Similarities between {Garfield, [Dilbert}, Seinfeld]

First, the fact: I'm a big fan of Jim Davis' comic strip, Garfield, Scott Adams' comic, Dilbert, and the sitcom Seinfeld.

Garfield Vs Dilbert

Recently I've been reading Dilbert comic strips from mid 90s; and I couldn't help but notice some striking similarities in the way both Jon Arbuckle (Garfield's owner) and Dilbert (Dogbert's owner) crave to get a date or how they ruin their date, when they have one. There are similarities in the sarcastic comments made by Garfield and Dogbert too, toward their owners Jon and Dilbert respectively.

Dilbert Vs Seinfeld

Unlike Dilbert, Seinfeld is too smart to get as many dates as he like; but it appears both Dilbert and Seinfeld follow the same etiquette when they run into the same person more than once in the same day. For instance, in one of the Dilbert strips titled Hallway Etiquette, Scott suggests the following simple three rules, with Dilbert as one of the characters in the comic strip:

1. First hallway meeting of the day: Greet Good Morning / Afternoon / Evening.
   
   
2. Second hallway meeting of the day: Raise your eye-brows and give a tight-lipped smile.
   
   
3. Third hallway meeting of the day (and there after): Sneeze to avoid eye contact, try to hide etc.,

I don't remember the exact Seinfeld episode (there are just too many), but in one of those 176 episodes, Jerry Seinfeld makes similar suggestions to his audience in the opening monologue or to his friends, George Costanza, Elaine Benes and Cosmo Kramer, in the play.

In another Dilbert comic strip, Dilbert and his co-worker asks a lady "When's the baby due?". "Can't a woman go off her diet for one day without getting that question??" replies the irked lady, just like the character Maryedith responds to Kramer's "Are you sure you're not pregnant?" in The Parking Space episode of Seinfeld.

It is a small world - I wonder who inspired whom.
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Technorati Tags:
Garfield | Dilbert | Seinfeld

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My Favorite Music VII

It's been exactly one year since I had my last post of this series, My Favorite Music VI. I guess it is the time for few more favorite songs. Click on the links to open up the videos in YouTube video player.

2001: A Space Odyssey - Overture 2001: A Space Odyssey - Blue Danube AC/DC - Back In Black Anita Ward - Ring My Bell Anjali - Stinging Sitars Bananarama - Cruel Summer Bangles - Walk Like An Egyptian Bee Gees - How Deep Is Your Love Belinda Carlisle - Mad About You Bleu - Get Up Blues Traveler - Run Around Body Rockers - I Like The Way You Move Bon Jovi - Who Says You Cant Go Home Bryan Adams - Heaven Canned Heat - Going Up The Country Chambers Brothers - Time Has Come Today Chemical Brothers - Realizer Chemical Brothers - The American Way Cher - If I Could Turn Back Time Cirque du Soleil / Ka - Battlefield Cirque du Soleil / Ka - Forest Cirque du Soleil / Ka - If I Could Reach Your Heart Cirque du Soleil / Ka - Pageant Cirque du Soleil / Mystere - High Bar Cirque du Soleil / Mystere - Kunya Sobe Clash - Rock The Casbah Collective Soul - Generate Collective Soul - Heavy Collective Soul - No More, No Less Collective Soul - Run Collective Soul - Slow Collective Soul - Theres A Way Collective Soul - Why Pt. 2 DJ Otzi - Hey Baby Disco Tex And The Sexo lettes - Get Dancin Duran Duran - Ordinary World Earth Wind Fire - Let's Groove EarthWindFire-September Echo And The Bunnymen - The Cutter En Vogue - Free Your Mind Fatboy Slim - Illuminata Five For Fighting - The Riddle Fleetwood Mac - Landslide Fleetwood Mac - Seven Wonders Foghat - Slow Ride Gnarls Barkley - Crazy Go Gos - We Got The Beat Godsmack - Serenity Goldfrapp - Strict Machine Goldfrapp - Fly Me Away Goo Goo Dolls - Stay With You Groove Armada - If Everybody Looked The Same Gwyneth Paltrow & Huey Lewis - Cruisin' Jack Johnson - Upside Down Janet Jackson - Someone To Call My Lover Jennifer Paige - Crush Jewel - Good Day Jimmy Eat World - The Middle John Mayer - Daughters John Mayer - Waiting On The World To Change Johnny Guitar Watson - Gangsta Of Love Josh Groban - You Raise Me Up Justin Timberlake - Sexy Back KC & The Sunshine Band - Get Down Tonight KC & The Sunshine Band - Boogie Shoes Keith Urban Making Memories Of Us Kelly Clarkson - Miss Independent Kelly Clarkson - Walk Away Kiss - Into The Void KT Tunstall - Suddenly I See Lacuna Coil - Our Truth Lenny Kravitz - Are You Gonna Go My Way Lenny Kravitz - It Ain't Over Til It's Over Lips Of An Angel - Hinder Luther Vandross - Dance With My Father Macy Gray - I Try Madonna - Holiday Madonna - Into The Groove Madonna - Lucky Star Madonna - Sorry Marcy Playground - Sex and Candy Marilyn Manson - Beautiful People Maroon 5 - Harder To Breathe Maxeen - Lead Not Follow Meat Beat Manifesto - Suicide

