I arrived in Richmond, VA this morning earlier than expected. I was meeting a few people and things were pushed back, so I had the chance to go by Best Buy and find a USB->VGA adapter. Apparently they don’t have the HP VGA cable, so I got this adapter instead.
I opened the box to find the device, and a CD. That’s interesting because the netbook doesn’t have a CD drive. I’d debated about grabbing an external DVD drive when I was in the store, but my bag is heavy enough. With my laptop, power adapter, extra USB disk drive, and now the netbook it feels like I’m carrying quite a load.
So how to get this working? Luckily I had an idea. I hit the local Starbucks and then connected to the web, downloading drivers from Tritton Technologies. One annoying thing was once I’d gotten to the site, they list a number of models, all of which look alike. I had the device with me, but not the box, and there as no model number printed on the device. A serial number, but that didn’t help. Grrrrr.
I had to go back to the car, look at the box, and then download the driver. I suspected that there was one driver for all models, but I hate trying to uninstall drivers. I’m still a little gunshy after all these years working with Windows.
Once that was done, I wrote a couple blogs, including this blog on the device. Some impressions:
I’ll have more impressions over the next few weeks as I use this and compare it with my laptop.
Unpacking the netbook was pretty simple. Open it, grab the large one page poster, and then the netbook. There were basically 3 steps. I'd completed one by removing the netbook. Step two was to snap in the battery, and then step 3 was to connect power. I guess step 4 was to turn it on, which I did.
It has a power brick, which is annoying for a small device, but there's not much you can do since they are trying to keep the device itself so small. Power and wireless on/off are on the front, connections on both sides. They even include a USB snap in cover for that port.
Turning it on starts the Windows XP setup, which I haven't seen in years. Even with a 16GB SSD, it was surprisingly slow. I think that's just XP setup, which was slow. I turned to my laptop, trying to ensure I had things working there while that device booted. I knew it had booted since I had a nice Yanni/New-agey music track playing in the background. I looked over there, and sure enough it was waiting for me to choose the XP setup options (English, etc.). I walked through the setup, including giving it a name. I chose "Tiny" since that's what it is. I'm tired of having names like "desktop", "Steve_Laptop", so I'm following Jerry Pournelle and giving my machines nice names.
After that happened, the machine rebooted, which was noticeably faster, and I was ready to go. I connected to the hotel's wireless network and I was online.
Now time to experiment with some work.
It was not what I expected. When I was leaving for a run this morning, I decided to apply an update to Vista and let it reboot, thinking I'd defragment the drive when I returned. It was acting funny and running slow, so this seemed like a good idea to me.
I got back from the run, went to sync my Nike + run and noticed the machine was off, so I pressed power and then sat down to stretch with water thinking this would take some time. After I was done, I went to check email and noticed that the laptop was still stuck on the POST screen, with the progress bar about 2/3 of the way across.
Uh oh.
This had happened last week, just before we left, and it had me worried. I thought the hard drive had failed, but when I powered down, left it for 10 minutes, and powered up, it seemed to work fine. I thought I'd do that here. After 10 tries, I was seriously worried.
My first thought was Holy Sh*t! Here I am, on vacation, 1700 miles from home, I got that from a sign nearby :), and I have a presentation to do tomorrow. I don't even have the presentation on a USB key, because well, I'm an idiot. I do have it up on Live Mesh, so I could get it, but I needed to work on it. I also had some stuff on a USB drive, but I am by no means sure I have most of my stuff from the drive.
So I sat for a few minutes and thought about it. My best bet was probably to go get a netbook. I've been thinking about it, and it would be a good solution for a few days. I should have a service contract with Toshiba (this machine is a Qosmio F45), but they won't likely get anything done before I get home, and I have all the 411 at home, and I'm leaving for Richmond tomorrow, then back here Fri night and flying home Sat.
