My boss will say stuff like, "This Oracle query takes two hours to run. There's no way a query should take that long. I bet you I could write a query that does the same thing in three minutes."

Is he writing queries directly in Oracle, or using the MSSQL interface?

I don't know crap about Oracle-specific tuning. If I were writing queries for programs, it would be different. But I'm usually just getting different looks at data, or generating lists of IDs for dumps.

Most of the places I've worked have been Oracle shops, with the rationale of scalability and diversity of OS platforms. And the vendors we've been installing the DBs as back ends for have generally recommended Oracle as their first choices.

Man, the search engine in this web app sucks. I run the query in Oracle to find the content, and then try to find the same piece in the custom portal front end to see how it's presented, and it's like I'm playing craps in Atlantic City. I don't so often win.

Ah, fuck. My boss just discovered a major mistake I made in paginating half a year's worth of manuscripts. About 20 pages now overlap. This is all on-line, no actual pages to check, since the print issues haven't gone to press yet. But it can't be re-paginated. So that's wonderful. I have no idea what they're going to do about it.

I told my boss when I was given this assignment that it wasn't a good idea to run things this way, with only one set of eyes on it. Hello, human, thus error is possible. I'm just glad we found it before I handed it off to the new guy; he shouldn't have to deal with it. Fuck.

Is he writing queries directly in Oracle, or using the MSSQL interface?

He just was given access to write queries directly in Oracle. Before that he was using the MSSQL interface, and before that, we had to ask them to write us a view for the stuff we needed.

The only negative thing I've heard about Oracle is that (supposedly) it requires several full-time people just to maintain an Oracle server.

For our needs, MS SQL Server is just fine.

Yeah, I don't know the overhead for a production Oracle server, but I know when I had to install test back ends for our apps long years ago, MSSQL was way easier. But we were only prototyping. I couldn't tell you what it would take to put a heavy load on SQL Server either.

I'm going to crosspost a technical question here with the hope that there are vloggers among us with some insight.

I want to make interview and training videos for my websites and don't know how to do that inexpensively. Webcam or camcorder? Any preferences or good experiences to recommend?

You know it's been A Day when you're wandering around, snarling, and just hoping for anyone to say The Wrong Thing just so you have an excuse to haul off with the cast iron skillet.

I hate dealing with customers who have embraced the "that is unacceptable" response to being told they can't have something. I don't tell you this just to fuck with you! We don't do what you want in our department! And no, I am not going to let you turn my works into a statement for the entire company!

You can say "I want the information!" all you want, but if I don't have it or can't find it, you're not getting it!

edit: And if you don't like the information I give you because "that phone number goes to voice mail," it's not my fault the guy isn't answering his phone!

That would make my day much better.

In fact, that's it. I am declaring the workday officially over. You can all go home now. (Except don't, cause I still need my internets.) But the working can stop now.

My workday is over. It consisted of about five emails and one meeting. Good times.

My workday is nowhere near done today, unfortunately.