Saturday night we checked out an art gallery down in Pilson then went to this awesome new coffee/cake place that’s open crazy late. I snapped a few pics with the cameraphone.

The intellect of man is forced to choose
perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.
When all that story’s finished, what’s the news?
In luck or out the toil has left its mark:
That old perplexity an empty purse,
Or the day’s vanity, the night’s remorse.

-Yeats

(I’m over at the DePaul library right now trying to finish up a very long technical paper about a specific aspect of Oracle databases called services… and I read that poem during a five minute break. It struck me. And the more I reflect on it, the more profound it seems. Especially in the light of some of the frustrations I’ve personally been struggling with lately.)

The next peep has passed on to the netherworld.

7. Got mixed up with the wrong crowd.

Moral: be carefuly who you hang with.

That 11i/RAC/ASM project turned out to be fairly interesting for quite a few reasons - another reason was that it gave me an opportunity to become quite a bit more familiar with RConfig.

RConfig an Oracle provided java-based utility to fully automate the process of converting a database from single-instance to RAC. It will also automatically move your database from a filesystem into ASM. (In case you’re wondering, it just uses RMAN in the background; really RMAN is still the only tool that can actually move a database into ASM.) RConfig is the backend used by Grid Control for its “Convert to Cluster Database” wizard.

After digging into RConfig a bit I have two main observations:
Read more

I recently mentioned working with a client to convert their E-Business Suite environment to RAC and ASM. I enjoyed this project; there are a few good high-level guides to the process but there are still a lot of small hiccups and configuration decisions where I could put my RAC experience to work.

The main guide that we used for this conversion process was metalink note 362135.1. However there were a few divergences; the two main ones were that (1) the client had already upgraded their source database to 10g and (2) the metalink note was updated with a few new steps in the middle of our project but we chose to stick with the original document that we’d started with. The flowchart to the left gives a pretty good summary of our conversion process (click on it to see a larger image).

RConfig simplified the actual conversion to RAC and ASM but there were quite a few additional steps that we had to perform manually before and after RConfig. Here’s a breakdown of the database-related steps:
Read more

Thought of another way to destroy a peep today. Hope this isn’t too blasphemous.

6. Hit over the head with a bible by a bible-thumper.

Was just perusing Sergio Leunissen’s blog this morning and a couple of his recent posts caught my attention:

First off, as someone who frequently installs Oracle on Linux, his post last month about the recently released RPM oracle-validated was great - can’t believe I’d missed that. Basically it’s an RPM that makes sure you have all the required OS packages for the Oracle RDBMS and even sets kernel parameters and creates an oracle user and dba/oinstall groups. Sergio has a nice demo in his post; I’m going to have to start using this!

Secondly, Sergio linked to a great post from Wim back at the end of February about the differences between RedHat and OEL. The most important point: OEL is not a fork. In fact I didn’t realize this was available but there’s even a short PDF which lists every single package that’s different - and what the differences are. Have a look; it’s pretty much just logo and branding changes. In short, OEL is like Centos or White Box with real Oracle Corp support.

If you’re comparing OEL and RedHat there are really only two things to compare: (1) availability of OS for “proof of concept” or development systems - OEL lets you easily DL and run as many copies as you want for free like Centos and White Box while RedHat doesn’t and (2) support organizations - do you think that Red Hat or Oracle will do a better job of supporting your Linux operating system when you do decide to go into production and purchase support for it (and honestly that seems to be the bigger question in my mind).

Another thing to keep in mind is that Oracle will also support RedHat installations; you can even update your RedHat system to point to Oracle’s servers for new updates rather than RedHat’s servers. (Then for example you can automatically pick up packages like oracle-validated and ocfs.)

…has an interesting story about “Casual Sexcapades”

Hooked on hooking up
Dating takes a back seat as many students opt for casual encounters

…

When asked by RedEye, Barten and other college students in Chicago admitted a penchant for no-strings-attached hookups. Once treated with a finger wag, promiscuity has shed its bad reputation…

…

And while research shows that not all college students partake in the walk of shame, unabashed sexuality has become the big stand on campus—where dating is passe.

Starting Monday at Northwestern, students will hear the naked truth about sex as part of the university’s first ever “Sex Week.” Sexperts will get down and dirty discussing topics from sodomy to sexual health.

Hosted by the Northwestern College Feminists, the forum will try to tackle bedroom buzz and give sexposure to subjects once reserved for locker rooms and sleepovers. The group seeks to address and correct some of the misconceptions about sex.

“We’re trying to break down those [campus] stereotypes,” said event organizer Stella Fayman, a Northwestern sophomore. “I just really want women to embrace sexuality.”

Aris’ peep (on the left) looks angry. My lousy peep just gave up. This was before we even started the jousting. When we actually did the joust they both fell over simultaneously onto their sides and it was a draw.

The ‘rents gave me a box of 16 peeps for easter and clarified that they were not for eating as much as they were for playing with. So Aris and I have a rule now that we are going to kill every single peep in a different way. Here’s the current tally:

1. Death from Radiation (microwave)

2. Stomped to Death (after being discovered in Aris’ jacket pocket)

3. Eaten by Debra

4. Peep Jousting #1

5. Peep Jousting #2