Luckily I have the amazing T-Mobile G1 phone with 3G and I could look up the local Best Buy. I found one on the S side of Baltimore, about 10 mi away, so I showered and packed up. Just before leaving I tried the laptop again, and success! It booted, so I hooked up my USB drive and copied over all documents, pictures, downloads, and videos to the external drive. At least I have a copy of everything. Then it was off to Best Buy.
My purchases were:
I'd asked the Geek Squad person in the store, since I knew there were ways to clone a disk drive, and he pointed me in this direction. I can use the Black Widow dock with any SATA drive, 3.5" or 2.5" and that will let me hook both drives to my laptop. From there I can boot the Acronis software and then clone my 160GB drive onto the 320GB one. Hopefully with one partition, but in any case, I'll have a working (fingers crossed) laptop.
Since I wasn't confident, and I could use a traveling machine that can be low power for presentations, the HP will come in handy. Once I have the laptop squared away, I think I'll move to Windows 7 and see how that does.
I'm afraid to clone the drive right now since I need to get a few things done, but I'll try it later and see where I come out.
Today is the first day that I've really had any significant time on the computer over vacation. That probably sounds like it should be the rule, and it does tend to be, but this is the first time in a long time that I've let go of SQLServerCentral for a week and allowed others to be responsible for editorials, scheduling newsletters, everything! Typically I've done some work beforehand to be prepared.
Being busy with my nephews and family has kept me going, and it's been great wandering around the northern DC/southern Maryland area. I've had the chance to catch up with my brother, Mom, and other family. Only with my son being gone to a leadership conference, and my daughter sleeping in, do I have time to write a little bit.
And I've missed it. Not the work, but the writing. Perhaps I'm more done as a technology guy than I realized.
I made a series of resolutions in January related to SQLServerCentral. These are things that I wanted to accomplish this year, things to work on, and it’s time to check how I am doing for through the second quarter. I’ve copied the list below and included my updates as of June.
I was asked to attend SQLSaturday #17 in Baton Rouge, LA. Despite my lack of desire to travel, I've never been to Louisiana (just driven across), the timing is good, and so I submitted an abstract to speak. The organizers had asked Red Gate to send someone, and since I'm the closest, I got asked.
So I should be in Baton Rouge on Friday, July 31, though I likely will fly into New Orleans and then drive up. I've never been there, so this will be the chance to see the city.
I recently attended SQL Saturday #14 in Pensacola and took my daughter along. This was the third presentation she's come with me for, and it worked out OK. She sat up front and flipped slides for me as I'd forgotten my clicker on the trip.
However it wasn't perfect. At the speaker's dinner she put up with Andy, Brian, Tim Mitchell, and Devon Knight out at dinner. She wasn't happy, but she did it without complaining. The same thing happened at the after party, and she let me stay longer than we'd agreed on, mostly thanks to Ms. Jessica Moss entertaining her a bit. I owe Jessica a drink for that!
I've been invited to a few more events this year, and I have PASS and SQL Connections scheduled as well, but I won't be bringing anyone this year. Last year I brought my son early to PASS and then he flew home alone, but I've got too much travel scheduled, and don't want to be gone longer than necessary.
My wife and I have brought out families along with us on trips, usually with a relative or the other of us along to keep them occupied. There are times that it works out and times it doesn't, but it's allowed our kids to see a lot of the country, way more than I ever saw before I turned 18.
The kids get into podcasts at times as well, though not as much as they'd like. It takes time to get them in sometimes, and the daily grind doesn't allow it.
Most of the times the kids are pretty understanding that Mom and Dad work at home, and we appreciate that. Both of us being Type A means that we work a lot, and that impacts the kids at times, but we try to make it up to them, and use our flexible schedules to our advantage. I go to lunch with kids sometimes, spend time with them when they get back from school, go on most field trips, etc. They even play hooky with me some days and go up to the mountains to ski!
It's not always appropriate to integrate kids into your work, but when you can, it's a great lesson for them to see their parents working hard and earning a living.
