learning now in preperation). As for the Internet, I've never really considered what might happen in a time of crisis. My memory sucks (see previous post) and I'm absolutely dependant on it for my survival in the workplace. The writing is on the wall, I need to start hunting and fishing and stockpiling some canned goods, but I also need to plan for a network disaster and how it will affect my life (specifically, my job).[/quote]Yes, there are things we can do to mitigate the risks. In the case of food and water, most Emergency Measures Organizations recommend keeping about 3 days of water and don't even mention food. You probably don't need 2 weeks worth of water because within a few days other sources will kick in and most of us already have a week or so worth of food that could easily be stretched longer. I wouldn't worry about learning to hunt or fish for personal security reasons, because that implies a total breakdown of everything. That is so massively unlikely (for US and Canada, anyway) that there seems to be little point preparing for it. Of course, that is easy for me to say. I'm planning to move to our cabin full time and what it takes just to live there means I can easily survive total breakdown for at least 1 year and I've got great hunting and fishing on my doorstep :)So, any ideas on how to prepare for the risks associated with the loss of Internet? Personally, I take the same view as with basic survival. Just like I can safely go completely without food for a week, going without Internet for a week won't kill me. A month would be well beyond inconvenient, but still not life or livelihood threatening (Internet, not food!). Anything longer is so incredibly unlikely that I don't see much point in worrying about it.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 09:48:41 GMTRon Porterhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspxThis whole discussion reminds me of the good old days when there was no such thing as writing and people had to rely on their ability to memorize vast amounts of visual and oral data.Yeah, Socrates used to lament that young men were learning to read and write, because it was ruining their ability to memorize.Of course, the reason we know that is because someone [i]wrote it down[/i]. Hence, nobody knows the name of the guy who used to lament that young people were learning this new fangled "speaking", because it was ruining their ability to imitate animal noises or something, because nobody memorized it (that hadn't been invented yet) and definitely nobody wrote it down.Knowledge has been redefined so many times in human history, and every time, there are drawbacks to the "new way to know things", but the "new ways" that become "the old ways" have more advantages than disadvantages. You just have to keep the parts of the old ways that are necessary. Internet isn't very useful if you can't read.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 09:25:32 GMTGSquaredhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspx[quote][b]Ron Porter (11/2/2010)[/b][hr]I think that the Internet is just one more step along the 'just in time' path. So much of what we've done over the last several thousand years has been to reduce the need for individual stockpiling of anything. There was a time when each family needed to stockpile pretty much all of their own supplies. The Internet is making it possible for society to do with information what society has done for food--centralized storage to which people contribute as they are able and from which each person draws when and as necessary.In the context of this discussion, it might be useful think of the Internet like a 'grocery chain' for information. I don't have to buy (or grow!) a whole cow to put meat on the table and now with the Internet, I don't have to buy (or write) the whole book (or multi-volume set!) to get the job done. As with produce, I can be reasonably sure that 'the system' will keep me supplied with fresh (i.e. new) information as it becomes available, no matter where that information was produced or who produced it. As with meat, I can select from the finest cuts, the most cost-effective cuts, and the easiest to prepare. I can get exactly what I want or need exactly when I want or need it.Are there risks? Certainly. Are we losing something? Probably. There are risks associated with not keeping our own gardens and livestock and we lose a specific kind of self-sufficiency, but overall our food delivery system provides a massive net benefit to both society and the individual. There are risks associated with becoming dependent on the Internet and there too we lose a specific kind of self-sufficiency, but I'd argue that it provides a massive net benefit to both society and the individual.[/quote]A fine, fine comment. I actually feel better having read it, but unfortunatley it's that risk you mention that I never thought about until it actually looked me in the face. Living in Ohio, we don't see a lot of natural disasters. In 2008, Hurricane Ike plowed through Texas and continued to make his way all the way up through the south and the mid-west wreaking havoc across many states. When he got to Ohio he was still sustaining 60MPH winds. Electricity was out in huge areas and word was quickly spreading that it could be up to 2 weeks or longer for some to get electric back. I remember going to the store to get some supplies to prepare for the worst. By the time I went to all the surrounding stores in the area (2 had power, 4 or 5 did not and therefore weren't open), everyone else had already been there. There was no batteries, no candles (except for some really bad smelling ones), no lamp oil, no generators, no flashlights, and no canned or dry foods. When the system fails, it fails big. Fortunately, a mere 22 hours after it all started, my section of town got its power back. During that time though, I realized I never thoroughly understood how dependant I was on electricity and the food supply chain. I'm not a hunter or a fisher so I'd have to learn really quick in a crisis (or start learning now in preperation). As for the Internet, I've never really considered what might happen in a time of crisis. My memory sucks (see previous post) and I'm absolutely dependant on it for my survival in the workplace. The writing is on the wall, I need to start hunting and fishing and stockpiling some canned goods, but I also need to plan for a network disaster and how it will affect my life (specifically, my job).Tue, 02 Nov 2010 09:22:42 GMTthisisfutilehttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspx[quote][b]OCTom (11/2/2010)[/b][hr]What I truly do not understand is the need to be connected constantly in one's life. I view it as a kind of mass societal mental disease. There are few places to go where one is not surrounded by people on devices. People would rather text than talk. That is sad.