While surfing the 'Net one day, I found this quote and image

In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd

Miguel Cervantes
http://www.1-900-870-6235.com/eLearning/GreatIdeas/QuixoteMap.jpg

A new sport for Paris Hilton

While shopping at the local mall on Black Friday, I noticed a young man wearing a sweatshirt with

Varsity Hurling

on the front. I immediately thought that Paris Hilton would be well qualified to be on that team.

After reading/skimming some of the ideas presented in this article, Lessons from Project Management: 101 ways to organize your life, I decided that I should try harder to post more stuff to this blog.

Items #56 through #59 (in the Personal Organization section) suggests keeping a daily journal to jot down the day's hi- and lo-points. After a few days/entries I should pause to reflect upon what I had written and to rate my performance on the accomplishments or failures. I need to use a daily list of tasks/to do items. Once I complete a tasks, I should cross it off the list. With practice, I should improve the task completion percentage.

Thanksgiving -- a co-worker sent this to me ...

What we’re really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets. I mean, why else would they call it Thanksgiving.

– Erma Bombeck

Photo Published Via Mobile Phone

Here is a photo I took last May during a trip to southern Utah and northern Arizona.

I sent it from a mobile phone using the new (to me) interface that Google recently made available.

think again!

After a three month absence, one of my favorite sites, think again! has returned. The site contains many

"seductive math problems for the modern mind"

.

The Astronomy of Halloween

I just discovered that tomorrow is one of four "cross-quarter" days on the solar calendar. Read more at this link, The Astronomy of Halloween

Halloween means more than just a day for costumes and candy corn. It's the halfway point between the autumnal equinox and winter solstice, the last of four "cross-quarter" days on the solar calendar.

I forgot why I forget ...

While browsing SlashDot, I found this quote from Steven Wright

"Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time."

Motley Fool's CAPS

I tried the web site mention in this link, Motley Fool's CAPS software last night.

It did not take long to create my account on the site http://caps.fool.com/. I have been following a few different stocks (each pays a quarterly dividend) for several months.

I entered those stocks along with my best guess as to how they will perform for the next few weeks. I checked back today after the market closed to see that my net worth had increased today.

15 best practices for pureXML performance in DB2 9

Here is a new document written by Matthias Nicola about XML performance using IBM's DB2 version 9.

DB2 9 introduces pureXML support, which means that XML data is stored and queried in its inherent hierarchical format. To query XML data, DB2 offers two languages, SQL/XML and XQuery. Additionally, DB2 9 has sophisticated XML indexing capabilities and support for XML Schema validation. While most existing performance guidelines for DB2 also apply to XML data, this article provides additional XML-specific performance tips.

Borrowed from my Google home page ...

The problem with political jokes is they get elected.
- Henry Cate VII

MoPhos

Check out this link to learn more about modern lifestyle in Phoenix, AZ. Modern Phoenix is a neighborhood network featuring information and photos of art and architecture in the Valley of the Sun.

Tips for keeping Maven projects portable

A recent posting on the DevX.com site asks " How portable is your Java project? How many modifications must be made to a build environment in order to produce a successful artifact?"

Word order ...

I was listening to an American football game a few days ago. One of the announcers made some comment about " ... an awful lot of players ... ". This made me wonder what would happen if he had talked about " ... a lot of awful players ... " instead.

Bucky's Bean Bag

The last two times I visited Prescott, I bought a bag of Whiskey Row coffee beans from Bucky's Bean Bag. This shop is located on fabled Whiskey Row. My co-workers and I enjoyed the coffee we made from the whole beans.

Arizona Coffee information

While stumbling around the Internet the other day, I found this interesting site about coffee. I live in Phoenix and I like good coffee. I hope to make good use of the information that Chris and others provide.

Link to Arizona Coffee

Word order ...

Many months ago after listening to a radio commercial for a local tire company, I began to ponder the difference between

• a wide variety of tires


• a variety of wide tires

Willie got busted again ...

According to a story on MSNBC, Willie Nelson and four others were issued misdemeanor citations for possession of narcotic mushrooms and marijuana.

Branching with cvs or subversion

Found these links while researching branching and tagging with cvs ...

• Link to Ish : Creating a subversion project with trunk, branch and tag directories…
  
• Link to Neeraj's Tech Scribbles: Creating a branch in CVS and using it from Eclipse
  
• Link to Jared's Weblog
  
• Link to CVS - Confluence
  
• Link to David Van den Brande's Weblog
  

DB2 News & Tips: 2006Q3 issue of DB2 Magazine available

DB2 News & Tips: 2006Q3 issue
of DB2 Magazine available

Reference site for online documentation

I found this link in today's email from SD Times.

