At least that's how the old cliched term goes, but without a doubt there are people who can be corrupted by power.

Just saw an example recently, someone who I entrusted power to is just on a giant ego trip. Now he's just acting like he's the most important person in the world and totally forgetting what is all about anymore I think.

*sigh*

As I mentioned before, I hate getting haircuts. Luckily instant haircut shacks like this have been sprouting around town

These places are a god send to people like me, they just cut your hair, no extra add on fluff like worrying about shampooing, styling etc. etc.

Problem is they just still keep asking all the questions like, would you like to slope or straight cut, side burns, tail or not?

I just want to say Cut my hair so I don't have to cut it in another few months again!

I used to feel indifferent towards the Oracle database, since the only thing I knew about it was that it costs a whole LOT more than a MS SQL Server box and I figured well there's a lot of people using it it's gotta have some merits somewhere right?

Recently some of my colleagues were dealing with a project which required the use of an Oracle 10g database and the Oracle 10g AS. And I kept hearing horror stories of maintainence headaches, performance issues, and all sorts of crazy problems which I couldn't believe it when I heard it. At first I just thought my colleagues were just inexperienced with Oracle and were running into some teething problems.

Then I bumped into an old friend who was equally experienced in both the MS SQL Server camp and also Oracle databases as well, currently he seems to be working with Oracle servers mainly. So I decided to ask him a few questions about the problems my colleagues were facing and see what was his take on it. My questions are in bold followed by his answers below.

Installing An Oracle DB Requires A Certified Oracle DB Installer to do it, or else Oracle will not provide tech support.

Yup, why else do you think Oracle DB consultants are paid so highly. Oracle likes to make their programs look like technical marvels that require expert caretakers to take care of. (You need to fax in the installer's cert to the Oracle tech support department so they can verify you found the right person to do it. In our case the consultant came to the site, looked at the software & hardware he was to install and said he didn't know how to do it. My uncertified colleague told him to sit down and aid him in installation... brain dumping bastard!)

Changing any system parameter or configuration requires a reinstall of the database.

Not exactly, you CAN just edit the system configuration file. It's just that usually the complexity of the changes involved means you probably should just reinstall the damn system all over again. (For us the problem happened when the customer gave my colleagues the wrong IP address to be assigned to the server, a day was wasted reinstalling Oracle 10g, and AS)

Oracle AS only supports 256 simultaneous connections.

My friend is unfamiliar with AS but he says that in general anything else Oracle makes OTHER than the Database SUCKS! No one wants to use Oracle web server, email server, file server, etc. etc.

So I ask him the final most important question, performance for price which is better Oracle or MS SQL Server?

Oracle he replies, but only IF you buy a very high end specification database server, due to the fact that MS SQL Server performance encounters a performance bottleneck when running on said very high end specification database servers.

That would mean that if you're just running a simple say, one office, or even a medium sized web server. MS SQL gives you better value for money.

After all that I asked him why does he push Oracle in my face so much then if MS SQL seems to be a better buy. Didn't I tell you Oracle consultants make a lot of money? he replies.

The XNA Game Studio Express has been released! Althought right now I think it's pretty much just the XNA Framework and a Project Type that attaches on to Visual C# Express, but in the future there is supposed to be some more add ons that make game developement even more fun and simpler.

Good news is.. because of this I don't see why I couldn't just reference the XNA framework classes and give it a go in Visual Basic .Net as well, something which I will try later.

Great news is... YES, the XNA framework DOES make things SOOOOOOO much easier when you're trying to develope a game. No longer will you have to write pages of boiler plate code to acuire, init, reaquire your devices. The sample game which they provided is a TREASURE TROVE of game programming guidance. Hopefully this will truly revinvigorate all the hobbyists game programmers out there!

Bad news is I haven't found a way to init a game as a window inside a form ala a user control, hence right now I can't use XNA to code my advanced graphical displays in my real world business apps. Hopefully I just missed out something in the docs!

Today is Malaysia's independence day, I guess some people would call me unpatriotic for not basking in the celebrations but while I apprepreciate and treasure the safety and the opportunites the country has given me.

Sometimes there are just some people who do things which makes me feel pretty sad about the situation overall.