Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • Does It Help

    This editorial was originally published on Oct 12, 2006, published today as Steve is out today at the PASS Summit. 

    Years ago I used to work for an import company and we dealt with all types of distributors and wholesalers for the products we brought in from overseas. One of our divisions dealt with metal products, mostly door hinges, from China and we had workers whose job it was to arrange for inventory from various warehouses to be shipped to fulfill orders.

    At the time, circa 1996, we were pretty high tech. We mostly dealt with faxes and phone orders at the time, phone orders being the easiest because the workers would just enter an order and match it up with inventory from the closest warehouse. Faxes were more challenging, but we had a high tech fax server that caught every fax coming into our company and saved it to an imaging system.

    When I got there, Windows had just been deployed, so workers would pull up an image on the screen, look at it, and then alt-tab to the order entry system and enter some information, alt-tab back to read, alt-tab back, etc. They could also make notations on the image, and would do so with an order number, ship date, etc. and save the image back to our high tech, SQL Server 4.2-based, image server.

    We were looking to rewrite the order entry system when I got there and as we did so, we spent a lot of time with the workers trying to figure out how to speed the process up for them and make their job easier, and get them to process more orders per day.

    Recently a study said that one 30inch monitor would increase productivity, though some people disagreed. The alternative presented was two 19″ inch monitors instead. The type of work you do probably has some impact on which is more productive, but I know that either of these is better than a single 17″ monitor.

    This brings me back to my little tale because I actually tested this a decade ago. At the time most people had 14″ or 15″ monitors on their desks, each of which could cost $300 or so. I proposed moving to two monitors for the workers that needed to see two applications at the same time and got permission to buy an extra 15″ monitor and a fancy $500 video card with two VGA outputs. I also got permission to spend $800 on a single 20″ monitor and we spent a few months swapping the setups among all the workers and even a few others to see what they thought. The result?

    Two monitors hands down.

    As much as I’d like to have a monitor the size of my desk, like on The Island or Minority Report, I know it’s not as productive as multiple monitors. You just spend too much time moving things around, resizing, etc. to make them fit your current task. You might work with Outlook and Query Analyzer now, but then need Excel and Outlook, or Word and Query Analyzer, or Outlook and Word, and all the sizes and locations you set don’t always work.

    You’ll still resize and move applications with multiple monitors, but there’s another key. You can full screen an app on multiple monitors and it will stick to just that screen. So even if you have to drag something from one to the other quickly, you can maximize it and cover everything else up. I use that a lot and it’s helpful.

    If you’ve never tried it, get a $30 video card and borrow another monitor. You won’t go back. I have a 19″ LCD and a 20″ CRT on my desk and love it. Unless I was some type of artist, I’m not sure I’d go to one monitor, even a 42″ wide one.

    So what do you think for the Friday poll? Do information workers, or more importantly, DBAs do better with a large monitor?

  • The Contest That’s Out of the World

    Who wants to win a trip into space?

    If you were in the Exhibition Hall yesterday at the PASS Summit, you were witness to an amazing announcement about a new contest. Red Gate Software is sending a DBA into space, giving you the chance to actually take a trip into space. Someone will get to experience weightlessness and see the planet as only astronauts have before. It’s a view that they always say has changed their lives. How absolutely, freaking, amazing is that?

    As a kid I loved science fiction, dreaming of the chance to have a flying car, or serve on some spaceship like the Enterprise or the Millennium Falcon. As I grew up, it seemed that most people were enamored with the idea of technology advancing to the point where we would fly in space, or more easily travel around the world. It still seems that we’re missing the Jetson’s cars that I expected would be around by 2011. Not only haven’t we duplicated the feats of 2001: A Space Odyssey by sending a ship to Jupiter, we haven’t even sent a manned mission to Mars. Forty years after landing a man on the moon, it seems that space travel has barely advanced.

    However it has advanced, at least to the point where an ordinary human, albeit one with a deep wallet, can book a trip on a ship to travel into space. Red Gate has eliminated the wallet restriction, and all of you have a chance over the next five weeks to enter this contest and have a chance to experience weightlessness.

    I hope you have fun with it and enjoy the quiz that goes along with the DBA in Space short webisodes that we’ve put together. The questions aren’t too hard, but they might require a little research on yur part.  Take your time, however, as you only get one shot to answer them.

    They shows are a little corny, but it was done to bring a smile to your face, and I’m looking forward to hearing what you think.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • The Countdown

    What's coming later today?

    This is going to be so cool.

    I heard about this over the summer, and it’s quite possible that my jaw literally dropped when I was told. It was stunning, surprising, something that I never expected. Especially with the short lead-in talk I was given before the news. As Jes Borland (blog |@grrl_geek) might say, “Squeeeeeeeeeeee”. It’s exciting, and I can’t say what it is yet. As I write this, I’m almost bouncing out of my seat from the excitement.

    Come to the Red Gate booth at 10am

    Come right after the keynote talk to hear the announcement. I am sure you’ll be as shocked, then surprised, and then as excited as I am.

    What could it be? Take your guess when you get the newsletter. If you’re outside of the west coast, there’s a good chance you’ll get to guess what this could be. Need a hint? Hmmmm, what could I say that won’t get me into trouble?

    • 50, years that is.
    • An amazing view
    • A touch of danger

    That’s about all I can say, at least that’s all I feel comfortable saying. Take your guess, and I’ll pick someone to send an Amazon GC over to sometime in the next week. You don’t have to be right, but make me smile, laugh, or intrigue me. No insider entries allowed, but what could Red Gate be announcing?

    Tune in at 10, watch Twitter, or come back tomorrow and check out the editorial then.

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • The Half Day Experiment

    Check out the half day sessions at the Summit

    At conferences and events I have found that the vast majority of sessions are one hour long. Sometimes events have experimented with 75 or  90 minute sessions, but the majority of talks I’ve heard were an hour, short enough to get an idea of how to use a feature or have an idea about why you might use something, but too short for in depth learning. More in depth sessions are usually all day sessions, or multi-day classes, which are very focused, and expensive. It seems that it’s rare the many employees get the chance to attend this type of training.

    This year the Summit is trying something new, with a few half day sessions that should provide a deep dive in a number of areas during one focused three hour time slot. There are sessions on a variety of topics including performance tuning from Tom LaRock, and Scaling SQL Server from Glenn Berry. The sessions take place on Wed and Thur in the afternoon, so check the schedule if you’re interested.

    I like the idea of combining some longer training that is focused along with the wide variety that most events offer. To me this is a way to better justify the ROI of attending an event by allowing you to focus in a deeper way on a specific subject. It also is a great way for some of the more expert speakers that offer training or pre-conference sessions to give attendees an idea of what they can teach, and why that specific training can be worth the expense.

    I’m hoping that some attendees will come away with skills they can use, or refine when they get back to their jobs. I’m hoping they can tie that back specifically to one of these half day sessions and even blog about what the reaction was from their management. I’m also hoping that this helps to get more training sessions scheduled as pre-cons at SQL Saturdays or other events, bringing lower cost training to more people and improving the skills of the SQL Server community overall.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts