Random Ramblings by Chad

I wasn’t a huge Mozilla fan up to now, but that all changed last weekend.  I was wanting to find a “Parental Control” app which would disallow my children from finding some of the web’s less noble aspects.  I thought to myself, this would be a good “plugin” type feature for a browser, so I did some searching.

Well, I am happy to report, I have found Glubble.com which is a Mozilla plug in which allows you to restrict websites from the browser.  I am trying it out and will let everyone know how it goes.  So far, it is great for my kids which are all 8 and under.  It might be too restrictive (or cumbersome for the “helpers” or adults) for kids older than that.

The things I like about it:

-Only allows them to see sites which I allow.

-Has a built in, approval process for sites they want to see which is easy for them to use.

-Has built in “safe” groups which they can use right out the gate

-(THE REAL GEM) Restricts the results that GOOGLE searches return to ONLY the sites in your approved list.  So searches with otherwise innocuous words to them are sure to return “safe” results.

Hopefully someone else finds this useful as well.

CHAD

Wow, what a pain.  We recently deployed ORACLE RAC 10.2.0.3 at work on SUN T2000, with EMC powerpath and DMX 4500… man-o-man, I wish I could get the last 8 months back.  That product has changed the way I think of ORACLE products… and not in a good way.

I wanted to post my experience more for “cleansing”.  Hopefully someone else out there needs moral support and can relate.  A word to the wise, give yourself a lot of runway if trying to take this baby on.

A couple things that chopped my hide:

1. ASM vs 3rd party cluster file systems. I went into this being told that ASM was going to simplify things.  Well we ran into a lot of “bugs” trying to use it and we had some “high dollar” ORACLE consultants on board with us and they didn’t have much better luck.  I would prefer if it worked better though.  I do like the idea of not having a 3rd party product (Veritas) in the middle convoluting the problems.  Especially with all the issues we ran into.
2. Thin vs. Thick clients. This seemingly simple question caused us some difficulty.  One of the main reasons that there are limitations to the Thin client which were weren’t aware of.  When we finally figured them out, we were already using Thin.
3. EMC BCV recovery while using ASM mirroring.  Three words… “Don’t do it”. This is where we ran into a lot of trouble and ultimately ran out of time and turned off ASM mirroring.  What happens when you lose half of your mirror and the database needs to extend?  We found out.
4. Using BLOBS with ORACLE, uh don’t do it.  We found that ORACLE doesn’t do space reclamation, extension, and management well when it comes to BLOBS so we ran into a ton of problems around performance with their internal BLOB space management.  Don’t use BLOBS unless you are not planning on updating them at all.
5. Reboots, uh why do the nodes do that. We are still having issues around nodes rebooting and have yet to ferret out all of the remaining issues around this.  This seems to happen a lot with the multiple clusters that we have built in our environment.  One particular problem which really chops my hide is the fact that ORACLE seems to reboot the nodes to save “cluster integrity” which I appreciate.  But when I am trying to diagnose a problem and can’t run “GUDS” from Sun’s support people, or when I reboot other nodes the others go with them, then I get perturbed.
6. Rolling upgrades are not all they are cracked up to be. In theory this is great, in practice, I have yet to see this work flawlessly.  It is like RAC is in general, a work in progress.

All in all, it has been a great learning experience.  It was tough, but we made it thru so far.  It wasn’t all bad, I really like the idea that the database will stay up and available to the application when a node goes offline.  I think that ORACLE will ultimately get it working, but have not been impressed with their support nor their commitment to their customers.

If this were high school and I had to grade them, I would give them a “C”.

CHAD

ps.  This is me posting about my experience at work, not about the virtues or vices of ORACLE or their RAC product.

So, I have wanted to get a MAC for a while now, and I finally did it (because work paid for it…).  I am enjoying learning something new.  I got a 17 inch MAC BOOK PRO with windows Parallels on it.  The Parallels allows me to run Windows XP and Windows Vista as well.  I have a few recommendations for those that are wanting to try a MAC though.

1. Get “Parallels” or “Boot Camp” and run Windows too on top of your MAC. This is to ease the transition from Windows to MAC since there is a slight learning curve.  You can’t go cold turkey and immediately get “off the sauce” of Microsoft.
2. Know that there will be some challenges with learning the “MAC way of doing things”. The single button mouse can be a challenge to get used to (where is my right mouse button).  But you eventually get used to the “Apple” key and the two finger mouse click (to simulate the right mouse button).
3. Find a friend. Things are easier if you know someone who has a MAC.

Though it is a little more expensive to go this route, it is worth it.  I recently ran a slideshow presentation for my family at a family reunion and my MAC saved me.  It was the only reason I was able to do it.  Some of the presentations came from MACs and Windows didn’t have the proper codecs to play it out of the box, so I used my MAC.  And on the slideshows which were produced with MS Powerpoint, I used my Parallels instance of XP to run it.  My MAC saved my bacon.

