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Many thanks for your lovely, thought provoking email.

Unfortunately, I am currently on annual leave (although I couldnt resist the temptation to check my work email when the wife wasn't looking tonight).

I will reply to your email on my return on Monday 30 October.

Well, actually I won't. If it was sent to a mailing list, I will probably skip it but may dig it out from the archives in a few months when I am onsite desperately looking for a solution to the identical problem.

If your communication was spam then, I regret to inform you that, your kind offer of a 16" penis didn't get past the corporate spam barrier. Hard to believe but it's true, three and a half years and a single (yes, count them - one) spam email has reached my Inbox.

Alternatively, if your email matches one of my filters, then your amusing joke about The Killers new LP, MUFC or that unfortunate incident in the pub last Thursday will be ignored (for now).

If your email is work related and directed to me personally, then it will either be acted upon (if it takes less than 2 minutes), delegated (problematic as no-one is stupid enough to report to me) or deferred for action at some point in the future (honest).

And if you were the idiot who inadvertently called me to enquire about my availability during my brief chance to forget all about work and spend quality time with my family, I gave your name, mobile number and address to my wife.

Something I didn't watch: Longford

Something I did listen to: The Smiths Troy Tate sessions

I am slowly trying to fully assimilate and comprehend these facts:

1. Google is now worth more then IBM
2. IBM invest a lot of resources in SecondLife while I am still resistant to IM.
3. Manchester United placed posters of Liverpool's past successes in the visitors section at Old Trafford. Rumour has it the pictures were only black and white but were still stolen after Liverpool's recent 2-0 defeat.

Yesterday, my son took part in a junior tennis tournament. As I watched the competitive matches in progress, there was a lot of fist pumping, grunts, muttered expletives, muted swearing, loud groans and self flagellation. And that was just the parents. Most of the kids were just enjoying the tennis.

I often wonder how many of these parents were living out their dreams through their offspring. Both of my children have already achieved more in competitive sport than I ever did so I am immensely proud of them and just try to support them in everything they do - win, lose or draw.

I adjourned to the clubhouse for a coffee and took a moment to enjoy the hilarious, self-important, officious proclamations on the noticeboard:

'Members are reminded that predominantly white tops or T-shirts must be worn at all times.'

'All members are reminded that, during the club tournament, sporting logos on attire must not exceed 3 inches in size.'

'Shoe tags must be worn by members.'

'The Club shall be called the Mincing Old Boys Lawn Tennis Club.'

'A mandatory ball fee will be levied on all participants on club nights and mornings.'

As I emerged again with my coffee, I noticed another parent quietly watching his son from the sidelines. However, this gentleman probably wasn't living his dreams through his child. It was Pat Cash.

Google Co-op is a customisable Google search engine and I just created a personalised, custom search for Oracle that scours AskTom, Jonathan Lewis' site and www.oracle.com (including TechNet).

This targetted search is useful and will undoubtedly save me time. However, I was unable to get any results from 'tahiti.oracle.com' (Oracle documentation set) which is normally my first port of call. Also, I assume Metalink is similarly off limits (account required).

A change of speed, a change of style
A change of scene, with no regrets

I simply couldn't take any more so I reluctantly handed in my resignation yesterday. I have moved my blog to another cheap hosting provider, Bluehost. If this ends in tears, then I swear I am reverting to hosted WordPress. As Steve Redgrave once said 'If you ever see me signing up with another cheap hosting provider, shoot me !'

The migration was pretty straightforward. This time, I just imported the complete mySQL database so all my posts, comments, plugins, themes, extensions and hacks were preserved. Internal links didn't need fixing up. I also downloaded a copy of the Dreamhost Web site as a backup.

The only package that failed to arrive safely was MediaWiki (which needs PHP5) as Bluehost currently supports PHP 4.4 and mySQL 4.1 but PhpWiki is available.

Still, Gregarius works fine and Drupal is available as a one-click (rather than custom) install. Some you win, some you lose.

While the DNS changes are still propagating around the Interweb, I found a useful note in the knowledge base which enabled me to configure the raw URL to configure and check the WordPress configuration.

...is worth a thousand words, particularly when annotated.

Modern versions of Siebel use the Cost Based Optimizer (CBO) so the strategy used for gathering (and refreshing) statistics and histograms becomes increasingly important.

Sometimes, the strategy can be articulated by the Oracle DBA or may even be documented or SQL scripts may be supplied that define the strategy.

Normally, however, the definitive version of the truth lies in the data dictionary.

exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats
           (ownname => user,
            tabname => 'PERSON',
            cascade => TRUE,
            method_opt=>'FOR ALL COLUMNS SIZE AUTO');
select column_name,
        to_char(last_analyzed, 'mm/dd/yyyy hh24:mi:ss') as last_analyzed,
        num_nulls,
        global_stats, user_stats
from user_tab_col_statistics 
where table_name='PERSON' 
and column_name = 'SALARY';

COLUMN_NAME         LAST_ANALYZED       NUM_NULLS   GLOBAL USER
SALARY              10/23/2006 14:55:15    0         YES       NO

exec dbms_stats.set_column_stats
           (ownname => user,
            tabname => 'PERSON',
            colname => 'SALARY',
            nullcnt => 1000000);

COLUMN_NAME         LAST_ANALYZED       NUM_NULLS  GLOBAL USER
SALARY              10/23/2006 14:55:18   1000000   YES       YES

So when trying to answer to question: 'Have you ever had cause to manually populate column statistics ?', although the Oracle DBA is your friend, the USER_STATS column in the DBA_TAB_COL_STATISTICS view is your best friend.

The perfect job for Aishah Azmi.

Maybe this time, she should go dressed for the interview as she intends to carry out the job.

Apologies for the brief radio silence.

I was shocked and alarmed by this news on Wednesday so I have been busy purging my blog of all contentious, provocative, controversial articles and erasing every last trace of my true identity (which is Norman Brightside, 23 Baker Street, London) to an amusing pseudonym that can never, ever be traced (even by clever people from Essex). I have also taken the sensible precaution of moving house and going X-directory.

I was living in fear of a madman or worse, a Manchester City fan, arriving on my doorstep brandishing a machete after taking offence to this blog. I must admit the teenager selling dusters looked a little startled when I opened the door armed with a shotgun.

Now my identity is once again safe, normal service will now be resumed.

The best bit about the whole story - the culprit bragged about the attack back in the original chat room. The stupidity of some people never ceases to amaze me.