Recent Posts

Dont. Build it and they will come (probably). Try and focus on the style and content of the blog. Try to keep updating the blog on a regular basis. Make it easy for people to subscribe to the blog by creating an RSS feed - Feedburner is a popular, free choice. If you have succeeded in getting people to visit the blog and, better, maybe even subscribe to it, try to keep new material coming otherwise the blog will surely wither and die together with the interest of the your audience.

It is worth setting up pings so the main blog search engines index your blog. I manually ping Technorati after posting a new article (and check my posting gets indexed in due course) and just let Feedburner automatically ping a few more blog services.

I have also started to include Technorati tags at the end of the article. Initially I was a little reluctant to include tags that are specific to Technorati as it may be superseded in the future by another technology (remember how Altavista got obliterated by Google) but the use of Technorati tags does appears to be standard practice in the blogging community and does help in driving traffic to the site.

Try not to succumb to the temptation to go around adding meaningless comments (e.g. 'Great blog!') to other blogs in a subtle effort to get people to come and visit your blog. Even though, you succeeded in passing the onerous word verification test, this is not much better than spam and some might consider it rude. Instead, try to provide some useful contribution to the topic in question.

Do not put Google Adsense ads on your blog. Ads put me off almost immediately and waste valuable space on the screen. The dot com boom and been and gone. I would love it if you prove me wrong but no-one is going to get rich from a personal blog.

Don't become obsessed by the statistics for your blog. However, this is easier said than done and I find myself spending time, pouring over the Web logs and statistics reports for my blog. Maybe the analysis of the Web statistics (spiders, robots, RSS readers and the occasional human being) what was popular, the growth of the blog over time, spikes, the relative popularity of different referrers etc would be the basis for a interesting article.

London, near England - Wednesday 2 November 2005

The Oracle community was reeling yesterday from the revelation that the universally respected, internationally renown technical expert and long standing Oracle employee, Thomas Kyte, had made a mistake.

The error was discovered by a Senior Oracle DBA based in Solihull in the UK, Mr. N. Brightside who explained:

"I was dearly looking forward to attending the UK Oracle User Group in Birmingham and hoped to get my copy of Tom Kyte's latest book, (Expert Oracle - Database Architecture) signed by Tom personally. However, at the last minute, my manager told me that the end of Q3 was imminent and there was no budget available for the daily 4.50GBP return rail fare. So, I decided to 'work from home' and sit down to savour Tom's excellent book. Imagine my surprise when I found what appeared, at first sight, to be a typographical error on page 38. In a paragraph discussing other relational database systems, Tom incorrectly refers to 'Ingress' instead of 'Ingres'. Then to my horror, a quick search on AskTom revealed that Tom makes this identical misspelling elsewhere. It was not a typo, it was a genuine mistake."

A spokesperson for Apress (the publisher of Kyte's book) commented:

"Thank you for the feedback on Tom Kyte's book. We were unaware of this problem and will update the Errata section accordingly in due course. However, we did note Tom had a tendency to use a mixture of 'Apres', 'Apress' and 'Apresss' in communications while writing the book. We attributed this to the long hours he was working on the book, the tight deadlines or a faulty auto-repeating 'S' key.

When we politely brought this to his attention, he was absolutely mortified and apologised profusely for the inconvenience (additional hard parses, increased latching and CPU utilisation) caused. Thereafter, he would only refer to the company as ':B1 Publishing'."

Tom Kyte was quick to acknowledge the error and said he was only too pleased to correct the problem although he thought all the fuss and extra work involved was rather a 'bind'.

Don Burleson was unavailable for comment but sources reported he was 'absolutely ecstatic at the news'.

When I started this blog, I simply composed the posts in the Blogger editor which was adequate. Until one day, when I lost the complete text of a draft posting due to finger trouble. As I laboriously re-typed my masterpiece, I wished I had a blog editor with the infinite undo, auto-save and all the other features of Emacs.

However, composing the drafts in the Blogger editor was useful as I could edit drafts from anywhere and then publish the blog very easily.

I then looked at Writely and Writeboard which fit the bill but are really intended for collaborative writing on the Web and don't have any integration with Blogger.

The Qumana Blog Editor also looked very interesting as it includes integration with Blogger and built-in support for Technorati tags but still was essentially a cut-down Word lookalike interface.

Then I realised I had the perfect blogging editor sitting right under my nose all the time - Emacs. I can use all of Emacs powerful text editing features and simply save the draft text on my Web server using ange-ftp.

Adding Technorati tags is easy using Marshall Kirkpatrick's BlogTags bookmarklet.

The only thing Emacs is missing is the ability to seamlessly publish to Blogger and another minor irritation is the fact that some whitespace gets jumbled when pasting the text into Blogger.

However, Emacs being Emacs, some kind person has created a Lisp package (weblogger.el) that provides integration with Blogger although I haven't actually tried it yet.

And please don't ask why I don't use the Blogger for Word extension. I can simply think of nothing worse. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemies.