Hey… not sure if anyone saw my last post about Matt here, but he has an update video now.

I think I will make my own video like this someday… hopefully in as many places as Matt does…

His site:
http://www.wherethehellismatt.com

CHAD

I am generally a pretty laid back guy and don’t usually go out of my way to do endorsements or be “sales pitchy” or “preachy”. I keep my opinions to myself unless asked or unless I feel strongly about something. I do that so when I do share my opinion, people know that I feel strongly about it and hopefully it makes more of a difference. But, in this instance, I feel compelled to step outside of my norm a bit and proclaim the virtues of the group that I have been a part of for the past year or so…. MET2.

A few of my friends have asked me to forward info about the MET2 group who is putting on the “The Sound of Music” this Aug. I have sent a couple emails, but thought I would also put it here for people to find. Please pass it on to anyone you think might enjoy being in a play. It is good for kids K-12 and kids that have graduated (like me). It costs about $200 for the first kid/person with discounts each additional person.

Generally, my experience has been during the month prior to and the month of the production, you only have to commit a couple hours each Saturday to rehearsals (not much). Then the week before it is every week night which can be a little much for people with families and that work. I have found though, that it is not too big a commitment and it can be worked into a normal “life”. My work schedule tends to be hectic and I have still managed to fit it in for three shows now (Peter Pan, Annie, and Big River). It really is a lot of fun and is a good avenue for kids to learn self confidence and all the other positive things associated with the arts and creativity. This group just won two awards and another nomination from a group which judges Youth Theater across the country. One of the awards was for Best Director for Alison Bretches. They really are a wonderful group and do extraordinarily professional work for a non-profit youth theater. I have been in many plays in my life and theirs are the best that I have ever been in (though I am not a professional…).

Come and be a part… and if nothing else, plan on seeing the play this August.

CHAD

EMAIL ABOUT REGISTRATION BELOW:

Dear MET2 families:

“The Hills Are Alive With The Sound of Music.” Be part of the cast of Sound of Music NOW!

“The Sound of Music” is a cherished memory, filled with laughter, tears and of course, some of the most memorable music ever written. For many families, watching “The Sound of Music” is an annual tradition. We at MET2 know that “The Sound of Music” has a great message for all of us at this time, as it is a story rich with the family values that we all hold dear.

Registration, first workshop and group placement will be on Saturday, June 14, 2008 at 1:00 p.m. at Morning Creek Elementary School

Remember even if you pre-registered, it is important to attend this meeting as our director, Alison Bretches and her staff will be working with you to begin group placement and initial casting.

Rehearsals are expected to begin in the latter part of August 2008 at Morning Creek Elementary School. Production week will be the week of November 10-16, 2008.

If you have any questions or need more information, please write back. We hope to see you at registration on June 14.

Don’t miss this opportunity to become part of the magic! We Continue To Believe in Dreams! Won’t you join us and Discover Where Imagination Leads! It will be an unforgettable experience. Don’t forget, if you bring two new friends who register this day, your registration will be FREE!

We look forward to seeing you on Saturday, June 14, 2008 at 1:00 p.m. at Morning Creek Elementary School .

For more information please call our new voice mail number 800-961-0194, Ext. #4.

Sincerely,

Alison Bretches
Artistic Director
And The Entire MET2 Staff
Alex H. Urban, Founder

Follow Us and Discover Where Imagination Can Lead

I wrote a while back about Kiva. It is a cool idea. Victoriya Tichonova paid her load back which meant that I was able to loan it again. So I have re-loaned the money to Abdul Qayom Muhammad Raqeeb. I hope it helps.

CHAD

You can buy tickets for Big River here: (I can get you half price tickets at 9:30am Friday morning, if you can go then)

Poway Performing Arts site

http://www.powayperformingarts.com/

Big River:

http://www2.ci.poway.ca.us/pcpa//pcpadetail.php?eventid=246

(The ticket site has had a couple problems lately… just keep trying.  Or you can call too)

For those that want to sign up for fundraising online. Here is the fundraiser link. My goal is to raise $1,000 dollars this week. We are a little past halfway there today alone. If we raise more, we can match every dollar we raise.

https://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/met-2-poway-theater-and-the-arts-for-kids/overview

FROM MY PREVIOUS POST:

I have also started to be concerned about the state of affairs around the budget cuts to schools here in California. Kelsie’s teacher was told she doesn’t have a job next year, which is REALLY disheartening (our prayers are with you Mrs. Ransom). In light of the budget cuts, I have also learned that MET2 is struggling with funds since the schools don’t have money for field trips. I decided to put those two situations together and see if I can make a difference… so here it goes. I have started a campaign to raise money for the MET2 organization.

There are more details here.
CAMPAIGN IS HERE

Please help if you can…
CHAD