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Flood of Coffee Break Byte Videos, Thanks Gretchen! |
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JeffSmith
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3/31/2008
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The Toad World visitors may have noticed a recent surge in the number of videos available for viewing in the past few days. Toad World will debut a collection of 12 or so Coffee Break Bytes (video tutorials) to highlight the new features for the 9.6 release due out on April 1.
I think these videos very nicely compliment
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Batch Optimizer Part 1 – How the Batch Optimizer Works |
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RichardTo
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Friday, March 28, 2008 4:01 AM
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Written by Rene Woody
We all know that it is important to create SQL statements that perform well in our database environment, but all too often, after creating a SQL statement that retrieves the correct results, the optimizing of the SQL statement is left for another time. Frequently, that time never arrives. Quest SQL ...
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Let's Talk About Compliance! |
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JohnWeathington
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Thursday, March 27, 2008
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Inaugural entry for John Weathington’s Quest for Compliance. Here we get introduced to John, get clear on some compliance related definitions, and get acquainted with the impact compliance has on DBAs, database developers, and IT managers.
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Toad Should be a No-Brainer |
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Bert
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Wednesday, March 26, 2008 5:10 AM
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I often get asked by both new and exiting customers to aid them in the cost justification process for purchasing Toad or upgrading their licenses. I thought since I get asked this so often, maybe a short blurb on the topic would be generally beneficial.
To write this blog, I’m using Microsoft Word. When I’m done, I’ll be em ...
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Debugging PL/SQL, now available for everyone! |
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JeffSmith
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3/25/2008
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As of April 1, 2008, if you are a current on maintenance and are using at least version 9.6 of Toad for Oracle, you will have complete access to our PL/SQL, Stored Java Source, and SQL*Plus script debugger regardless of your edition of Toad. Since the debugger made its debut in version 6.3 released all the way back in February of 2000, the functionality has been offered as a premium in Toad for Oracle. ...
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An Analysis of Database Issues |
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MikeA
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Friday, March 21, 2008 9:58 AM
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In my ten plus years as a database consultant before joining Quest Software I had the opportunity to visit hundreds of client sites. At client sites I performed analysis of their environments to help them improve the performance of their database systems. In this blog I want to talk about the top ten performance-related issues that I saw over and over again.
The following table lists them in order of occurrence: ...
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Toad does RAC – Really |
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Bert
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Wednesday, March 19, 2008 5:08 AM
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An increasingly common question these days is does Toad support Oracle RAC (i.e. Real Application Clusters)? And if so – how, when and where?
HOW: There ...
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How to use the Quest SQL Optimizer |
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RichardTo
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Tuesday, March 18, 2008 5:31 AM
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Written by Rene Woody
Quest SQL Optimizer can do an extensive transformation of the syntax of a SQL statement while still maintaining the exact same result set. This exhaustive transformation can produce hundreds of SQL alternatives. So it is necessary to have some insight as how to find a SQL alternative that is better than your ...
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Weird PL/SQL |
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StevenFeuersteinTW
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Monday, March 17, 2008 12:57 PM
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Collaborate08, annual conference of the International Oracle User Group, and several other national and international user groups, will be held in Denver this year, from April 13th to the 16th. I am going to present three papers, including (for the first time) Weird PL/SQL. I thought you might enjoy reading about some of the weirdnesses of PL/S ...
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What’s Coming in Toad for Oracle 9.6? (Part 3) |
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JohnPocknell
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Monday, March 17, 2008
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It’s almost that time again as another exciting new release of Toad draws closer !
We’ve decided that, rather than let you wait until this release of Toad before you see what’s new, we’ll give you a little fore-taste now !
The emphasis on this release is to simultaneously conti ...
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What’s Coming in Toad for Oracle 9.6? (Part 2) |
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JohnPocknell
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Friday, March 07, 2008
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It’s almost that time again as another exciting new release of Toad draws closer !
We’ve decided that, rather than let you wait until this release of Toad before you see what’s new, we’ll give you a little fore-taste now!
The emphasis on this release is to ...
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Excel and Oracle – 2 Choices for the Query Writer |
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JeffSmith
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3/6/2008
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If you’re a loyal reader, you may remember a blog I published WAAAAAAAY back in July of last year. A few things have changed since then. Users now have 2 different Toad tools to help them get data from Excel merged into the data they already have access to in the Oracle da ...
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What’s Coming in Toad for Oracle 9.6 ? (Part 1) |
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JohnPocknell
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Thursday, February 28, 2008
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It’s almost that time again as another exciting new release of Toad draws closer !
We’ve decided that, rather than let you wait until this release of Toad before you see what’s new, we’ll give you a little fore-taste now !
The emphasis on this release is ...
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Database Version Control via Toad |
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Bert
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Wednesday, February 27, 2008 9:01 AM
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One key task for many DBAs is maintaining a database version control or change revision history. Database version control affords the DBA the ability to restore the database to any prior state, or to detect unplanned database revisions that cause the database to be out of compliance with its specification. One could argue that the latter scenario would unlikely happen in a well controlled production environment ...