After briefly evaluating Furl, del.icio.us and Blinklist, I finally decided to ditch Furl and spurn the advances of del.ico.us in favour of Blinklist as my preferred one stop shop for all my social bookmarking needs.

Furl was my first experience of 'social bookmarking' but, as I became more comfortable with the idea of tagging Web pages, I found the Furl interface is simply horrible. There are simply too many key clicks required to add a single tag let alone two ! And if you want to add a brand new category, it takes so long that you have almost lost the will to tag the page and forgotten why it was of interest in the first place. It looks like the tagging functionality was added on as an afterthought.

I then experimented with del.ico.us as loads of people seem to rave about it and it appeared to be the longest established technology. After all, 50 million Web 2.0 aficionados and satisfied del.ico.us users can't be wrong, can they ?

However, just imagine that you are a first time user and you encounter the del.ico.us home page for the first time. The initial impression of the home page is absolutely terrible. What is it ? What does it do ? How do you use it ? How do you get help ? Where is the FAQ ? Or the tutorial ? Also, there is the confounded sub-domain - del.ico.us - and the oh so clever pun which I took three weeks to grasp.

After my previous post on social bookmarking, a nice gentleman from Blinklist spammed - sorry commented - on my blog to tell me about the existence of Blinklist so I felt obliged to evaluate Blinklist as well.

Blinklist's interface looks modern and clean, well designed and thought out as though they employ proper Web designers who actually use the system themselves ('eat your own dog food'). Contrast that with the initial page presented by del.ico.us which looks like an undergraduate knocked it up during a lunch hour and a manager said 'Looks good - let's run with it!'

It is true that I had some teething problems with Blinklist; for example when the tag editor kept insisting on SHOUTING AT ME and the odd tag got duplicated. However, I used the feedback form and tried to provide some constructive feedback to the Blinklist development team. Almost immediately, I found myself in direct email contact with a lead developer (well he could be the CEO for all I know) who passed on my suggestions and got them addressed very quickly. Sometimes they appeared to be making releases as quickly as I was providing feedback.

One of the best features of Blinklist is the tagging of pages is really quick and intuitive. Suitable tags are suggested automatically (which are usually adequate) and it is trivial to add as many new tags as you want - quickly. Blinklist also has a facility to import del.ico.us archives which worked fine for me when importing my massive archive of 15 pages. Your mileage may vary if you have 5,000 del.ico.us pages.

Although Blinklist doesn't keep a Web archive of the saved pages (like Furl) this doesn't really bother me as I can use the Internet archive if it really comes to it.

Of course, Blinklist has some disadvantages. I presume that Blinklist are a small startup and they are the new kid on the block in what is already a crowded marketplace. Worse, it is obvious that those clever people at Google labs will inevitably be entering this space (RSS Reader, My Search History) in the not too distant future.

Secondly, Blinklist has a relatively small user base (compared with Furl, del.ico.is, spurl et al) although this is compensated by the more intelligent, discerning type of people using the service and subsequent higher quality of the Blinklist content.

I recently stumbled upon Lisa Dobsons Oracle Newbies blog. Although I have never met Lisa, I admire her for two reasons. Firstly, she is about to give a presentation at the UK Oracle User Group in Birmingham. I am a good deal older than Lisa and the prospect of presenting to a large number of 'grumpy old men' would fill me with absolute dread.

Secondly, I really like Lisa's rather self deprecating, modest statement on her profile

I've been an Oracle DBA for 3 years, so still consider myself a 'Newbie'!

In my various jobs, I have met several people working with Oracle with less than three years experience who are variously described (either by others or themselves) as gurus and would take serious offence if anyone ever had the temerity to describe them as a 'newbie'.

Some of these people are indeed experienced, knowledgeable, approachable, flexible, adaptable and eager to learn and perhaps, just as importantly, to share their knowledge and teach others.

Others are undoubtedly very clever people but are somewhat narrow minded in their outlook and suffer from tunnel vision. These types are normally the self-appointed wizards but viewed as insular and unapproachable by others. They will improve performance almost instantly by adding or dropping an index, or gathering statistics but fail to communicate the fact to anyone but merely bask in the glory and yet higher, even more elevated status.

One aspect of my job that I enjoy is that I often visit a client for a short period (2-3 days) so I am blissfully ignorant of the politics, history and personalities involved. In addition, I simply do not have the time (or access) to use email to communicate. Instead I find I get more achieved quicker if I meet people face to face or call them on the telephone to find out information.

This can lead to some interesting situations. Often, the same questions couched in a slightly different way from a fresh face can lead to a different response. For example, a simple request to patch Oracle to 9.2.0.7 or to simply start the OEM Agent that has been repeatedly requested but ignored (or denied) for many months can miraculously become feasible almost immediately.

It is surprising how many so called technical issues actually turn out to be about communication.

Imagine walking into a department store to buy a TV. You weigh up all the possible options and decide which model you want. The price of this TV is £457. The assistant says That will be 457 pounds, Sir as she takes the credit card payment and arranges delivery for next week.