I still love my G1, and I got a pleasant surprise recently. I was out at dinner with my wife, and we needed to look something up. So we decided to race, her with her Blackberry Curve (and Verizon), me with my Tmobile G1. The kids were excited, and so I turned it on and saw a note about an update. I clicked "OK", not really thinking about it since I get these messages all the time from apps I have installed on there. Just as my finger was pressing the screen, I read "Android" in the message and couldn't stop myself.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
I hate OS updates, especially when I'm trying to do something else. So I sat there, waiting about 10 minutes while it downloaded the update and then restarted my phone. It applied the update as well, so the restart was about 5 minutes more. There were some cool images on the phone as it applied the updates, so at least there was something to look at.
The update finished, I popped a browser, looked up my item (losing horribly in the race) and went on with my evening. The next day, I was riding in the car with Kendall next to me, and I got a message from someone. Normally when I respond, I pop open the keyboard and type my response. This time, I clicked the screen to highlight the text box and was about to open the keyboard when a virtual keyboard popped on screen.
That was cool. I'd never seen it, and with Kendall leaning on my arm, I didn't have to move. I one thumbed a message out, making a few mistakes, but not many, and sent it. All without opening the phone. Since then there are a few times when I've used the virtual keyboard, since it's easy to do, works well, and provides feedback about which item you've pressed. It's not quit as quick as the physical keyboard, but it works well one handed and I don't have to open the screen.
The other interesting thing I noticed was during a phone call. Where I live the voice mail system never connects automatically. When I call, it assumes I need to leave a message and I have to his ***, then enter my phone number and password. However the interaction between the ***, the message to enter a phone number, and then the message for the password, is slow. You can't jump the gun and you have to wait. However when I wait, my phone always goes dark and I have to hit the menu button to bring the virtual dialpad back up to make the entries (or open the device).
This time, I hit *** and then listened for the system. When it responded I was set to hit "Menu", but all of a sudden noticed a padlock icon on the screen with a "double tap to unlock" message on it. A quick double tap and I was entering info again. It doesn't sound like much, but it's a much easier, and simpler way to handle this, and it really made me appreciate the OS.
Little things like that are why I really like Android and this phone. I'm not sure I'd always want to be stuck with the virtual keyboard, but it's nice to have that option.
It's late, it's been a busy day, so why bother to spend 10 or 15 minutes at night jotting things down?
For me there are a few reasons, but the main one is that it's cathartic. I can unwind a little, let go of things, and sometimes think more clearly. When I was doing more authoring, a little writing after work helped to cement some ideas in my head, and many times gave me something to ponder or work on overnight or throughout the next day.
Taking a few minutes to write usually just makes me feel better, and better understand what's happened in my day.
I went to add a few things to the new Windows 7 desktop today, and of course I have installer issues. I'm trying a few things, and need to post what works.I did solve my screen saver issue. Apparently lots of USB mice and keyboards don't allow the screen saver to activate, which was my issue. I downloaded updated drivers for 64-bit for my Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 5000 and it's now working.Hurrah!
One of the new features with SQL Server 2008 is the addition of extensible key management, allowing hardware devices to be integrated into the encryption/decryption process for the keys securing your data. There are various vendors that are building Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) that can connect to your SQL Server instance.
The author of the book I'm tech editing set up a SafeNet Luna HSM device on a machine he has and gave me access through a VM. It's an interesting device, and while I haven't seen it, it allows you to offload some of the encryption/decryption processing from your SQL Server to the device. This should speed up your encryption, though I haven't had a real world workload to really test it. And I hate running things over a VM remotely.
The architecture allows for these HSM devices to plug right into the SQL Server encryption stack. You create asymmetric and symmetric keys (depending on which your device supports) the same way, adding a "WITH PROVIDER" clause to your CREATE statements.
