Memories of Pan Am 103

There are moments in your life when you remember exactly what you were doing as though it happened yesterday, even if it happened many years ago.  I previously wrote about what I was doing on 9/11.  Likewise, I remember other events, such as the Challenger disaster (I was a freshman at Syracuse having lunch in …

Technical writer’s block

"What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he's staring out of the window." -- Burton Rascoe "Waiting for the break of day; searching for something to say; flashing lights against the sky; giving up, I close my eyes..." -- Chicago, "25 or 6 to 4" Those …

Fun times in the office

Steve Jones' post today about fun at work got me thinking about the fun times I've had in the office.  So I thought it'd be fun to write an article in which I shared a few photos of some fun times I've had in my workplace, past and present!  Enjoy! Here's a pic of me …

Agnostic document references

Many of you who are technical writers -- or data professionals -- understand how important it is to not expose real data.  There is a huge emphasis on data security, as there should be.  But a lot of people never think about smaller pieces of data within a document -- something as simple as, say, …

Every once in a while, say “what the heck”

"Sometimes, you gotta say 'what the f@%k!'" -- Miles Dalby, Risky Business "All we are is dust in the wind..." -- Kansas "While you see a chance, take it..." -- Steve Winwood Last night, I checked an item off my bucket list.  I met and got my picture taken with my favorite band!  The pic …

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Steve Jones recently asked: what were your best days at work, and what was your worst?  He also issued a challenge to write about our typical days at work.  In terms of writing about a typical workday, I have the first of four (per Steve's challenge instructions) draft articles warming up in the bullpen; hopefully, I'll …

Is Your DR Plan Complete?

Here’s another article reblog, this time from my friend, Andy Levy. Disaster recovery is a big deal, and you need to make sure that you’re prepared.

Don’t think a disaster can’t happen to you? Well, it happened to me.

The Rest is Just Code

Kevin Hill (b|t) posted a thought-provoking item on his last week about Disaster Recovery Plans. While I am in the 10% who perform DR tests for basic functionality on a regular basis, there’s a lot more to being prepared for disaster than just making sure you can get the databases back online.

You really need to have a full-company business continuity plan (BCP), which your DR plan is an integral portion of. Here come the Boy Scouts chanting “Be Prepared!”

When disaster strikes:

• How will you communicate it to your customers, including regular status updates?
• How will you communicate within the company?
• Do you have your systems prioritized so that you know what order things have to be brought online? Which systems can lag by a day or two while you get the most critical things online?
• Do you have contingency plans for all of…

View original post 543 more words

Maintain Your Trustworthiness

This is a reblog of an article written by my friend, Steve Jones. I would hope that this is something that goes without saying among data professionals like myself, but I think that it’s important enough that it’s worth repeating (and reblogging).

Voice of the DBA

Many of us that are DBAs and/or sysadmins find ourselves with privileged access to many systems. We can often read the data that’s stored in these systems, whether that’s a relational database, a NoSQL store, or even a mail system. As a result, it is incumbent upon us to be trustworthy and maintain confidentiality with privileged information.

Overall I think most of us do this, but there are always some rogue administrators out there, some of which might take malicious actions. There have been a few people that were arrested or sued for hacking into systems, trashing backups, or causing other issues. Often those are emotional outbursts that disrupt operations, and many people are aware there is an issue. However, what if people weren’t aware they were being hacked in some way?

I ran across this story about some “admin” software being sold on a hacker forum site, which was…

View original post 309 more words

Don’t fear the CrossFit

"I gotta run a little faster; I gotta reach for the sky; I gotta come a little closer; even if I lose, I gotta try..." -- Kansas, "Inside Of Me" "Try not.  Do.  Or do not.  There is no try." -- Yoda Every Saturday, my CrossFit gym invites friends to join members for workouts ("Bring …

The importance of maintaining a LinkedIn account

My own presentation and a lightning talk by Paresh Motiwala from our SQL Saturday this past July got me thinking about my own LinkedIn account.  I've been going through the activities feed fairly regularly, making sure my 'blog articles are posted, getting an idea of how many people see (much less, actually read) my articles, and …