Voice of the DBA

Tag: technology

  • The Next Great Thing

    At SQL Bits, I was chatting with Brent about a few things, including AI, which we think is changing the world. I’ve got my set of AI experiments going, and I do believe we will fundamentally alter work and how we use computers in the future.

    Not sure if it’s for the better or worse, but things are changing and will change more.

    Brent mentioned he was thinking about how a few years ago the “next great thing” was blockchain, which was going to change databases and storage, but never really caught on. I never thought it would as it seemed too niche-y for me.

    What other great waves of tech have you seen over the years? I saw a prediction that data engineering will be dead in 5 years. I’ll take that bet. I’ve been hearing the DBA (or other data related positions) will be gone soon for over 25 years. I remember friends asking me if I was worried about my position after SQL Server v7 was released in 1998. I wasn’t then, and I’m not now. It seems there is more work than ever, though certainly the bar is higher for people doing the work.

    You need to learn to be better at your job if you want some job security. That’s one reason I constantly push people to learn, improve, and show off ( consider #SQLNewBlogger posts) their skills. Employers want to know you’re providing value if they’re paying you $$ (or € or £ or ¥ or whatever).

    There have been plenty of tech flops. Virtual/Extended/Augmented reality and various headsets haven’t quite taken off, though there is no shortage of new “AI powered” eyeglass products. Quantum computing still seems to be only slightly less fantastic than fusion energy. Voice control or gestures were supposed to make keyboards obsolete, but we still type a lot.

    There are also some amazing things. Touch computing, especially on mobile, dominates. More and more digital payments are changing our commerce functions. Smartphones are essential devices for most people with apps available for anything and everything.

    I do think GenAI will continue to change the world and how many of us work. This was an interesting talk on how AI changes work, not from a technologist per se, but from a writer. The GenAI models continue to improve, and I find them most useful in saving me minutes, not doing all my work. They are becoming more helpful, though slightly untrustworthy assistants. They are eager teenagers that can help, but need supervision and guidance.

    And sometimes need to be abandoned for the current task and you need to do the rest of (or all of) the work.

    What memories do you have of past “next great things? or maybe of what you see for the future?

    Steve Jones

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

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  • Watch Technology Has Advanced

    Today I wrote an editorial about my watch failing and getting a new one. I likened this to the changes in tools, which many of us deal with in technology. Certainly Visual Studio has changed a lot if you’re a developer, and you might even be using VS Code. For database people in the SQL Server world, we’ve gone from isql to Enterprise Manager to Management Studio to ADS to no-ADS.

    In any case, I’m still not sure that I like the Garmin Venu2SQ. If you’ve never had a smartwatch, or a Garmin, this might not mean much to you, but I’ll write a little about things I noticed with tech changing. These are things that stood out to me, which aren’t necessarily good or bad, but just are.

    The Look

    There’s two things here: the shape and the display. The shape is square, and my wife noticed the difference right away. My old one was round and looked like a watch. It had an always on display, so during the daytime I could see it.

    It looked like a watch.

    This one is square, the display turns off, and it seems like a device. Similar to an Apple watch or Galaxy watch.

    I have to admit I hadn’t thought about it, but after years of various Timex’s and the old Garmin Forerunner, it does look different and I notice now that my wife pointed this out.

    The other thing is the display. On one hand, it’s colorful and bright. That’s new. On the other, I haven’t found a watch face that I like. The old one I had selected and used for 7+ years isn’t available anymore, or I can’t find it. The Garmin store is crowded with watch faces, and I’m a little overwhelmed. I’m trying a few, but so far nothing is amazing.

    Ergonomics

    One of the reasons I liked my old watch is that it had a number of physical buttons, which make it easy to pick things. At the same time, sometimes there were too many things to pick from (a long list or a circular display of options) and it was a lot of presses to pick something.

