Voice of the DBA

Tag: reading

  • Summer Reading

    I love to read. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve almost always had books nearby. In fact, I used to go to the PASS Summit with 5-6 books in my suitcase, just in case I went on a reading spurt while I was there. I’ve actually finished 4 or 5 books during that trip.

    Every year, I used to love to see Paul Randal’s summary of his reading (2019 here). While I don’t do the data analysis that Paul does, his past posts did inspire me to use GoodReads and track my own reading. Last year, I read 128 books, most of which were fiction. I lean that way, as a way to escape from the chaos of life. So far this year I’m up to 57, though most of that was my sabbatical and the early pandemic times. Now I’m busy and slowing down the reading.

    We’re nearing the end of summer, a time when I’ve usually read less as I’m outdoors more. Perhaps that’s the same for many of you, but it will get cold at some point, and I assume most of you will find free time to enjoy a little reading.

    Today I’m wondering if there are books you recommend for people to read in the technology area. What books have you enjoyed that are based around technology?

    I ran across a post from Frank Denneman, asking about your favorite tech novel. I’ve read a few on his list, and added a couple others to my list. I also listened to Kendra’s podcast on software development, where she mentions the summer book club from IT Revolution where people are reading The Unicorn Project. I do recommend that one and The Phoenix Project.

    Give us a recommendation today if you have one for a novel that you think of when I write “technological thriller.” Fiction or non-fiction.

    I’ll leave two here that I enjoyed. Cryptonmicon from Neil Stephenson. It’s an interesting look at encryption and technology. The other one that comes to mind when I think of technology novels is Ready Player One. Maybe because I grew up in the 80s, but the whole idea of learning, living, and working in a computer reality, while still using computers to do things, was very enjoyable. If you saw the movie, read the book. It’s much better.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • What to Read in 2018

    Last week I was looking for Database Weekly links and ran across Gail Shaw’s list of books from 2017. It’s an interesting list of fiction, and I might pick up a few this year if I run out of ideas. This reminds me of Paul Randal’s review (done annually) of his reading. I usually find a book or two in there that I’d like to read to enjoy a break from life or expand my horizons.

    I was thinking about this as I’ve seen a few other posts from software and database users with books that they recommend. This was an interesting list from Xiaohan Zeng and I like this general list from John Sansom for SQL Server. I’ve run across a few others, especially from all the learning plans that people built for T-SQL Tuesday #97.

    I have no shortage of fiction that I enjoy reading on a regular basis. This is a way for me to get a break from life, and I’m usually working my way through some book. This month I read the Will Robie series from David Balducci (1-4) and then started re-reading the Jesse Stone series by Robert Parker and others. Those are my downtimes and breaks from life. In the professional area, I’ve been working my way through R in a Nutshell as well as Thoughtful Machine Learning in Python. The latter has been ongoing for some time, and moving rather slow. It’s a tough one to go through.

    There are classic texts in our industry, as well as some really interesting ones that many of us might enjoy. Perhaps there is something you’ve read in the last year you recommend, or there are some you want to tackle. Today I’m asking for your reading recommendations.

    In our careers, I know many of us like shorter, focused posts, some like videos, and others prefer learning in person from others. Those are all great ways to learn, but I still like working through a book to either focus my learning or escape from life. Let us know today what you plan to read this year or what you’d recommend for others, either to help them become better database developers or just enjoy a good story.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 3.5MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

  • CTRL Scroll and Getting Old

    The handiest thing that I’ve used lately for a computer is the Ctrl button and the scroll wheel on my mouse. If you’ve never tried it, do it now on this web page. Scroll different directions and you’ll see what I mean.

    Here’s the default view of my blog:

    scroll1

    It’s not bad, and from about 2, 2.5 ft away, I can read this. However if I CTRL and scroll up a couple clicks, I get this:

    scroll2

    Not a huge difference in the images, but much easier to read.

    As I get older it gets harder to read images on the screen, especially when I’m trying to get a lot done. It’s easy to scroll down, but I was finding myself scooting forward on my chair and leaning in. Not the best ergonomics. So I sat back (in my new chair), and made all my fonts bigger. I upped the default sizes in Word, OneNote, EditPlus, etc.

