Voice of the DBA

Tag: misc

  • Slimming down The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

    I announced in the Christmas editorial that I was discontinuing the video podcasts. Needless to say I heard a complaint from my Mom that afternoon. She enjoys the podcasts, even though she doesn’t understand all the technology. I did get a couple other notes from people and thought I should explain things better. I’ll also put an announcement in the Jan 2 newsletter.

    The podcasts have been enjoyable, but also a lot of work. Mostly because they require me to record video, have a location, quiet, etc. to get the recordings done and then there’s editing. If you look at the bloopers, I have quite a few mistakes during the recordings, so there’s no shortage of fix-up to perform in post-production.

    Last year one of the senior management at Red Gate questioned whether it was worth continuing the podcasts. I decided to look at some numbers, ask people, and then decide. I also wanted to get to 1000 of them.

    I hit 1000 last week, and end the year with 1004 podcasts, which is quite a run. It’s been a few years and it feels like I gave it a good chance to grow. However, it didn’t grow much. As I look at the numbers, the MP3 and MP4 (iPod) podcasts have the best numbers for downloads, with WMV not really even mattering. I suspect that the automatic nature of iTunes means that people download them automatically without any issues. As I’ve talked with people, I’ve also realized that most people prefer the written word for this type of information. It’s faster and easier to consume.

    Having met my goal of 1000, and not seeing wide scale adoption, I’ve decided to stop the video podcasts, at least as a regular production. I might do the occasional one.

    The audio (MP3) podcasts as much easier to record and produce, and since I know some people enjoy them, I’ll continue those for the time being. I’ll upload those to the iTunes location and see how that goes.

    What Else Will I Do?

    That’s a good question. I’ve had more speaking engagements in the last couple years, which has definitely impacting the podcasts at times. I missed a few days, which was very annoying to me. I suspect I’ll be doing more speaking and presenting in the next year. I’ve also got no shortage of other projects to tackle.

    One of those is the idea of a radio show instead of a podcast. In technical terms the only difference is that the show will be live most of the time with some interaction with an audience. My initial idea is a weekly show, one that won’t take too much time, but will give me a chance to continue to experiment with how to best reach an audience. I’ve proposed something to my boss, so we’ll see what else happens.

    As for other items, we’ll see what happens as the future progresses.

  • Slicing and Dicing

    This piece was originally published on Aug 12, 2009.

    I like music, often listening on headphones while I’m working. We often have an iPod in the car when traveling and take turns picking songs, which prevents arguments and lets us all get a feel for what the rest of the family listens to. I’ve even heard some interesting songs that way that I might not have heard otherwise. My son also has a Zune that he uses at night and while cutting grass, and while he likes picking his songs, he’s also used the FM radio quite a bit to listen to a local station he likes, getting a wider variety of music than he otherwise might hear..

    Recently Apple announced that they were looking to re-invent the album with the release of liner notes and booklets along with music. It looks like a way to give more value to consumers, and perhaps convince them to buy whole albums instead of particular songs. I think it’s interesting, and I am one of the few that misses browsing through albums and seeing the cover art that used to go with them. CD liners notes aren’t the same, and digital downloads seem far removed. For those of you that don’t remember what an album is, I’ve included a photo 😉

    I remember awhile back the AC/DC released a new album only at Wal-Mart, specifically because they thought that the album deserved to be kept alive, and they didn’t like singles being sold. They felt it reduced the value of the experience. I can see that point of view, and some record company executives think that the iTunes model of singles is hurting the business.

    I think this isn’t just a music issue, but more and more a digital information issue. There are lots of companies and business models that depend on bundling things together in order to grow value. In fact, a lot of what we do as database people is find ways to put information together and get more value. There might be some minimum effort (and cost) required to do so, and if we had to slice and dice each section of information up and sell it separately, many pieces of data might not be worth selling or even gathering.

    Think of television. If the Golf channel had to be purchased separately, it might not exist. But by bundling the Food channel, the Golf channel and a few more in with other selections, they can all get a slice of the revenue and find ways to survive. The same thing might happen with data marts in your company. The inventory mart might not be able to justify its existence if it had to be built separately at its own cost, but if it’s a spin-off of a larger data warehouse, the incremental cost can exist.

    In fact, many IT departments might have problems justifying their costs if they had to exist as a separate entity. We might see more outsourced IT companies if that was the case. By building them into the company and absorbing the cost, the company gets some benefits and synergies that they might not get from an outsourced environment.

    I am not sure if iTunes is bad for the music business, or if albums are good or bad, but I do like that the model exists and companies are trying to evolve it to work better. I hope that other digital sources of information remember that they don’t just exist to server the market today, but they need to evolve and find ways to server it better in the future.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

    Everyday Jones

    The podcast feeds are available at sqlservercentral.mevio.com. Comments are definitely appreciated and wanted, and you can get feeds from there.

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    Today’s podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com.

    I really appreciate and value feedback on the podcasts. Let us know what you like, don’t like, or even send in ideas for the show. If you’d like to comment, po

  • The Geek Christmas Poll

    There are just a couple weeks until the Christmas holiday this year, and there are no shortage of new gadgets being released and updated by all sorts of companies. Many of us in technology get intrigued and interested by the new ways in which the various electronics and technologies are implemented and integrated. Whether these items have practical uses or not is often secondary to the joy we get from seeing technology being used in innovative ways.

    With Black Friday and Cyber Monday behind us, I’m wondering this week what things would excite you this year as gifts. There seem to be as many new products, enhanced products, and new ideas that are coming from established vendors as well as independent, crowded funded companies on sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. This Friday I’m asking:

    What geek gifts or gadgets would you like this year?

    It’s the season to give and take pleasure in making others smile, but if you were to make a list for Santa, what would be at the top of your list?

    I’ve gotten so many electronics over the years that I don’t really feel a lot of excitement over many of them. I tend to use my cell phone and laptop most of the time, and rarely venture out to other devices. I backed a Kreyos watch project earlier this year and am looking forward to receiving that device in 2014.

    If there were one electronic item that I’m interested in, it’s a FitBit Flex device. As I age, I’m paying more attention to my health and my level of activity, and I’ve seen a few friends learn more about how well they’re taking care of their health using either a Fitbit, Jawbone, or Nike device. I’d like to give one a try and see if it improves my health.

    Let me know this week what interests you. Maybe a Google Glass device? Some tablet? A smart watch? Anything else?

    Steve Jones

    Video and Audio versions

    Today’s podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com.

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  • The Podcast is in the Windows Store

    If you’ve got a Windows Phone, or any of the Windows devices that support podcasts, the Voice of the DBA podcast is in the store. I did a quick search and found it, though the image isn’t there yet.

    podcast

    I was visiting a Red Gate customer last week and one of the developers asked why my podcast wasn’t in the Windows store. I hadn’t thought about it, so I did some searching today.

    It turns out the process is that you email a particular person at Microsoft. I did that, not expecting much to happen quickly, but I got a note back in a few hours the podcast was there. Amazing.