You then happen to go up to the second floor and see the identical TV for £422. That's £35 cheaper than what you've just paid. You go back to the assistant who sold you the goods to query this difference in the price. Unfortunately, the assistant is now on her lunch break but you are promised that she will call you back. She doesn't.

You then leave the department store via the ground floor where you see the identical TV priced at £565.

You arrive home and just happen to check the credit card receipt. The amount debited is £476 instead of £457. Silly you; you should have checked the amount more carefully at the time. You call the department store to complain. The customer services manager you need to speak to is on a break but he will call you back immediately. He doesn't.

Well that is how online shopping for a Dell computer works. There are many different possible ways to configure the identical specification for a desktop PC and get a completely different price ranging from £422 to £565. This difference appears to depend on which path (Offers page, Dimension page) you followed through the Dell web site (and which E-Code is listed) when you added and subtracted the various possible options to configure the final system.

So, if you are thinking of buying a computer from Dell, always compare every conceivable way of configuring the final system before placing the order. Always order on the Internet once you are confident you have obtained the cheapest price. Never order on the telephone from a human being. I was given one price on the telephone and when the invoice arrived via email, a higher price was listed.

Alternatively, it might be just simpler to buy your computer elsewhere.

Watches are useful. My main requirements for a watch are:

1. Display the precise time at all times.
2. Do not need any maintenance like winding or changing the batteries.
3. Automatically adjust for GMT/BST.
4. Automatically adjust for current timezone anywhere in the world.
5. Light. I don't want or need a micro-computer on my wrist that also tells me the weather, my resting heartbeat and the altitude.

So I bought this Casio Waveceptor watch.

1. This watch synchronises with a radio transmitter to guarantee the time is absolutely 100% correct at all times. I know this works because the watch is always precisely in sync with my digital TV service (and British Rail at Waterloo). The two transmitters are located in the UK and Germany but I rarely travel outside Europe.
2. The watch is solar powered so does not need winding or any batteries. No more replacement batteries costing a fiver every two years. No more lengthy discussions about invalidating the warranty because the jeweller has to open up the back to fit the new battery.
3. Yes.
4. Almost but not quite. When travelling, you have to temporarily set your location to the current city and the watch adjusts automatically.
5. The titanium strap means the watch is very light.

Close to absolute perfection.

Airports are pretty dull places. Last Wednesday, I found myself at Heathrow T2, at some unearthly hour in the morning. I wandered round Dixons to have a quick look at the latest gadgets and kill some time. I happened to see a couple of items I was interested in. The first was Microsoft Office 2003 for Student Edition (3 user license). I had already seen this on Amazon at 91GBP and Dixon's tax free price was 110GBP which was, err, twenty pounds more expensive. So, not exactly a brilliant saving at Dixons Tax Free shopping there.

Secondly, a cheap MP3 player (Logik 1GB). This was only 63GBP at Heathrow which was odd because the identical model is available for only 54GBP in my local Dixons on the high street and has also been advertised recently in the national press. So, another triumph for so called Tax Free shopping at Dixons.

Even more odd is that Dixons have a large poster at the entrance to the store proclaiming 'We beat Amazon/Tesco/Argos prices'. Now in the light of my very limited price comparison of just two items, that poster would seem to be misleading at best, downright dishonest at worst and possibly in breach of trading standards regulations.

The poster implies to potential customers that Dixons are proactively monitoring prices at three other major competitors and undercutting their prices so you can buy from Dixons with confidence. I realise that Dixons are under massive pressure from UK supermarkets (who sell cheap DVD players alongside Cornflakes) and internet retailers. In addition, Dixons' profits have also been badly hit by the decision to stop forcing lucrative, extended warranties onto customers but is this really the way to win business back.

Out of interest, I sent an email to Dixons for their thoughts....

I was just looking at my Web site and spontaneously decided to end its sad, sorry life. Static content unchanged in years with dead links with little of interest to anyone. Part blog, part bookmarks, part experiment in HTML. Now consigned to the Internet archives.

I was flying back from Dusseldorf to London on Lufthansa yesterday. For some reason, the kind lady at the check-in desk, upgraded me to business class so I got a nice bread roll and cloth napkin. The gentleman next to me was very disappointed that there were no English language newspapers available on board. When the steward asked why he didn't pick one up at the gate, he became even more irritated, telling him in no uncertain terms that there were no 'English' newspapers at the gate and worse, not a single 'English' newspaper in the business lounge.

So he finally settled down with a copy of 'The Economist' or so I thought. Next thing the senior cabin director was summoned. This time the gentleman, still, obviously disgruntled asked 'Are you trying to cater for an international audience ?' The lady politely explained the situation, apologised once again and offered to scour the plane for a paper. Then he said 'What's the point of me paying extra money to fly business class if you can't even offer me an English newspaper ?' and finally let the subject die.

Two things struck me:

• I bet his company, or more likely, his client are the ones paying the premium for business class and not him.

• I was simply dying to say 'Well next time you fly on British Airways at 17.00 on a Friday to any German destination, why don't you see how many copies of 'Die Welt' and 'Der Spiegel' are available for German passengers ?'