Melissa Etheridge Come To My Window Melissa Etheridge - I'm The Only One Mellowdrone - Oh My Men At Work - It's A Mistake Men At Work - Who Can It Be Now Mercan Dede - Ab-I Hayat Michael Buble - Home Moby - Feeling So Real Moby - First Cool Hive New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle Nickelback - Far Away Nickelback - Photograph Norman Greenbaum - Spirit In The Sky Partridge Family - I Think I Love You Peaches - Do Ya Peaches - Operate Peter Gabriel - Digging The Dirt Peter Gabriel - Growing Up Prince - Pheromone Prince - Race Puscifer - The Under Taker Raiders - Indian Reservation Ram Jam - Black Betty Rammstein - Eifersucht Rammstein - Sehnsucht Rammstein - Tier Rascal Flatts - What Hurts The Most Ricky Martin - Cup Of Life Ricky Martin - Livin La Vida Loca Ricky Martin - Maria Rob Thomas - Ever The Same Rob Thomas - Street Corner Symphony Rob Thomas - This Is How A Heart Breaks Rob Zombie - American Witch Rob Zombie - Foxy Foxy Rob Zombie - Saw Dust In The Blood Robert Palmer - Simply Irresistible Royksopp - Remind Me Santana - Oye Como Va Sarah McLachlan - I Will Remember You Seal - Killer Shocking Blue - Venus Simple Minds - All The Things She Said Simple Minds - Let There Be Love Simple Minds - Sanctify Yourself Sinead O'Connor - Visions Of You Sinead O'Connor - You Made Me The Thief Of Your Heart Sixpence None The Richer - Kiss Me Smash Mouth -So Insane Smokey Robinson - The Tears Of A Clown Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars Spandau Ballet - True Stealer's Wheel - Stuck in the Middle With You Stone Temple Pilots - Coma Stone Temple Pilots - Dancing Days Stone Temple Pilots - Hollywood Bitch Stone Temple Pilots - Too Cool Queenie Sugar Ray - Every Morning Sugar Ray - Just A Little Sugar Ray - Personal Space Invader Sum41 - Fat Lip Supergrass - Alright Switch Foot - Stars Tal Bachman - She's So High Teddy Geiger - For You I Will Teriyaki Boyz - Tokyo Drift The 5.6.7.8s - Woo Hoo The Fall - Blindness The Knack - My Sharona The Proclaimers - 500 Miles The Simpsons - Theme The The - This Is The Day The Trammps - Disco Inferno The Vapors - Turning Japanese The Wallflowers - One Headlight Tin Tin - Kiss Me Tina Turner - What's Love Got To Do With It Tommy Tutone - Jenny (867-5309) Tool - Sober U2 - Mysterious Ways Uncle Cracker / Kid Rock - Heaven Vertical Horizon - Everything You Want Wang Chung - Dance Hall Days Wise Guys - Ooh La La