The provider is how an EKM system hooks into SQL Server. Essentially you are registering your device within SQL Server as a way to handle cryptographic functions, kind of like you used to register DLLs so you could implement an extended stored procedure. In this case there is a new CREATE statement, the CREATE CRYPTOGRAPHIC PROVIDER which registers the DLL for your EKM system. This is provided by the manufacturer and doesn't get you access to the device. There will be a device specific procedure for logging into the device. Once that is complete, you'll have to set up a credential and grant a login rights to the credentials for other individual logins to use the HSM device.
Why go through this?
Speed is one since these devices are optimized for encryption/decryption routines, but also because your server's CPU isn't being spent with these math-intensive operations. These devices also can have their own backup routines for keys, so you can possibly prevent sysadmins from being able to access data.
One thing I'd say is to go slowly and carefully if you implement one of these devices. Actually, you would never implement one of these devices. The chance of failure or problems is too great. You would always want two of these, keeping one in another location for DR purposes, but perhaps somewhat close in the event of routine errors.
This is an interesting addition to the encryption and security framework of SQL Server. I expect to see more vendors build HSM devices in the near future.
Someone asked me recently if I subscribed to any services to keep up with SQL Server content. Meaning did I "pay" for content.
I said "no" at first, but wanted to follow up with more details. Since this was across Twitter, 140 characters doesn't leave much room for details, and I hate, hate, hate, people that can't be succinct on Twitter. If you can't make your thoughts known in 10 characters, write somewhere else, but that's another post. Moving on.
I want to revise my answer. I do pay for content all the time. If you clicked the link for to look it up, you paid for the content. How? By viewing advertisements.
Sure, you might have glossed over the ads, not seen then, and just read the definition. In that case, let me show you them again:
In this slice that shows what I had on my screen, there are actually 6 ads that I noticed. I glossed over them as well, but I went back to look. There are 3 traditional ads: the top banner, the left bar, and the lower right. However the other three items are actually ads for their sister services, or related content, trying to get you to stick on the page, and perhaps give them a chance for another ad to catch your eye.
Some people just see this as annoying, but it's a part of how the world works. Most things cost something, and advertising is one way of moving the cost away from a direct payment. You might not like it, but do you give things away for free? Most of you don't. Sure, you might do a nice thing here and there for people, but if the guy or gal in the next cube came and asked you to teach them something every day about SQL, you'd get annoyed. You'd want some compensation for your time. Maybe them buying lunch or bringing donuts in the morning would satisfy you. But you'd want something.
Most people want to be paid for their knowledge, but don't necessarily want to pay others.
I'm ranting a bit, and I apologize, but it's important. I make my living with words, out on the Internet, mostly for free dissemination, allowing you to read them without paying me directly. You do pay, and if you look around our site, there are a few subtle advertising items that pay the bills.
However in order to not confuse you more than you already are, I'll not count advertising as "pay" and say that those sites are "free" to the average user.
Yes, it's certainly worth paying for good information. If someone goes to the trouble of researching, organizing, and then explaining things to you, they deserve to be paid. I think books are a great example of a concentrated amount of knowledge that is worth paying for. Not all of them, and you can argue the specific costs, but there is value from the authors putting the entire thing together.
Books Online, which I use almost daily, is sorely lacking in areas, and really doesn't give you enough information in how you might use a particular feature. A great example are the security and encryption sections, which I think are poorly thrown together. There are others, but it's really lacking in detail.
White papers, articles, blogs, all are great sources of information, but to really cull together a good slice of knowledge, you end up searching around, and putting things together for yourself. There's nothing wrong with that, but you are spending your time doing that, and presumably your time is worth something.
The "something" is either more or less than the cost of a book or subscription. If it's more, it's worth paying someone for the knowledge.
That is a very interesting question. I'll try to give you a few thoughts here on some sites that do charge you money and let you know what I think of them. If there are any that you use, please feel free to ping me and I'll make some notes, or update this blog post.
I used to have a subscription to SQL Server Magazine early in my career. It was a place to see Kalen Delaney, Itzik Ben-Gan, and others writing regularly about SQL issues, at a time when there were few SQL Server publications. It was something I looked forward to every month.
