SQL Audit Buffering and Error Handling

FYI, I wrote this article on SQL Server 2008 Audit’s buffering and error handling behavior.

iPhone Facebook 2.0

Wow! I love it. I love the new interface on the Facebook website and they’ve basically brought it to the iPhone. Love it. The scrolling thing at the top took me a minute to figure out, so discoverability of that feature isn’t that great, but it works well once you figure it out (drag the bar to scroll the bar left/right).

Missing – how do you add a new friend/group? That’s the only think I think I’d ask for in the app. And then I might not ever use the website .

New Windows Ad Campaign

The Seinfeld-Gates commercial – could have been worse. But I like the new Windows website, http://www.microsoft.com/windows/. Looks strangely famaliar. Image and link to ad up top, some big link targets to exploring, and then a directory of help guides. Of course there are only so many ways you can do a site like this.

Macs – Overpriced or Not?

Lot’s of stories today about Mac’s being overpriced – except for one that actually went out and did the research in detail about the cost of Mac hardware – Tom’s Hardware.

This matches what I’ve seen. I recently tried spec’ing out a Dell, HP, and Lenova Thinkpad comparable to a MacBook. Dell was nearly $200 cheaper, or about %15. But I’ve had such bad experiences with Dells I wouldn’t have bought if it were 30% cheaper. The HP and Lenova were within $100 – I won’t bother linking as the price has probably changed.

Now you can certainly find $700 laptops. But they usually lack on a key set of features – particularly the CPU. You can’t just look at the Ghz anymore – you have to look at the cache. Small cache means poor performance and every sub $1000 laptop I looked at skimped on the cache on the CPU. Once you got a decent CPU you were in the ballpark of a MacBook.

Am I being elitist? Maybe those small caches are fine for machines just doing web surfing? Maybe – but if I just wanted to web surf I’d got real cheap and get an EePc or something. I want a machine to edit photos, listen to music, make music, make movies. And the hardware to do it well just isn’t uner $1000 yet and is very comparable to Mac costs.

In short, yes I agree you can find a Windows PC for much less than a Mac. But I don’t believe such a PC is a good PC – I think it runs Vista awefully (part of Vista’s image problem I’m sure) and won’t do well what many people try to use a PC for these days. And by the time you upgrade it to a decent machine you could have bought a Mac. For truly comparable machines, there isn’t a significant price gap. Apple just doesn’t make such low end machines – probably because they don’t want their name associated with such cheap hardware. Guess what – neither do I. For my relatives unwilling to switch to a Mac I recommend comparable hardware – which everytime I’ve priced it out has meant comparable prices.

SQL Server 2008 Ships!

SQL Server 2008 Ships!. The feature I was primary developer on, SQL Audit, is the second feature mentioned:

Microsoft Corp. today announced the release to manufacturing of Microsoft SQL Server 2008, the new version of the company’s acclaimed data management and business intelligence platform. This version of SQL Server provides powerful new capabilities such as support for policy-based management, auditing, large-scale data warehousing, geospatial data, and advanced reporting and analysis services.

 Of course this will vary from press release to press release and there are a ton of super features that I would personally rank above my own – but still it’s nice to be noticed .

iPhone – weekend web browser?

Just saw web app market share report for iPhone and noticed a trend – usage goes way up on weekends. Every weekend. This fits my usage pattern – I’m around computers all day Monday through Friday and use the iPhone mostly as a phone and iPod. Then the weekend comes and I’m out and about more and use the iPhone a lot more as a web browser. I wonder if BlackBerry’s would show the same pattern or inverse – are they used more during business days/business hours than during personal time?

A World Without Privacy

I’m increasingly coming around to the the thinking Google is using in it’s case. Privacy is gone. We are being watched, tracked, monitored continuely. There aren’t many secrets in a person’s life. A lot fewer than most think. I am begining to wonder if it’s worth the fight to get them back. The world just seems to move along anyways.  Certainly a topic that will be debated a lot as people wake up to how little privacy they have.

Microsoft Acquires DATAllegro

Some good links on the DATAllegro acquisition from Curt Monash and commentary. Now this is an acquisition I can get excited about! Orange county – wonder if they need anyone famaliar with SQL Server?

Recognizing the Problem

From Ballmer’s now public email:

Apple: In the competition between PCs and Macs, we outsell Apple 30-to-1. But there is no doubt that Apple is thriving. Why? Because they are good at providing an experience that is narrow but complete, while our commitment to choice often comes with some compromises to the end-to-end experience.

This is finally a good starting point. I’ve heard comments go from – Apple is so tiny they don’t matter, to they market well but they really aren’t that good. Apple has done some good engineering work over the last 10 years with OS X. And they’ve focused on the consumer market when Microsoft focused on the enterprise trying to protect itself from Linux.

Now I am concerned about the word “narrow”. I’m not aware of any area a consumer has that Apple doesn’t have a solution. I guess it’s narrow in the sense that all the hardware comes from Apple. And I do get that comment when I recommend Apple to friends or family. They still think it’s overpriced. By the time you configure a machine from Dell or Lenova to be comparable, they aren’t. But Dell and others will push these ads of machines that are just miserable. If you buy them, you’ll hate the way it performs and have a miserable experience. And if you don’t, you’ll end up paying as much as you would for a Mac.

But it is a start. I think Kevin Johnson’s exit is also good – he focused too much on the web in my opinion and ignored Windows. Not that I believe Windows has a chance to double again or something, but customers have made an investment in us and we owe it to them to continue to improve Windows.

800Notes.com

My friend Dave Tavres pointed me to this tip on figuring out what those unknown phone numbers are, http://800notes. Very cool – let’s you tell others if it’s a telemarketer. Seems like a lot of work though… Wonder if my wife would use it. That’s always the test.