a record of thoughts

I woke up early today expecting to be in the office before 8AM. Luckily, the server was up, so I’m relieved. I can go to the office later.

Last night around 11PM, I had to copy a partition to a new drive (temp) and it took 2 hours to finish. I thought the server hung at shutdown state which was always the case for me. I thought I had to physically reboot the unit. Luckily when I woke up around 6, the damn thing was online.

Later tonight again, the final replacement shall begin. Maybe I’ll start around after midnight.

I will not be preaching or discussing the current state of world economy. It’s still happening and I’m not an expert in it. The point I will be relaying in today’s entry is the sense of being economical in projects.

I am currently developing an application in a few spared hours of my dull life. I’m a few months delayed because of improper planning. The application I am developing requires massive information storage. Information that is improperly organized is simply garbage in a storage bin. Therefore, I will be using a database to organize the information. According to my projection, I can’t afford to use flatfile or filebased database system. I need an engine to run and manage the database system. There only a few RDBMS out there that’re stable enough to handle megabytes of information daily.

If you are talking about software, which company would first pop-up in your head? Microsoft. Since we are all used to Microsoft’s softwares, a programmer would easily decide to use MSSQL Server. In my case, I’m very picky when it comes to database management. I am not loyal to anyone because I choose according to my needs. However, I would avoid MSSQL.

The few reasons I have for ignoring MSSQL Server are (1) there’s a cheaper solution that can offer the same or superior quality, (2) difficult to use [not intuitive]. I can’t say never, but I don’t overestimate my needs because they cost a lot. I’m a Filipino and Filipinos always (not often) believe that the more expensive the product, the more superior it is. I don’t value something because it costs a lot. In database management system industry, it surely is not true. I always use MySQL for my large scale database needs. It’s free, easy to use, portable, and you have unlimited support from the community. And if you are upgrading to enterprise-scale data, then you can purchase an enterprise version for a handsome cost.

I honestly believe that’s economical. At work, I have MySQL deployed so that I can store needed information anytime I want without asking for a budget. The reason why I wrote this is that I’m running source install on my Western Digital MyBook and it’s been hours since I sent a Make command. It’s my way of killing time I guess.

I borrowed my father’s notebook computer so that I can watch high quality video while I’m lying down on my bed. It’s running on Vista that I stripped off of every silly things Microsoft added. Anyway, I installed an MSNM and during the installation I was asked if I wanted to install the Writer which can be used to jot down offline entries for a blog. I wanted to try, so I installed the software. Here I am on my first entry using Windows Live Writer.

For a Windows user, it’s a great piece of software. Especially for me; I sometimes write my entries while on the ferry. I don’t have Windows in my Eee PC so I had to install an offline instance of WordPress in it. With Windows Live Writer, it’s pretty straightforward. No web server or database engine to run, just let MS do the work for you. I must admit, it may be one of a few software that I like from MS.

I’m already praising the software even before saving and publishing this entry. So here we go…

After eight hours of downtime, I found out that the site was down. The site went down at 12:32:44 and I realized it was down at 8:32:56PM I hardly access the website when I’m at work that’s why I wasn’t given urgent notice of the situation. I failed to change my alert notice for Hotmail, so again I did not receive the notice of suspension from my host. So what happened?

My other domain which I’ve been planning to resurrect was hacked because of my negligence towards it. I did not pay attention to the site and without knowing, the scripts running in it were compromised. Because the script showed the path and other critical information of the server, the intruder was able to upload his phishing scripts. Luckily, a concerned netizen reported the phishing activity to my host and my host immediately acted on the situation that caused temporary lockdown of the whole account. As you may know, only one account hosts all my domains, so a series circuit is always at play.

I’ve had a few encounter with my site being locked down without me knowing instantly. It’s not because of incapability in my host’s part. They inform me instantly. It’s on my part that’s slacking. I need to device an instant notification system if my site goes down without having to use a SmartPhone. And for that, you may want to stay tuned because you may be able to use it in the future.

I’m currently working with MSSQL Server 2005 and why does Microsoft have to make everything difficult? With MySQL, a multiple insert is as simple as INSERT INTO table (columns) VALUES (array of values), (another array of values), … (last array of values). This way works in MS SQL 2008, but that’s another expense.

My current assignment in the office is to export and import MS Access data into a completely different schema in MSS. I will pose a problem at the end of this entry and if someone has a solution, I would be grateful to you.

Multiple insert in MSSQL 2005 Thanks to Pinal Dave for this

USE database_name
GO
INSERT INTO table_name (column1, column2, ... columnN)
SELECT 'value1a', 'value2a', ... 'valueNa'
UNION ALL
SELECT 'value1b', 'value2b', ... 'valueNb'
...
UNION ALL
SELECT 'value1n', value2n', ... 'valueNn'

Problem: How would I do a SELECT…INSERT in the middle of an insert because one or more columns are foreign keys. That way I don’t have to verify my data before inserting. Have the machine do it for me. For instance:

USE database_name
GO
INSERT INTO table_name (column1, column2, ... columnN)
SELECT 'value1a', [SELECT...INSERT], ... 'valueNa'
UNION ALL
SELECT 'value1b', [SELECT...INSERT], ... 'valueNb'
...
UNION ALL
SELECT 'value1n', [SELECT...INSERT], ... 'valueNn'

The day is beautiful; it’ll be warmer today. The sky is clear, so wireless signal should be excellent. I guess it’s one of those days. A man took my usual seat before I arrived at the cafe, so I had to take another location. Too bad, the signal in this location is faint. I won’t bitch about my hardware because I was connected, but got disconnected when I lost the signal. I’m writing this in my offline server so I’ll be publishing it online later.

I’ll leave you with one thought:

I can feel a pleasure, that’s the pain.

I’m not exactly in the mood to write something non-innocuous (I’m just negating thoughtlessly here). So I finally am connected to a WiFi network and I have nothing to say except… (more…)