    This new watch has a touch screen and only two buttons. One button will show me my fitness activities (press) or various controls (long press). The other is a “back” button (press) or a settings button (long press). I thought that would be non-intuitive, but once I’ve learned this, it’s only slightly distracting.

    The screen is a touch screen, and scrolling through things works well, which I was surprised to see. There is often a virtual button at the top or bottom of a display that lets me easily open a menu of options. I was surprised how well this works, as well as how little I mess up the actions. I change alarms often as I travel and setting a new alarm on the watch works well.

    I thought I would miss more buttons, but I don’t.

    The one part of the touch screen I don’t like is at times I lift my wrist to check some notification, usually a text, and my coat sleeve catches the screen and dismisses the notification before I can read it. Or before I can press the menu to respond. That’s a minor issue, though one thing I don’t like about touch screens.

    Battery Life

    This is amazing to me. I loved my old Forerunner which lasted 4-5 days between charges, which was useful as I traveled. I had a lot of trips where I didn’t need to charge, though I carried a second charger as sometimes I’d forget to charge before I left.

    This new watch has been running for 6 days and I have 50% charge. To be fair, life now is a little busy and I’m doing less gym time and no GPS, but the battery is rated close to two weeks, with a color touch screen. That’s amazing.

    Features

    I picked the Forerunner as it had a NFC payment and music capabilities. At the time I thought I’d connect Bluetooth headphones at the gym and not need my phone. I’ve learned that I really don’t do that, especially as my phone is my car key, so I am rarely without it.

    This new watch doesn’t have music downloaded, but it does have a wallet, and a few of the apps I’ve used on the old watch. At 1/3 of the price. It’s somewhat amazing that this much tech is packed into a watch, with better battery life.

    The way I manage apps and watch faces has changed, depending less on the app and more on a link through my phone to the store, but I get that probably saves them some software engineering of the app.

    What I learned most of all is that I really just need to track my sleep, stress, heart rate, and exercise, all of which are available.

    Learning Curve

    As I wrote in the editorial, I’m not sure I’m using a lot of the watch, but I do slowly figure things out as I need them. This week I was looking to get music controls on the watch, so that when I’m doing chores and my phone is buried in a coat, I can change tracks. It took me about 5-10 minutes of searching to find out how, but once I enabled this, it worked great.

    Slowly I’m coming to accept this watch, and will just keep changing watch faces every week or so until I find one I like.

    Finding The Tech Fit

    I see people doing other things on their watches, but I don’t find myself jealous. My wife can answer a phone call on her watch and talk through it, but I don’t have that need. I’m rarely on a horse, and need hands free access. I don’t constantly look for information other than the time or my health.

    What’s amazing to me is how much cheaper the tech is and how long my battery life is, and how little I do on the watch. After making a snap decision, this has turned out to meet most of my needs across the last month.

    It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough and that’s OK with me.

  • Moving On After a Technology Fail

    Recently my smartwatch broke. I was coaching volleyball and demonstrating something to a few kids when a ball hit the case of my watch just right and broke a corner there the watch band attaches. I’ve been playing and coaching with my watch in this way for many years and never had an issue, but apparently there was enough material fatigue that this time something snapped. I was very sad as this was my ten-year gift from Redgate, which I’ve loved, used, and cherished for 7 years now.

    I wonder if there’s a 20-year gift …

    In any case, I lived for a day before I realized I really depend on my smartwatch. I quickly realized that I constantly look at my watch to check the time, run a stopwatch at volleyball, track my heart rate and exercise for health, and most importantly, wake me up with a vibration in the morning. Before I had this I set an audible alarm, which my wife hated. At the time the case broke I was very busy, and after a quick set of searches and very minimal evaluation, I just bought a Garmin Venu 2Sq as a replacement. It was inexpensive, but appeared to do most of what I wanted. If I decided I didn’t like it, I wasn’t out a lot of money.

