Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

  • Salary Averages

    I saw this posted on Twitter, yet another reason to have a variety of people you follow. Some very interesting links and ideas get shared there.

    It’s a set of IT salary charts and values from a recent survey on Datamation. The salaries look about where I expected, though the ones for database administrator managers were higher than I thought. Here’s the chart:

    database-administration-manager

    It has a median at $110, which is a nice number. It’s higher than the data warehouse specialist at $92k.

    Note these are national averages, but they ought to remind you that IT is a good industry to work in and we are very well paid.

  • iPad Update

    I updated the iPad tonight to iOS 4.2. I had no particular reason to upgrade, but I saw a few people posting that they had upgraded, and noticed a few apps people had talked about the productivity upgrades of a few apps that required iOS 4.x.

    It took a long time. I started at 3:10, but it required iTunes 10.1, and then I had to download the firmware, and it was still updating when I last checked around 6. So I left it and went to karate.

    When I got home, it looked the same. The only difference was the addition of “GameCenter” on the main screen. I checked settings, and sure enough it had been updated, but nothing showed multi-tasking, and I couldn’t create a folder.

    However a double click on the home button brought up the multi-tasking window, so I could see what was running. Semi-cool, but not sure how useful. We’ll see as I try to use it more. I added DropBox, EasyReader (for PDFs) and a few more items people had mentioned, including a Twitter app.

    Now I’ll play with it a bit and see how useful it is.

    I also sent a note to a friend to see if they wanted my tablet. If not, I’ll be looking to sell that on eBay and recover some funds. I have the feeling I won’t be traveling with it, and instead I’d like to have the money and look to perhaps upgrade my phone instead.

    One thing I noticed last week was in typing on the iPad. I grabbed it to do a bit of blogging and I was surprised at how fast I could type on the virtual keyboard. The spacing is similar to what I like and the audible clicks were very handy. I can see those as being annoying at a conference, so I’d likely need headphones for the feedback for me, set low enough to let me still here what I’m taking notes on.

    A cooler, and cooler device, the more I play with it.

  • Semi-Crippled

    When it rains it pours.

    Last week my Nano died. It won’t hold a charge, or at least it won’t play more than about 4 minutes before it reboots. It also can’t get the Nike + sensor to work, and it’s out of warranty. So it’s essentially DoA right now and not worth fixing. My guess is it would be $50 to fix it at a minimum, which seems silly. Not sure what I’ll do for run tracking for now other than manual stuff.

    Then two days ago I bent my jawbone headset and snapped off the ear loop. It was already semi-flaky since the case got disconnected, so I ordered a new one.

    Yesterday Twhirl stopped working on my desktop. I got an update and all of a sudden it won’t log in. It reports a bad password if I put one in, but the correct password just freezes at the login screen.

    Today Livemeeting broke and I couldn’t easily participate in a work meeting. It somewhat sucked since I had things to discuss.

    What will go wrong tomorrow? Almost afraid to go skiing.

  • Real World SQL Azure

    Worthy of an editorial, but this is a pretty good use-case for why SQL Azure might make sense. This is a business where

    • clients pay by the use of software
    • there needs to be distributed data center access
    • there’s a client application that is distributed
    • usage of versions/databases may scale up or down

    Not everyone is in this type of business, but if you are, then SQL Azure might be worth looking at.