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Toad Database Probe Customization |
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Bert
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Wednesday, February 20, 2008 8:54 AM
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Did you know that Toad’s Database Probe screen is customizable? That’s why it’s vastly superior to the simple Database Monitoring screen. Here’s a basic screen snapshot:
 < ...
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Toad and Monitoring Indexes |
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Bert
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Wednesday, February 13, 2008 10:11 AM
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Ever wonder which indexes are being used in your database? Well Oracle 9i introduced the capability to track index usage. But you had to learn new ALTER INDEX command syntax to support this and then how to query V$OBJECT_USAGE view to see the index usage information. Well I’m too darn lazy, and why not be – as with most things in Oracle, Toad cleanly exposes this feature and increases its us ...
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First, don’t Panic! |
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MikeA
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Tuesday, February 12, 2008 9:28 AM
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I was working the other day to rebuild my Linux 32 bit cluster in preparation for doing some tests between OEM and PAO for some internal training. I planned to use raw for my cluster configuration and voting files for CRS and ASM for the rest of the shared files. The 32 bit cluster had been up and operating fine and I had completed the testing I was doing so I retasked the drives to build a 64 bit cluster. I dr ...
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Toad Dynamic SQL Scripting |
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Bert
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Wednesday, February 06, 2008 7:36 AM
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Sometimes people will request that Toad have a certain special new feature, often special to the task at hand which they’re trying to accomplish. Keeping in mind my recent Toad blog about SQL*Plus compatibility, there are very often easy ways to use existing Toad features to do what the ...
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Just how popular is PL/SQL? |
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StevenFeuersteinTW
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Monday, February 04, 2008 11:56 AM
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Just how popular is PL/SQL?
And how many PL/SQL developers are there "out there"?
These are surprisingly hard questions to answer. Officially and even unofficially, Oracle Corporation's point people on PL/S ...
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Toad and SQL*Plus Compatibility |
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Bert
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Friday, February 01, 2008 12:17 PM
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Sometimes people will ask why can’t Toad work more like SQL*Plus – and the funny thing is the answer is quite often it does. You really just need to know how SQL*Plus works – and then look for the same feature within Toad. Let’s take a very, very common scenario that gets asked almost every quarter. Look at my SQL*Plus SELECT command in the screen snapshot below. Suppose ...
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Q&A from Webcast on using Indexes to Boost Performance |
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MikeA
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Thursday, January 24, 2008 2:20 PM
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I recently gave a webcast about using indexes to boost your application performance, of course at the end of the webcast we took questions, unfortunately I wasn’t able to anser all of the questions so I pulled the ones I felt were most important and decided to answer them here in my blog. For the full webcast see :
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A Complete Solution for Oracle DBAs |
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JeffSmith
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1/21/2008
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How often are you offered less work or fewer responsibilities? Rarely does that ever happen, and if it does, it could be a bad sign! Well, as a database administrator, your job gets more and more complex every day even as RDBMS vendors keep adding ‘automated management’ features. On top of all your day-to-day tasks and preventive maintenance you perform, your most ...
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Questions from the Instant Replay Webcast |
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MikeA
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Wednesday, January 16, 2008 10:56 AM
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Well, here I sit at 30,000 feet over the Atlantic heading for London and then on to Abu Dhabi. It seems like just yesterday I was doing a webcast for the Performance Allstars series on Instant Replay and the use of history to find problems, oh wait, that was yesterday!
During the webcast many excellent questions where asked concerning historical data c ...
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Toad for Data Analysis – Tips ‘N’ Tricks |
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JeffSmith
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1/11/2008
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One might be tempted to think that with such a young tool like Toad for Data Analysis (TDA), that it would be a bit early to start trumpeting its advanced features and ‘hidden’ productivity boosters. In this case, one would be very wrong! Although Toad for Data Analysis is only up to release 1.1, it is built on top of Toad for SQL Server and Toad for DB2’s award w ...
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Toad’s New & Improved Database Browser |
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Bert
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Thursday, January 03, 2008 11:08 AM
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There are many different types of Toad® users, and since job titles and descriptions vary so widely, it’s tough to say a typical Toad user looks like this and thus needs this. Thus Toad has evolved over time to meet the ever growing needs of our customers. Quest has two key Toad Yahoo discussion groups to fa ...
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Single quotes and CLOBs in 10.2.0.3 |
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StevenFeuersteinTW
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Wednesday, December 19, 2007 5:41 PM
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I usually write about best practice principles and general issues.
Today I thought I would share a bit of my pain with you on a very specific topic: single quotes and CLOBs, and specifically on O ...
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Custom Data Reporting with Toad for DB2 |
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JimWankowski
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Tuesday, December 18, 2007 10:57 AM
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One of the nicer features within Toad® for DB2 is the wide array of reporting capabilities. There is a constant requirement for managerial level reports that need to be run on a regular basis. Many of these reports are generating using reporting tools like QMF, Crystal Reporting, etc. Toad’s data reporting facility p ...
