Voice of the DBA

Tag: misc

  • Where’s the Printer Friendly Option?

    When is the last time you read an article/blog/etc. on the Internet and saw a button for a print friendly version? That used to be something on every page, and one people often shared on social media (or email) because it didn’t have all the advertisements in it. I remember having to help code this feature on SQL Server Central when we started as plenty of people wanted to print articles out and read them later. That desire led to Andy brainstorming that we should release The Best of books each year.

    I was reading about how the Internet has changed many things in our lives and I thought about these links. I searched a number of places I visit often and there are no more printer links. I’m guessing with mobile devices and various save services, most people have gotten used to using digital technology to consume information?

    I still print things at times, though fairly rarely. I don’t often consume anything on physical media anymore, including books. I’ve tried to read a few times on paper, but it’s inconvenient to me now. I have to remember to pack something or carry it, I need a light often, it just doesn’t work as well.

    I rarely see paper in use in meetings anymore at all. Whether I’m at a Redgate office or a customer site, most people seem to have monitors, projectors, sharing apps, and more so paper is just rarely used.

    At the same time, it’s not completely out of date. It works well and it’s simple. I see it used for announcements, for small handouts, signs, and menus. Quite a few of us don’t like the digital menus from QR codes and it seems most restaurants I’ve visited still create physical menus. Signs and announcements are the places I still see paper in use regularly. I will say I’ve seen a few people (a very few) using e-ink devices, which is something I’m tempted to use. I do find writing helps me remember things better.

    The world continues to create more and more data, while finding more numerous and novel ways to disseminate it. For much of the time, the paperless office exists, and I see less and less use of paper for distributing information, but it hasn’t completely disappeared. Except, perhaps, from the web.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.

    Note, podcasts are only available for a limited time online.

  • Enjoying Australia

    I’ve been gone from home for two weeks, though I’ve only been in Australia for about 12 days. I lost a day in flight going across the date line. I’ll get that back later this week as I’ll actually land in LA a few hours before I left Melbourne. I leave Fri morning at 930a and arrive in LA Fri morning at 640a. That’s a crazy time travel situation.

    In any case, I’ve had a good time here. My wife and I spent a week doing some touristy stuff. The iconic shot with the Opera House was first, along with some travels around the area and a nice relaxing week.

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    I went to Brisbane for the Redgate Seminar, and didn’t have much time there, but I came back to Sydney for the weekend. Unfortunately I was alone as my wife had to head home to get back to work on the ranch. I took a little time at the Sydney art Museum where I still couldn’t get away from horses.

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    I also saw a neat modern art repurpose of old tube televisions as a cello.

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    Lots of other interesting artwork there as well. I’m sure my kids were both jealous and annoyed with a lot of SMS pictures of my experience. I’m not usually a big art person, but it was raining and my daughter (a fine arts major in uni) has influenced me a bit, so I took a few hours to try and see the world from her perspective.

    I also spent a few hours Sunday at the theater. I’d seen the billboards with my wife and I loved the movie as a kid, so I decided to try the musical. It was good, and I enjoyed the singing and the way they moved scenes (and songs) around to work on stage. Great performances, but I still like the movie better.

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    I’m also heading to Melbourne later this week, but I’m only there for about 45 hours, so not a lot of time to see anything. I spent a week there in 2019 and loved it. I hope to get back there with my wife sometime, perhaps on the way to Tasmania or Adelaide.

    Now, back to work before the Redgate Seminar tomorrow.

  • Black Friday 2023

    It’s Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving when many people kick off their Christmas shopping with big sales at various retailers. That’s seemed to get quite crazy at times and a number of companies are not running big sales or events on Thursday. Most are still open on Friday, but hopefully, they aren’t running too many early morning, low prices that get people to behave poorly.

    I’m not a big shopper, and many of my Fridays after the Thanksgiving holiday have been spent running volleyball tournaments for the 10-15-year-old kids. I’m hoping that’s the plan today, as it is a day off from work.

    However, it is the Christmas season, and no matter how you feel about gifts and shopping, there are often presents to be bought and exchanged. In the last few years there hasn’t been much tech that I’ve been looking to purchase for myself, as it seems the quality of many devices has them lasting a long time and I don’t find myself craving many of the new devices. I did get a new pair of Bluetooth headphones earbuds recently as I lost a previous pair (that were a gift). Other than that, I haven’t purchased any tech in quite some time (other than charging cables).

    Is that the case with any of you? Or are there devices, laptops, or other technology items that you are hoping to receive this year, or maybe something you’ll purchase for another. I find myself a little jaded at the state of technology these days and not too excited by any products, but if there is something that’s on your list, let me know. Maybe you’ll help me get excited about a new advance in some type of technology. The only thing I’m looking at is a new Nest camera. We’d like to get a little more coverage around the property, so I’m debating adding in more outdoor cameras, maybe even a battery-powered one.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.

  • Typing Strange Characters–#SQLNewBlogger

    I’ve had to type a few non-English characters lately, and this blog talks about how to do this.

    Another post for me that is simple and hopefully serves as an example for people trying to get blogging as #SQLNewBloggers.

    The Need for Non-English Characters

    Recently I wrote a blog on using Chinese characters. While you can copy/paste from Google, perhaps you want to actually type something regularly. For example, I have been learning French, and I sometimes need to

    Another one I’ve used fairly often is the British pound symbol.

    Typing Unicode characters

    There are Unicode characters for these symbols. While some keyboards may include these, the US ones do not. I can switch keyboards, and I have a Japanese keyboard, but

    A few commons ones for me are:

    • é (French e with acute (forward) accent) – 0233
    • è (French e with the grave accent) – 0232
    • ô (French o with the circumflex) – 0244
    • ç (French c with the cedilla,hanging thing) – 0231
    • £ (British pound symbol) – 0163
    • はい (Japanese yes, hai) – a little harder

    To type these, I press the ALT key and hold it. Then I enter the number. So, holding ALT and entering 0163 gives me this: £

    The Japanese is a little harder. There I needed to enable the Microsoft IME keyboard that lets me type the phonetics for Japanese characters. There are other ways to do this, but that’s what I did.

    Learning to work with other languages and characters has been interesting to me, and it’s nice to be able to type São Paulo instead of Sao Paulo. Especially when I communicate with people whose names contain non English letters.