A recent edition of The NewOrleans.Com - WEEKLY FOODFEST LETTER by Tom Fitzmorris contained these WORDS TO EAT BY:

"Playwrights are like men who have been dining for a month in an Indian restaurant. After eating curry night after night, they deny the existence of asparagus."--Peter Ustinov.

Coffee Fool site

Another site for the coffee fools of the world

Programming Quotations

Ideas to ponder ... Link to Programming Quotations

Dark Reading - IBM Fights Crime in Canada - Security News Analysis

Link to Dark Reading - IBM Fights Crime in Canada - Security News Analysis

SEPTEMBER 6, 2006 When it comes to data classification and search, IBM has adopted a "grow your own" stance via Java-based development tools called the Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA). But a project in the Cape Breton region of Nova Scotia could yield something more generally useable.

IBM is working with a local company called ADM Solutions (no Website), Cape Breton University, and the Cape Breton Regional Police Services, all of Sydney, Nova Scotia, to create a system that stores, classifies, and searches police crime data.

Naked Truth from a Motley Fool email message

Three-fourths of workers age 55 to 64 have less than $56,000 saved for retirement.

CVS: Tag files in multiple projects with same version

Invoke the following script to add a cvs version tag to multiple files ...

cvstag ver-1_2_3

------------ cvstag ------------
#!/bin/sh -x

export version=$1
export parts="part1 part2 part3"

mkdir /tmp/app
cd /tmp/app

for prj in $parts
do
cvs co $prj
cvs tag -R $version $prj
done

for prj in $parts
do
du -msk $prj
done

cd /tmp
rm -r app

Interesting Tee-Shirt

Tonight at the grocery store, I noticed the following on one man's tee-shirt, "Silence is Golden; Duct Tape is Silver"

The Next Generation: Q Replication

 

The Next Generation: Q Replication

By Anthony J. Ciccone and Beth Hamel

A new messaging-based architecture keeps latency low for even the most demanding applications.

Ten years ago, IBM first shipped DataPropagator Relational (DPROPR). Now, IBM is preparing new replication technology: Q Replication. DPROPR (now called DB2 Data Propagator), has been expanded over the years, and the resulting set of replication products has experienced substantial commercial success. So why has IBM put so much research and development effort into the creating a new replication architecture?

Source: The Next Generation: Q Replication

IBM Software - Information Management Books

Refactoring Databases: Evolutionary Database Design
Authors: Scott W. Ambler, Pramodkumar J. Sadalage
ISBN: 0321293533

Source: IBM Software - Information Management Books

IBM Software - Complimentary Professional Certification Preparation Documents

 

The following preparation documents have been created to help you prepare for Information Management certification exams. Each document covers role descriptions, requirements, objectives and preparation suggestions.

Source: IBM Software - Complimentary Professional Certification Preparation Documents

Google Opens Up Its Base

 

August 23, 2006
Google Opens Up Its Base
By Sean Michael Kerner

The key to any successful Web 2.0 deployment is the availability of an open API (define). It's a key that Google is now giving out for its base -- Google Base that is.

The Google Base Data API is now freely available from Google, allowing third party developers to have applications that can interact with Google Base.

Source: Google Opens Up Its Base

The Object-Oriented Thought Process

 

Check out the following site for a series of articles and information on object-orientated development.

http://www.developer.com/design/article.php/330488...

Build a Google Earth Interface using Relational Database

 Hopefully most of the Oracle-related items below can be easily adapted/converted to IBM's DB2.

Build a Google Earth Interface on Oracle Database XE

by Rich Gibson

Get an overview of spatial data, explore ways to add spatial attributes to existing data, and learn how to use Google Earth to "fly" over aerial imagery including that data.

Published August 2006

How we look at our data forms our view of the world. Until recently most of us have ignored location because we lacked the tools (or the ability to use those tools) needed to acquire, manage, and present the spatial component of our data. This means we have missed the geospatial component of human experience. Everything that we do, think, or experience, we do, think, or experience somewhere.

Until recently it has been complicated to connect a spatially enabled database with a visualization engine: to put our customers (and whole supply chain) onto a map. That is now a solved problem. In this article you will get an introduction to spatial data, explore ways to add spatial attributes to existing data, and learn how to use the free Google Earth program to let us ‘fly’ over aerial imagery that includes your data.

Source: Build a Google Earth Interface on Oracle Database XE

Arizona Coffee information

While stumbling around the Internet the other day, I found this interesting site. I live in Phoenix and I like good coffee. I hope to make good use of the information that Chris and others provide.

Link to Arizona Coffee

Windows Live Writer ...

This entry was created using Windows Live Writer (Beta). I wonder how it will compare to an entry entered using the normal blogger software.

In the beginning ...

Welcome to my blog!

Don't be surprised by what you find here. Many different thoughts and ideas will eventually find their way to this medium.