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Speed Up Toad |
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Bert
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Monday, December 17, 2007 1:20 PM
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It’s not uncommon for software to increase in install size and memory footprint over the years – and Toad®
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More Toys for DBAs |
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JeffSmith
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12/12/2007
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I’ve been promising to deliver a write-up on Toad’s new support for Statspack, and I’ve finally gotten around to doing it! Statspack has been around since the 8i release of Oracle.
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Error Management functions and features for PL/SQL Developers |
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StevenFeuersteinTW
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Tuesday, December 04, 2007 8:41 PM
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Winter is descending on Chicago; we had our first snow (flurries, really) on Thanksgiving Day, and the sun is weak. For many, this is a depressing time – and I mean that the lack of that and cold actually does make people feel depressed. Per ...
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Super & Sub Type Option #1 |
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Bert
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Friday, November 30, 2007 3:50 PM
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When we create a super-and-sub type (a.k.a. Inheritance) entity relationship in a logical data model, it’s very clear what the business requirements being communicated are – that different subsets of attributes comprise the “cumulative entity” being modeled depending upon the business context. &l ...
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Upgrading to 9.5? Read this first! |
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JeffSmith
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11/29/2007
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I was initially planning on writing up a review of the new Statspack support in Toad version 9.5 for my next blog, but I wanted to make sure all of our Toad users were aware of the new installation process first!
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My Favorite Templates – in one convenient file |
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StevenFeuersteinTW
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Wednesday, November 28, 2007 1:24 PM
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Would you like to increase productivity, improve code quality, and ensure that standards are being followed? Of course you would! And one of the best ways to do that is to rely heavily on Toad's Code Templates (similar functionality exists in SQL Navigator as well).
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Multi-Location Script Executions |
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JimWankowski
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Wednesday, November 21, 2007 8:24 PM
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In many cases there is a need to create an object or to execute an SQL statement in multiple locations. The group execute option in TOAD for DB2 allows you to execute a script against multiple environments with one easy step.&nb ...
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Questions I hear over and over and over… |
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JeffSmith
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11/20/2007
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I have worn many different hats here at Quest, and recently put on another in the Sales organization. Regardless of what my official title has been, talking to our Toad customers has always been one of the most rewarding aspects of my career. I decided a long time ago that I would do all I could to master Toad and share my findings with others. I hope to ne ...
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Oracle 11g on a notebook: Tread Lightly |
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Bert
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Friday, November 16, 2007 10:41 AM
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This blog posting is not meant to demean or slander the Oracle database in anyway. I’ve staked almost my entire career on Oracle technologies – and I intend to finish these last 7-10 years doing more Oracle stuff. To quote a funny Saturday Night Live skit: “Oracle has been very, very good to me.” So my comments are mo ...
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Catching up with me at Oracle OpenWorld |
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StevenFeuersteinTW
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Sunday, November 11, 2007 11:13 AM
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Sorry about the late posting, but if you are interested in attending my presentations, here's the info:
Session ID: S290723
Session Title: Break Your Addiction to ...
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Expedite Saving Data via Toad |
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Bert
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Tuesday, November 06, 2007 8:14 AM
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Probably one of the most useful and frequented tasks performed with Toad® for Oracle is saving data to a file, such as comma delimited text (or any of the other numerous formats supported). It’s a relatively easy feature to find – you simply depress the “right hand mouse” (RHM) ...
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Oracle Parallel Query Abuse |
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Bert
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Wednesday, October 31, 2007 6:46 AM
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Oracle’s Parallel Query Option (PQO) is a fantastic tool, but much like any good tool, it can very easily be used in the wrong situation or simply abused. In those cases, PQO can actually make database performance much worse. Let’s examine some common misuses or misperceptions regarding optimal and efficient PQO usage.
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TheThree Letter Word |
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JimWankowski
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Monday, October 29, 2007 2:27 PM
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I just got back from the IBM IOD conference in Las Vegas; it was a great show. Every year there is usually some buzz about what is “hot” with DB2. This year’s buzz was heard loud and clear – XML was being discus ...
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Running Toad on Linux! |
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Bert
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Monday, October 22, 2007 4:09 AM
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OK – now that I grabbed your full attention with that snappy title, let’s see just how to run the Toad® on your Linux desktop or notebook. Let’s say that you’re running Redhat, CentOS, SuSE or Ubuntu Linux on your PC, let’s further assume that you would like to run Toad either ...
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A Sneak Peak |
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JeffSmith
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10/15/2007
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They say time flies when you’re having fun, and it seems like 2007 has gone by at a record pace. 2007 has seen quite a few exciting developments in the ‘Toad World’ arena. In addition to Toad World itself, we have seen a new unit testing tool for PL/SQL and a version of Toad made just for analysts released. In addition we&r ...
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DB2 Day to Day |
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JimWankowski
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Friday, October 12, 2007 11:13 AM
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Hey DB2’ers,
I had a busy week last week speaking at the Central Canadian DB2 Users Group in Toronto
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