    I contacted Garmin, but they said they wouldn’t repair or replace cases. Maybe they assume technology that is more than 5 years old is too prone to failure and not worth fixing? Maybe they just want to sell new products and not support old ones? I get all that, but this age of disposable digital tech is a bit annoying and mildly upsetting to me. I constantly fix old things on the ranch and I like keeping devices going as long as possible. Why not make cases replaceable? I feel the same way about a few devices that have embedded and built in cords. One of my Google cameras had a cord failure when a cat chewed it and the entire device is not junk because I can’t repair this tiny cable and Google won’t. But I’m getting distracted here.

    This new watch is very different. Less buttons, more touch screen, and a different type of OS. I am having to learn how to use a new tool, which is both exciting and annoying. I am less productive in some ways as I learn a new tool, and I’m sure I’m missing things because I just want the tool to work rather than invest the time to learn about (potential) ways to use it. I know that there might be plenty of features I learn about that I’m uninterested in using, and I’ll have wasted time.

    I see this often in technology. Many of us get used to working with tools in a certain way, and we learn to be productive. We get comfortable, develop habits, and work around annoyances. If the tool changes, or we are forced to use a new one, often we don’t like the change. We may feel lost and not see the advantages of a new tool.

    I see this all the time as I work with customers. Sometimes I can see better ways they can accomplish tasks, and sometimes I see the cost of change is too high. Even a more efficient way of working can’t overcome a loss of productivity for a long period of time if too much change is required. Leaning on existing tools, skills, and habits can be efficient and comfortable. Going through the hassles of change can be worth the effort. Like most things in the database world, the devil is in the details and the answer to the value of changes is it depends. Sometimes a new tool is valuable and sometimes it is not worth the effort.

    Almost a month into a new watch, I’m unsure of whether I like it or not, but in the short term, I’m too busy to spend time looking for a new tool. Unfortunately, that’s the state of the world often for many of us. We live with good enough.

    Steve Jones

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

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

  • Technology Fears

    Recently I had a friend traveling who is not very tech savvy. This person has traveled before and has a routine, but in this case, they were struggling to get an airline’s mobile app to work. They also struggled with the website, and just before the trip, they were thinking to cancel because they didn’t have a ticket in their hand before driving to the airport.

    This turned out to be a login issue, and between friends and the airline’s customer service, they were able to print out a ticket at home and take it in hand to the airport.

    It was slightly funny to me, but it got me thinking about the fears people have about technology. Many of these fears are really about change, but I would guess most of us have been burned by technology at some point. There’s an app, a process, a system that fails and causes us stress/hassles/annoyances/money/etc.

    Today I’m wondering if there is a technology are you afraid of or that you worry about more than average. Perhaps you have friends that worry about technology and have concerns. Drop a note in the comments, and I bet we’ll have some funny discussions.

    This summer, my wife and I took a ride in a Waymo in San Francisco. It was a neat experience, and I enjoyed it, but when my wife posted a video, we were amazed how many friends of ours were unwilling to consider riding in one. We are Tesla owners, and we’ve been impressed with FSD, but my wife is also unwilling to use the basic Autopilot most of the time because it’s not reliable. Even FSD was something we were careful in using.

    I live in the digital world often. I rarely use paper for anything, other than taking notes. Even then I often take pictures of notes and upload them for reference or for retyping. I pay for most things with digital money. I walk through life where technology manages supply chains, border admissions, airline flights, and almost everything I interact with. Even the vehicles I use at the ranch have lots of technology in them, though I admit I’m glad when something has analog parts I can work with.

    I’m not sure there’s much technology I’m afraid of, though I am wary of some connected devices. Not because of the tech, but because I don’t think the vendors do a good job of security.

    I can’t really think of what technology worries me. Even AI is likely to be less dangerous/useful/amazing/whatever than people think. I think the one part of tech that worries me the most is how it affects society and many people whose jobs are threatened by tech. Though maybe I shouldn’t worry. Those tech-averse people might be the reason we see growth in the travel agent world, which I thought was dead.

    Steve Jones

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

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