Previous posts of this series are at: I | II | III | IV | V | VI
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music | entertainment | favorite

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Solaris tip: Retrieving the package name for a file

Q: Given a file name {with absolute path}, how do we retrieve the package name which the file belongs to?

There are at least two simple ways:

1. Look into /var/sadm/install/contents file, or
   
2. Run /usr/sbin/pkgchk with -l, -p as options and the absolute path as argument

eg.,
To find out what package /usr/sbin/fcinfo belongs to:

# grep /usr/sbin/fcinfo /var/sadm/install/contents | awk '{ print $10 }' | sort -u

SUNWfcprt

Or

# pkgchk -l -p /usr/sbin/fcinfo

Pathname: /usr/sbin/fcinfo
Type: regular file
Expected mode: 0555
Expected owner: root
Expected group: bin
Expected file size (bytes): 50784
Expected sum(1) of contents: 49262
Expected last modification: Dec 04 05:22:58 2006
Referenced by the following packages:
        SUNWfcprt      
Current status: installed

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Technorati tags:
Solaris | OpenSolaris

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Migrating Linux Applications to Solaris

If you are a developer looking for some guidance on porting Linux applications to Solaris operating system (running on x86/x64/SPARC architectures), here is a short but useful porting guide for you:

Porting to the Solaris™ OS: A guide for Linux developers

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Technorati tags:
Linux | Solaris | OpenSolaris | Porting

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Upgrading Oracle E-Business Suite 11.5.10 to CU2

Some notes I collected from the exercise of upgrading Oracle E-Business Suite 11.5.10 to 11.5.10 CU2^*, on Sun Solaris:

1. [Middle-tier] Apply patch 4318672 on all application server nodes
   
   
   • Enable maintenance mode by running adadmin.
     
     
   • Apply patch 4318672 with the help of adpatch tool.
     
     
   • Carefully read README.txt of 4318672, and run Technology Stack Validation tool in both middle- and db-tiers.
     
     Note:
     
     
     • Set PARALLEL_MAX_SERVERS parameter to the default value returned by show parameter cpu_count. For example, if the database is running on a SunFire T2000 server, set PARALLEL_MAX_SERVERS to 32.
       
       
     • [DB-tier] When prompted for applications context file, supply the output of echo $CONTEXT_FILE environment variable.
       
       
     • After running Technology Stack Validation tool, the generated html reports from middle- and db-tiers should have an 'ALLPASS' status. Otherwise, fix the errors and re-run the TSV tool until it achieves ALLPASS status.
   
   
2. [Middle-tier] Apply patch 4229931 on all application server nodes
   
   
   • Apply patch 4229931 with the help of adpatch tool.
     
     Location of adpatch log file: $APPL_TOP/admin/<DBInstanceName>/log/adrelink.log.
   
   
3. [Concurrent Processing node] Apply patch 4297568
   
   
   • Enable maintenance mode by running adadmin tool, if concurrent managers are not running on the same machine where all application server processes are running; then apply patch 4297568 by following the special instructions posted in README.txt file.
     
     Note:
     
     • Do NOT use adpatch tool to apply this patch, 4297568. Read the instructions of README.txt.
       
       
     • Without this patch, 4297568, CU2 maintenance patch, 3480000, may fail with error messages like:

       ld: fatal: file  /ebiz/visappl/sht/11.5.0/lib/ilog/5.1/libcplex8.a: 
       open failed: No such file or directory
       ld: fatal: File processing errors. No output written to /ebiz/visappl/demoappl/mst/11.5.0/bin/MSTCPP

       See Metalink document 311635.1 for more.
       
