John's Blog

I started a new job with a new company about 3 weeks ago. This new job has its technical challenges as well as it communication challenges. I struggle most with the communication problem because the team is spread out in 3 different states and they love to communicate by phone. We have 3 conference calls weekly where up to 10 people will join the call. Half of them are Indian with very strong accents. These calls are utterly impossible for me to participate in.

Next step was Captel phone, a phone that displays text with help of automated voice recognition and human relay person. It works quite well one on one with someone who speaks good English. But wow, was it a joke with out conference calls. Much of the conversations were incomplete sentences and {Speaker Unclear} that it was not much of an improvement. It was also unsuccessful using the phone one on one with one of the Indians. It is hopeless.

I just hope being able to do my job is enough, despite the fact that I am part of a team I can hardly communicate with. I am trying to get them using the instant messenger instead of the phone. They use it but are slow to adapt and I hope with time that will change.

I have reverted back to my last mapping before we changed to 900hz. I apparently do not respond well to anything below 1000hz. However, I was getting this needle pinching whenever there was semi loud ssss or ssshh sound. It was painful that by the end of the day my right side of my head would just ache.

The lower channels caused the needle sensation and I already had channels 1-3 turned off, so I opted to turn off 4 as well. Feels much better now. I am running channels 5-16 which kind of balances out so I'm getting a full range of frequency but still I am missing some information. For example - say you have a piano with 22 keys (I forget how many keys they have), then you switch to a piano with 10 keys such as a keyboard. You still get full range from high to low tone, but not as much variation across the board. So my speech comprehension without context will be limited. Its like saying what is 4+_=_? You couldn't know what the answer was no matter how hard you tried, but when you add context, one is able to fill in the blanks.

Anyway, Cochlear has a new technology called bipolar channel or dual channel which increases frequency. I am current volunteering for that study in hopes to give them a chance to improve the mapping processes. The downside to that is it shrinks the battery life even more. I currently only get 2 days with 3 batteries.

Frustrated with short battery life due to my CI using 2400hz and the popularity of 900hz setting, I decided to make an appointment to change to 900hz.

I had this done last week. I had 2 objectives, increase battery life, open more channels since I am barely using half of the 22 channels.

I went through the long mapping process where we go through each channel to see what the limits are. Turns out I can't use channels 1-3, 10 & 11 due to piercing needle feeling in the ear. I also cannot use channels 16-22 due to that darned facial nerve being in the way that causes my facial muscles to pull.

So I only have 4-9,12-15 channels available. Just plain sucks. Maybe I was just not meant to hear as well as I had hoped.

If only I could pick up speech with better clarity. Perhaps in future with possibility of stem cell... if only President Bush would get his head out of his religious arse.

I passed!

The OCA certification was not an easy exam for me. It was evident that I need to gather more experience in the day to day workings of Oracle 10g Database. Two months of hitting the books and working out the hands on issues is just not enough.

The exam contained 90 questions and took me 1 hour 20 minutes to complete (Linux+ exam only took me 20 minutes). I had to really think through some of the questions due to my lack of experience.

Next step is the OCP certification. However, I think it would be best that I try and find a way to gather some on the job or more hands on experience over the next little while before I even begin to think about the OCP.

Anyone out there need a junior DBA? Internship possibilities?

Certification exam in 2 days and I'm all studied out. While I can pretty much do much of what management needs, install Oracle 10G on linux, create database, setup users and schemas, assign roles and configure profiles, setup metrics, run reports, do flashback recovery to utilizing RMAN... List goes on, but I can't honestly say I can answer any question thrown my way up to OCA level.

Terminology is crucial, but difficult when you've go so many features overlapping. RMAN and SQL*Loader, Flashback recovery and using tablespace point in time recovery (TSPITR) are some examples. Takes years to master, and I've been cramming it in the past 2 months.

I am not doing too bad, I took the Oracle university's Admin I final and missed only 4 out of 72 questions. I just hope the vendor examination utilizes similar line of questioning without getting tricky with the wording. Like I said, 2 months isn't enough time to get 100% intimate with something as big as Oracle DB.

Oracle doesn't give away their certifications. I just hope that if I pass I can get a junior dba position somewhere that I can get more intimately familiar with Oracle. Build up enough experience to make the OCP certification easier to swallow.

Wish me luck on my exam!