However over the years I've seen the size of the magazine shrink and shrink, and seeing fewer and fewer authors. As a result, while I think this is a great magazine, I'm not sure of the value for the cost. It is one of the few places to see regular work from people like Mr. Ben-Gan, and you'll have to decide if there is enough value for you.
This was the inspiration for the SQL Server Standard magazine I used to publish. We looked at this journal from Pinnacle Publications and thought if they could sell this magazine, we could as well. It's now SQL Server Solutions and while I haven't seen it in awhile, it had some great content years ago. However at $300 a year, I'm not sure there's that much value in the magazine when there are so many other publications around for free or less money. This is essentially 6 books and do you think you get more value then from 6 books?
I don't think so.
To me, this magazine is getting fat from relatively few subscribers that like the journal format. Good for them, but I wouldn't recommend this. In flipping through the sample issue, I don't see content that is substantially better than what I put out for free.
This one is the most common site that I see people talk about. In fact, I get a few complaints a year emailed to me, asking for refunds of their subscription fees. Why they email me, I'm not sure. Maybe they are confusing one Steve (Jones) with another (Wynkoop). Most likely I think they come to SQLServerCentral so often, it's second nature. And when someone says they didn't pay to subscribe to SQLServerCentral, they email me.
In any case.
The SSWUG model originally was that of an aggregator of SQL, XML, and other content. Kind of like a domain specific search engine. I think Oracle and DB/2 as well. It was a mix of original content and content available around the Internet, with the catch that you had to pay to get the links. I, along with a few other authors, were upset that our content was appearing on SSWUG, where people had to pay to get the link when they could come to our sites and view the content for free. It appears that SSWUG has changed as I don't see content from around the web on the site.
This site has a lot of regular content, both SQL Server, Oracle, Sharepoint, and XML stuff in both text and video. There's a SSWUG TV show that regularly appears and is well produced. Steve Wynkoop hosts it and has a great studio set up, much better than anything I have. I'd like to get there, but it's time, money, and not sure it fits for me. At least not right now.
I don't have a paid membership at SSWUG, which costs about $80 a year, mostly because I don't think I'd get that much from the content. I'm a good self-starter, read a lot, and can find things around. I flipped through the authors on SSWUG, most have no bio, and aren't people I've heard of. A few have written some articles for me, and so I'd question the value of paying for their work at SSWUG.
Try it if you want, but buyer beware. I'm not refunding your money if you don't like it.
It's not an articles site yet, but I see that section in beta. However this site comes up a lot in Internet searches, so I mention it.It's a site where you can get information by subscribing, and the experts that answer your questions get paid somehow. Plans range from $12.95 a month to $99 a year.
Is this worth it? I don't think so. A guarentee of an answer in an hour is pretty good, but I bet most questions on SQLServerCentral are answered within an hour. I bet MSDN, StackOverflow, and many other sites boast the same track record, and you have acknowledged experts in their fields, MVPs and others, answering the questions. You can see what other things they've answered, get their bios, etc. In other words, gain some confidence from their answers.
If this site paid well, I'm certain I'd see lots of MVPs and other experts recommending it since they'd be working there. My guess is the corporate owners of this site make most of the money. I think most experts work for free, so I wouldn't recommend this location.
I love books, I love my Kindle, and I think books are a great way to dive into a topic. They don't necessarily give you practical information, but they are great references, they're organized, and I think they give a great jumpstart into a new topic.
I definitely think there is value in having books, especially as I am seeing more and more focused books on topics like Backup and Recovery, Full-Text Search, and more.
There are lots of them out there. I run SQLServerCentral, there's SQLTeam, Database Journal, SQL-Server-Performance, SearchSQLServer, and more. We don't always organize the information, and don't necessarily lead you from point A to point B, but we have lots of great articles, scripts, and other sources of information to help you learn.