    Getting old is hard, but technology makes this easier. I even run a larger font in my Kindle apps than I Delaney because it’s just easier to read.

    And more fun than browsing the limited supply of large print books at the library.

  • How Many Have I Read?

    I saw this on Facebook, and while I’m not sure of the list, I reproduced it here. I think that an American list might have a few more books, like The Call of the Wild or White Fang on it. It’s definitely a Western survey as the Koran and Torah aren’t listed. No Heinlein, and a modern list might have Ender’s Game on there as well. Perhaps even The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

    Anyway, there are a few on here I think I might tackle, like Of Mice and men.

    Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

    Instructions:

    • Copy this into your NOTES.
    • Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety.
    • Italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish or read only an excerpt.
    • Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses!

    I followed a friend’s note and used Xs. I’ve read 38 of these. Or recall having to read them.

    1.     Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
    2.     The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien     
    3. X  Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
    4. x  Harry Potter series – JK Rowling      
    5. x  To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
    6.     The Bible       
    7. x  Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte      
    8. x  Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell      
    9.     His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman (all 3)    
    10. x  Great Expectations – Charles Dickens     
    11.     Little Women – Louisa M Alcott    
    12.     Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy    
    13. x   Catch 22 – Joseph Heller     
    14. x   Complete Works of Shakespeare – I bought this one year in college. I think I read them all, but hard to be sure.    
    15.      Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
    16. x   The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
    17.      Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk    
    18. x   Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger     
    19.      The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger    
    20.      Middlemarch – George Eliot    
    21.      Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell    
    22. x   The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald     
    23.      Bleak House – Charles Dickens    
    24. x   War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy – In progress now, part IV
    25. x   The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams     
    26.      Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh    
    27. x   Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky     
    28. x   Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeckx    
    29. x   Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll     
    30.      The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame    
    31.      Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy    
    32.      David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
    33. x   Chronicles of Narnia – C.S. Lewis     
    34.      Emma -Jane Austen    
    35.      Persuasion – Jane Austen
    36. x   The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis     
    37.      The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini    
    38.      Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres    
    39. x   Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
    40. x   Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne
    41. x   Animal Farm – George Orwell
    42. x   The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown     
    43.       One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez    
    44. x    A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving     
    45.       The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins    
    46.       Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery    
    47.       Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy    
    48.       The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
    49. x    Lord of the Flies – William Golding     
    50.       Atonement – Ian McEwan    
    51.       Life of Pi – Yann Martel
    52. x    Dune – Frank Herbert     
    53.       Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons    
    54.       Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen    
    55.       A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth    
    56.       The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafonx   
    57.       A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens    
    58. x    Brave New World – Aldous Huxley     
    59.       The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon    
    60.       Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez    
    61.       Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck    
    62.       Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov    
    63.       The Secret History – Donna Tartt    
    64.       The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
    65. x    Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas     
    66.       On The Road – Jack Kerouac    
    67.       Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy    
    68. x    Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding     
    69.       Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdiex   
    70. x    Moby Dick – Herman Melville
    71. x    Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens     
    72. x    Dracula – Bram Stoker     
    73.       The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett    
    74.       Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson    
    75. x    Ulysses – James Joyce 
    76. x    The Inferno – Dante     
    77.       Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome    
    78.       Germinal – Emile Zola    
    79.       Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray    
    80.       Possession – AS Byatt
    81. x    A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens    
    82.       Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell    
    83.       The Color Purple – Alice Walker    
    84.       The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro    
    85.       Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert    
    86.       A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry    
    87. x    Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White     
    88.       The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom    
    89. x    Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle     
    90.       The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton    
    91.       Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad    
    92.       The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery    
    93.       The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks    
    94.       Watership Down – Richard Adams    
    95.       A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole    
    96.       A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute    
    97.       The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas    
    98. x    Hamlet – William Shakespeare
    99. x    Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl     
    100.       Les Miserables – Victor Hugo