[/quote]Perhaps it is sad, but I don't think that it's a new impulse. I've known many people over the years that seem incapable of just not talking. Driving somewhere, sharing a meal, sitting on beach; talk talk talk talk talk. I've often wondered if there was something about being with other people that turned on a vocalization of their stream of consciousness. I've also often wondered how they coped with being alone. Among my acquaintances it looks to me like there is a pretty close one-to-one mapping between 'speech addiction' and 'text addiction'.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 09:21:49 GMTRon Porterhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspxWhat I truly do not understand is the need to be connected constantly in one's life. I view it as a kind of mass societal mental disease. There are few places to go where one is not surrounded by people on devices. People would rather text than talk. That is sad.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 09:06:41 GMTOCTomhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspxPrior to the internet, I spent a lot of time browsing programming books, reading science fiction paperbacks, but mostly working in the garage or riding my bike. Actually, I still still do a lot of that even with the internet, because, with the exception of NetFlix and personal browsing on weekend mornings, I prefer to take a break from interfacing with computer when I'm away from work. I yearn for the day when computers are invisible, just dutifully performing their jobs like servants in the backgorund without demanding our attention, spamming us, or requireing us to stay "plugged in".When it comes to computers, we're still in the stone ages. Just like in that movie "Quest For Fire", where one designated member of the tribe was tasked with carrying around a lit torch in order to keep the fire burning. For them, fire was something magical and state or the art that required specialized skills to maintain, but today we take it for granted.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 08:55:24 GMTEric M Russellhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspxI rarely (and I mean RARELY) use bookmarks/favorites. Not using bookmarks forces me to keep a sharp "search" ability. I've always felt my memory was bad and leaning on the Internet to look up everything has made my memory even worse. My memory is so bad, I routinely find myself looking up definitions for certain words that I've already looked up (sometimes more than three or four times!) Back when it was a pain to go get the dictiionary and leaf through the pages, I made an effort to actually remember that word but today I feel I just don't have the time or resources to mess with it...besides, it's just a couple of keystrokes away, right? For me, I feel like the day I start using bookmarks is the day I'll lose my ability to search and then I'll be completely lost if my drive fails and my backups are bad.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 08:41:16 GMTthisisfutilehttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspxI think that the Internet is just one more step along the 'just in time' path. So much of what we've done over the last several thousand years has been to reduce the need for individual stockpiling of anything. There was a time when each family needed to stockpile pretty much all of their own supplies. The Internet is making it possible for society to do with information what society has done for food--centralized storage to which people contribute as they are able and from which each person draws when and as necessary.In the context of this discussion, it might be useful think of the Internet like a 'grocery chain' for information. I don't have to buy (or grow!) a whole cow to put meat on the table and now with the Internet, I don't have to buy (or write) the whole book (or multi-volume set!) to get the job done. As with produce, I can be reasonably sure that 'the system' will keep me supplied with fresh (i.e. new) information as it becomes available, no matter where that information was produced or who produced it. As with meat, I can select from the finest cuts, the most cost-effective cuts, and the easiest to prepare. I can get exactly what I want or need exactly when I want or need it.Are there risks? Certainly. Are we losing something? Probably. There are risks associated with not keeping our own gardens and livestock and we lose a specific kind of self-sufficiency, but overall our food delivery system provides a massive net benefit to both society and the individual. There are risks associated with becoming dependent on the Internet and there too we lose a specific kind of self-sufficiency, but I'd argue that it provides a massive net benefit to both society and the individual.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 08:37:41 GMTRon Porterhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspxThe Internet has spawned a whole generation of lazy techs that inadvertently follow this flowchart:[url]http://xkcd.com/627/[/url](BTW, a regularly brilliant and funny comic)I wonder what they'd do with the "orange wall" of VAX/VMS v4 manuals...RichTue, 02 Nov 2010 08:20:50 GMTrichj-826679http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspxI was interested in reading this, so I went to Borders (since I have a 40% off coupon right now) to pick up. Ironically, it's only available as a digital download.