One thing I will say is that we have some great forums as well, so if you want to have someone assist you in learning, ask a question. I bet you'll get a response, and someone will help you move forward, something quite a few paid resources won't do.
No.
Blogging is not for everyone and you don't want to give the impression you are something you are not doing something right if you don't blog. Not everyone is a writer, not everyone likes putting their thoughts down, and not everyone is brave enough to publish out on the Internet.
It takes a thick skin, and even after doing this for years, I still get attacked regularly, and I don't always take it well. I'll admit it gets to me. Luckily I have a good support system with my wife and friends that can pick me up when I've had a particularly nasty comment.
I do a presentation on The Modern Resume, telling people how to big a more noticeable presence in the world, making yourself stand out more. I think blogging is the easy way to do this, but there are others:
I don't think you can get away from writing completely since you'll need to document and explain things you've done. However it can be as simple as notes you've made to yourself and a few lines on your resume or CV.
Writing is a skill, however, and I'd encourage you to develop it. If you don't want to blog, it still makes sense to pay attention to how you communicate in email, in reports, and in documentation. Learn to do it better and your career will benefit.
In my Modern Resume presentation, I tried to structure it to go from easy to hard things to do in terms of branding yourself. So the order has been:
Actually I added research later, so that is at the end when it really is the easiest (I think) for people to do. Or maybe not. It requires some confidence in yourself to admit mistakes and ignorance, so maybe it’s not easy.
At a recent presentation I was discussing this with Andy Warren and he disagreed. He said blogging was hard for most people, that they can’t maintain it and my bias as a writer has me spending too much time on it.
I think I agree after some thought on the matter. Writing is hard for many people, and even though they recognize that it’s a skill they need to IT (writing, communicating), most people won’t do it any more than they have to.
So what is the correct order? How should I focus on them in my presentation? I think for the average guy/gal, the easiest things are likely :
I’ll play with the order, but I am interested to see what others think. My view is that speaking and authoring, trying to put out a message, is still hard, but volunteering your time and knowledge, either in IT or outside, is probably easier than blogging. Even leadership, being a team lead or project lead, is probably easier for most IT people.
What’s the cost of e-books? It’s an interesting question that I have always wondered. I found this account of the cost of books, and it makes sense to me. I think this is about what I expect.
It is somewhat confirmed by this section on CoolerBooks: What aren’t ebooks cheaper? However Coolerbooks, which is selling another eReader (in color) called the Cool-er Reader, isn’t giving a huge discount. Wicked Prey, the new John Sandford novel, sells for $22.36 from Cooler books (in ebook form). If you had their e-reader, you’d get 25% off, or it would cost $16.77. That’s the cost from Amazon for the hardcover.
The Kindle edition is $9.99.
I know Amazon takes a loss on some books, but if they can offer the hardcover for $16, can’t Coolerbooks to better? After all, it’s without the paper cost, which isn’t much, call it $3, but that adds up. It seems to me that perhaps Coolerbooks, who says they’ll never sell at a loss, isn’t necessarily disclosing what level of profit they want.
By my reckoning, the publisher's cost of the book is about $10. So Amazon is at cost, but I'd think that other retailers could sell books in the $12-15 range and make a profit. If not, then perhaps they're not doing a good job.
I was annoyed recently with Amazon offering a book I wanted to buy, brand new from an author, for $14. I wrote them and they responded saying the publisher sets the price. I wrote the author, and got a response back saying Amazon was playing games. Of course the publisher sets the price. At $29.99!!
This was a best selling author, fairly successful, and I heard that he has no input into the price of the book. Based on some reading I've been doing of author blogs, this seems right, but it also seems that no one wants to really talk about it. I think they are concerned about their relationships with publishers, and perhaps they are happy with the arrangement.
I don't know if I'll ever get anything published, but I am tempted to just find a good editor and go it alone. I might not make any money, but I would like to have the control to charge what I think are fair prices.