       
     • Some executables need to be re-linked as part of this step. Re-linking can be done in two ways:
       
       
       1. Using adadmin tool.
          
          Navigation: Maintain Applications Files -> Relink Applications Programs. This step re-links all the executables of the application.
          
          
       2. To re-link one or more applications' executable programs, run adrelink from the operating system shell:
          
          Syntax:
          adrelink force=y "<product> <module>"
          
          eg., To re-link MSO: MSONEW, run:
          
          adrelink force=y "MSO MSONEW"
          
          Shutdown all concurrent managers before running adrelink.
     
     
     
   • Disable maintenance mode by running adadmin, if concurrent managers are not running on the same machine where all application server processes are running.
   
   
4. [Middle-tier] Apply release 11.5.10.2 maintenance pack, 3480000
   
   
   • Apply patchset, 4712852, with the help of adpatch tool.
     
     
   • Apply release 11.5.10.2 maintenance pack, 3480000, with the help of adpatch tool. Spare some time to read Metalink document 316365.1, before applying the maintenance pack.
     
     Note:
     
     
     • Stop all application server services including concurrent managers before running adpatch on 3480000 (CU2 maintenance pack). Failure to do so may result in the following error(s):

       ATTENTION: All workers either have failed or are waiting:
               FAILED: file afcmgr.odf on worker 1
       ATTENTION: please fix the above failed worker(s) so the manager can continue

       When such an error occurs, do the following:
       
       
       • Open up another shell and shutdown all services by running adstpall stop apps/apps command.
         
         
       • Run: adctrl
         
         • Check: 1) Show Worker Status.
           
         • 2) Tell worker to restart a failed job
         
         After this step adpatch resumes automatically.
         
         
       • adworker log file(s) default location: $APPL_TOP/admin/<DBInstanceName>/log.
     
     
   • Troubleshooting:
     
     
     • ERROR: file azstrctall.ldt on worker 1
       
       Follow the instructions of Metalink document '331284.1 Applying 3480000 Patch --- azstrctall.ldt failed --- ORA-20001: The specified api_code does not exist'.
       
       
     • FAILED: file AsgRunInst.class on worker 1
       
       Follow the instructions of Metalink document 270156.1. In short, skip the failed thread with an hidden option {of adctrl} : 8) Skip & Restart for worker thread 1. Run the failed thread manually, later.
   
   
   
5. [Middle-tier] Disable maintenance mode by running adadmin

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^* CU2 = Consolidated Update 2.

Reference Document:
Metalink document 316366.1 11.5.10 Oracle E-Business Suite Consolidated Update 2 (CU2).

Technorati tags:
Oracle | Oracle Applications | E-Business Suite

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Oracle Apps on T2000: ORA-04020 during Autoinvoice

The goal of this brief blog post is to provide a quick solution to all Sun-Oracle customers who may run into a deadlock when a handful of threads are running Autoinvoice Master Program (RAXMTR) on SunFire CoolThreads server, T2000.

If you are not happy with Autoinvoice performance, or if you feel like the AI program is crawling^* when multiple threads are handling the submitted jobs, check the trace files generated in udump directory for a pattern like 'ORA-04020: deadlock detected while trying to lock object ...'. If there is a deadlock, you may see something like:

*** ACTION NAME:(Concurrent Request) 2007-03-20 17:55:25.238
*** MODULE NAME:(RAXMTR) 2007-03-20 17:55:25.238
*** SERVICE NAME:(SYS$USERS) 2007-03-20 17:55:25.238
*** SESSION ID:(2469.90) 2007-03-20 17:55:25.238

A deadlock among DDL and parse locks is detected.
This deadlock is usually due to user errors in
the design of an application or from issuing a set
of concurrent statements which can cause a deadlock.
This should not be reported to Oracle Support.
The following information may aid in finding
the errors which cause the deadlock:

ORA-04020: deadlock detected while trying to lock object AR.RA_INTERFACE_LINES_ALL

--------------------------------------------------------
object   waiting  waiting       blocking blocking
handle   session     lock mode   session     lock mode
--------  -------- -------- ----  -------- -------- ----
457bf9a78  479d813f0 46dddbd10    X  47fd9ce08 468973ee0    S
46561f560  47fd9ce08 46894f520    X  479d813f0 46dc4edf8    X
--------------------------------------------------------
...
...