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 08:01:28 GMTBrnbnglshttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspx"Whats a BBS?" = Bulletin Board System. I remember that from wayyyyyyy back in the days... does that actually mean that we are "old timers"? :hehe:Tue, 02 Nov 2010 08:00:48 GMTBrian K. McDonaldhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspxI love it Rodney. Very true. I personally couldn't imagine life without it. And that's not because I'm so young that I grew up with it, because if you know me, that is far from true. I couldn't imagine that email getting sent to my iphone alerting me that my wife just spent a ton of money and my bank account has less than $500. :) I couldn't imagine not being able to query the rest of the virtual world for all of its wisdom (and craziness sometimes too). Who can remember it all right? I'd like to see Einstein in todays' world and see how much he could retain. For me, it is about knowing what and where to find the answer. Sort of like an index in my brain with different sites and queries. I quickly seek the index in my brain housing group. Tiny little electrical impulses are then sent throughout my body, bridging the synaptic gaps and firing my fat fingers to hit the keys on my keyboard in the sequence in which are stored in my permanent memory based on what the index tells me to look up. At any rate...I loved your editorial and look forward to the next one. Tell your wife that I said hello and I look forward to seeing you again soon.Take care,BrianTue, 02 Nov 2010 07:57:57 GMTBrian K. McDonaldhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspxI have to admit, I found today's editorial kind of funny...Steve, please don't forget us "old men" who spent (in my case) over 20 years in this business WITHOUT any internet. We survived and many of us flourished. In fact, long before any internet existed one of our favorite acronyms was going on various BBS's...So, when you want to know a veteran techie, just ask "Whats a BBS?" I wonder how many SQL Central devotees can answer that question!Tue, 02 Nov 2010 07:56:07 GMTblandryhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspxFace it, in the days before the internet systems were far less complex, it was *possible* to know just about everything there was to know about a system.Today? Not so much.Take SQL server. Thousands of developers over tens of years. No documentation worth having. (What ever happened to the art of clarity in documentation?) Of *course* you're going to need the net, with all its deeming masses squirreling away tidbits of knowledge gleaned through serendipity. It isn't a matter of *our* laziness, it's the vendors cutting corners and trying to beat everyone else to market with the latest whiz-bang.Simplicity is *hard*. Elegance is *extremely* hard. So the vendors slather the new goodness on top of the old, till you have the monstrosities we have today.*Undocumented* monstrosities, I might add...because clarity is also hard and takes time.Given that, I'll take the net. I'd rather have a system that was well thought out and does most of the grunt work for me, but failing that (and given vendor realities) I'll take what I can get.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 07:28:17 GMTroger.plowmanhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspx“SSIS, SSRS, cluster administration, performance tuning, and strong ability to look up any answer I do not know, or have not retained since the last lookup.”...so trueTue, 02 Nov 2010 07:06:48 GMTBrandt Smithhttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspx[quote][b]Jeff Moden (11/1/2010)[/b][hr]What I'm even more concerned about is lost learning due to the fact that certain programs and formats are no longer available. [/quote]For long term storage anything in bits and bytes is propably not the best option. A general recommendation within the genealogical community for example is printing on high quality paper and distribution of as much copies as possible over several libraries.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 06:31:26 GMTPhilipp Posthttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspxI think you hit the nail on the head when you talked about the Internet being an extension. You trust it to act as shared memory, in the same way that you trust your wife to remember things like when the dog's vet appointment is. It's a relationship and if you lose it, you get anxious. I was getting anxious just reading your account of having no access. Perhaps stuff like this is what disaster stories of the future will be like?Tue, 02 Nov 2010 06:22:10 GMTIan Massihttp://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1014249-263-1.aspxAgh: "Morg, quick throw spear".Morg: "Hit it. Good! Deer down."[Later around the dinner fire]Morg: "Agh, I don't know. First knife, then spear. I miss the days when I use to hunt with my bare hands."----------------------------------I also lament the days when I knew stuff off the top of my head. I remember resisting the GUI tools, I wanted to know what was under the hood. It is great to be able to work without the internet, but as with many things, I try not to make it wrong that we can. I think the truth is that we should always do the best we can with the best we have. My parents lived through the 1930s. They, and many of their contemporaries, then spent a life worrying about what happened by living as if it might happen again. I think we all would have "advanced" much more if they had been able to live in what is happening now instead of what might happen again. Or, to bring this philosophical meandering back to the topic, Just Do, Don't Sweat.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 05:08:50 GMTTobar