Now this is tempting ….

Yesterday I did catch up with my brother on Yahoo. He is actually over in the USA and like me a great fan of all that shiny new things offered in electronic stores! So it was no wonder he was strolling into a lot of shops comparing rate and based on our Euro is actually very strong it is no wonder buying things there seems to be very lucrative at the moment.

Now generous he is, he offered me to do a bit of shopping for me as well! 😐

How tempting! Can I resist? Hardly I guess … at least we have already started to speak about specific models he will now look into and check out for me. 🙂

Recently I got involved into some application performance problem. Now it’s funny to hear how sure everybody is when it comes to performance issues that it is not the application and the programming itself.

Everything was checked twice, nothing had been changed since ages and the application part in question did always work reliable …. What to do?

Sure, it must be an database issue and the dba is in charge to solve solve the problem by tweaking the db and therewith rescue the world for all.

Hmmmmm …. ok with everybody that sure I first kept my mouth shut, logged in into the system and checked the cpu and memory usage.  A cpu usage of 37% on a stable level over a longer period of time, a database server process consuming 1,6GB of memory …. really not an all day thingy.

So I asked the developers what the application would do there right now?! Nothing specific they said! Running a  simple query  which usually completes within milliseconds. Ah .. ok …. but it didn’t look that was it would complete in milliseconds right now.

Ok then, having some point to start with I picked up the query, had a look at the tables , substituted the bind variables with values they gave me, did run the query and asked the database for the execution plan … All fine!! 😐

So I finally I had the idea to simply count the variance and frequence of the stored primary key attributes.

And see there with the right value used within the where clause chosen for filling the bind variables  the whole execution plan changed! No index where used anymore  and a full table scan was performed!

Someone should really know about his or her data stored within the db and it not …. remember some simple mathematic operations which even the database will do for you! 😉

I left as quiet as I came, as for it was anyway very calm in the room ….

This past weekend was just great – sun, mild temperatures and no single drop of rain at all!

Right on friday I tried to finish all really necessary task getting the freedom to be able to use all the time of the coming two days. Especially this year with a dragging rainy and cold April the wish to stay outside and enjoy nice conditions is strong.

So on saturday morning right after breakfast I went for my biker gear (you know? that “real bike” stuff), dressed up and move my Suzi out of the garage. Heading into the nowhere without having any idea where the street will lead me I ended up in scratching the border between France and Germany a few time, having a real enjoyable coffee and cake in some “outside” restaurant to finally return during late late afternoon more or less tired but overall happy with myself, the day itself and the world in general! 🙂

Nevertheless there were the need for some grocery shopping left and so I finally did take the car driving to some supermarket and ending up in an bigger electronic store (huh … thats late evening shopping until 10pm 😉 ) looking again for such an MacBook Air …. duh 😐 I guess sooner or later I will end up with such a thingy …

Then again on sunday I was keen to repeat my other day adventure again. So I directly heading to my Suzi again which I even hadn’t brought back into the garage for the night and left home straight away.

This time my way and the street did lead me into the so called “Old World”! It is a lovely and quiet piece on earth. Mostly covered with beautiful farmland and broken up with smaller and bigger patches of forest, a little bit back in time compared with the more urbanised and industrial area here where I live.

It was such a wonderful day that I even nearly got lost about cruising all these small and narrow little countryside roads forward and backwards for ages and had to use my map to be able to find my direction out of this area finally heading home in the evening! Such day should never end!

I recently have given someone a helping hand. For a few days I had fun playing with some stuff. First it needed me to get familiar with it. Then I started tweaking things here and there and did run in some issues for sure … mostly caused by misunderstandings and trying to change stuff not originally written by me and already coming along containing some inherit issues and problems in it.

After a pretty short time of just a few days and even for my feelings surprisingly,  I was able to say … I’ve done – Just finished something within a testing environment and later on bringing it in place are two very different things. And therefore I was not really surprised about the guy had trouble using it directly.

It needed me 3 or 4 days to get a feeling for it and now there are already new changes made by him!

Anyway it is just a question of time, a few more tweaks here and there and most important!! about to build up a common understanding between him and me about how things work together first.

Soon you will see!! 😉

Do you believe in horoscopes and prognostications?

Honestly I’m not much into such stuff! In general I think about that as nonsense and instead I deeply believe that everyone is responsible for his/her fate in general him-/herself. I feel happy or lucky when I want to be happy or I ensure having a personal positive attitude in general. for me it is about what I do or not do making the difference for me and others at the end.

So I guess it’s just easy amusement when I from time to time read or listen some horocope for me.

Now ironically last year I got a little horoscope calendar (one new horoscope a day) as a present from a client and right today I was in the mood to look on it.

So for today there is now written (I have to translate as for it is in German!):

Today the wheel of fortune is just spinning for you!
Something will happens today making your private and business life easier for a long time. Enjoy your life at the best, but take care not to spend all again too thoughtlessly.

So what to do now?! gulp 😐

Just to sit down and wait? How will I recognise it or when it has happend? All these lots of questions now 😐 ……. 😉