Setting profile option AR: Autoinvoice Gather Statistics to Yes or leaving it to the default value of NULL is one of the reasons for this deadlock. When the profile option is set to either Yes or NULL, by default it runs Autoinvoice Gather Statistics every time Autoinvoice program is run.

Running Autoinvoice Gather Statistics process is too expensive; and it is not necessary to run this process as part of the Autoinvoice process. Hence Autoinvoice Gather Statistics can be safely turned off as part of a normal Autoinvoice processing exercise.

To implement this, simply set the profile option AR: Autoinvoice Gather Statistics to No. Navigation: System Administrator responsibility -> Profile -> System.

Perhaps this solution is applicable to all other platforms where this deadlock issue shows up with quite a few threads running Autoinvoice (RAXMTR). I'm not sure - I never tried it.
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^*Run the following SQL to get the list of Autoinvoice request IDs, request date along with the actual start and completion times.

SELECT REQUEST_ID,
TO_CHAR (REQUEST_DATE, 'yyyymmddhh24mi') "REQUEST DATE",
TO_CHAR (ACTUAL_START_DATE, 'yyyymmddhh24mi') "START DATE",
TO_CHAR (ACTUAL_COMPLETION_DATE, 'yyyymmddhh24mi') "COMPLETION DATE"
FROM FND_CONCURRENT_REQUESTS
WHERE REQUEST_ID IN
   (SELECT REQUEST_ID
           FROM APPLSYS.FND_CONCURRENT_REQUESTS FCR, APPLSYS.FND_CONCURRENT_PROGRAMS FCP
           WHERE FCP.CONCURRENT_PROGRAM_ID = FCR.CONCURRENT_PROGRAM_ID
           AND FCP.CONCURRENT_PROGRAM_NAME = 'RAXTRX'
           AND ACTUAL_COMPLETION_DATE > <desired_date>);

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UltraSPARC-T1 | Cool Threads | T2000 | Oracle Applications | E-Business Suite

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Speeding up Oracle Applications/Payroll processing on Niagara servers

Sun Fire Cool Threads Oracle Configuration Notes says: Long running single threaded Oracle batch jobs may run longer on Sun Fire CoolThreads server, which is true esp. with Oracle Applications (E-Business Suite)/Payroll jobs running on Sun Fire T1000/T2000 servers.

Assuming only one thread is processing all payroll jobs on a 8 core 1.2 GHz T2000, the thread should be getting 300 million cycles per second (Here's the math: 1.2 GHz per core = 1200 MHz per core = 1200 MHz/4 threads per core = 300 MHz per thread per core). So, the performance of a single thread on this server will be something like the performance of a single thread of an US-II based server. Fortunately we have 32 such threads on 8 core T1000/T2000 servers; and it is possible to submit multiple payroll jobs by updating the value of parameter name 'THREADS' in table pay_action_parameters.

Here is how you do it from the CLI:

% sqlplus apps/apps

To retrieve the current value of 'THREADS' parameter:

SQL> select parameter_value
from pay_action_parameters
where parameter_name = 'THREADS';

To set the value for the number of payroll threads:

SQL> update pay_action_parameters
set parameter_value = <number_of_threads>
where parameter_name = 'THREADS';

SQL> commit;

Experiment by increasing/decreasing the number of payroll threads until you are happy with the overall processing time with decent resource utilization.

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UltraSPARC-T1 | Cool Threads | Oracle Applications | E-Business Suite

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