r00tb0x.com

r00tb0x.com is now jamesattard.com

admin — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 06:48:35 +0000

I would like to thank all the loyal subscribers of r00tb0x.com - this has been an incredible experience to maintain the largest IT blog in Malta with over 2000 unique views per month. This blog has been online for the past 3 years but it is now the time to let it go.

Output table contents in PL/SQL stored procedure

admin — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 10:23:26 +0000

With Oracle stored procedures the database developer can display output to the SQL client. This is very handy when you want to use a stored procedure to compute certain logic and display the output directly to the user.

MySQL Index Prefix for better performance

admin — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:33:22 +0000

In MySQL you can optimize a query running against a table by choosing the correct index. Furthermore MySQL allows you to index strings as well (text, varchar, binary, etc..) in an efficient way by using part of the field length, known as prefix.

Using vmstat to detect memory problems in Linux

admin — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 17:35:18 +0000

Troubleshooting and detecting memory related problems in Linux normally boils down to analysing and eventually determine what is going on within the virtual memory. Linux comes with a handy tool called vmstat which helps us examine the virtual memory.

Using Heartbeat tables to monitor Database replication Part 1

admin — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 08:28:42 +0000

Using heartbeats in database tables is a very widely used concept for an application to determine whether two or more database nodes are in sync. Part 1 of this series of articles describes the basic scenario of using a heartbeat table in a simple master slave replication.

Run a VirtualBox machine in the background

admin — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 07:51:51 +0000

Most people use SSH and console to access linux machines - physical or virtual boxes! Thus for you guys who use virtualbox might find it really cumbersome to have to fire off a GUI to access the machine, even if you decide to minimise the window and SSH directly from the client. Luckily there is a solution to run a VirtualBox machine in the background.

Disable Browsing History in Google Apps

admin — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 08:08:56 +0000

If you haven't heard already, Google is about to start keeping track of every single web search you perform and associate it to your name. (It already does this, but the results are anonymised months later; with these changes, your name and searching habits will be etched in stone.) Please take the time to protect your online privacy before March 1st.

Detecting memory leaks in Linux

admin — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:55:34 +0000

So after a couple of weeks you notice that your beefed-up Linux box is running dry on memory. Then you restart the box and the same thing happens again after another couple of weeks. If this sort of thing happened to you, then your system is suffering from a potential memory leak.

Monitoring Transaction Log Shipping in SQL Server

admin — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:54:07 +0000

Transaction Log shipping is a great and easy way to replicate a multitude of Microsoft SQL server databases. This article will discuss how we can monitor the status of the replication. This is useful to add to the daily health checks or maybe to check the replication after one server is upgraded and one wishes to resume replication.

Exact Memory Usage of a Linux Process

admin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:48:19 +0000

Understanding how memory utlisation works in Linux is somewhat complex. Even popular Linux tools such as 'top' and 'ps' do not report the actual true memory utilisation of a process, but rather an aggregation of the shared memory. This article will show you a nifty trick to identify the true memory utlisation of any Linux process.