What section of IT do you specialize in? Apart from designing the logo, what did you do for the other places you mentioned? IT is broad.
And I noticed you did not include any of your foreign projects you claimed you have worked on,
So what exactly is the content of the cd? which area is it targeted at?

And thus signifies the death of what I hoped would be a great thread,

I havent seen it. Havent had the best of weeks.

We had a disk failure, and it took down one of our RAC nodes. Coincidentally, it corrupted and cleaned out the current redo log, so i have been in fire fighting mode since. Trying to recover the db,

Just curious,

Why would you have to apply caution when creating a user?

I have working knowedge of some ETL tools. But not Globus. We presently use Informatica for our data warehouse and reporting needs.
OWB is one of those tools that hasnt really garnared much recognition as an in-built oracle tool by larger firms. Mainly because of scalability issues.

What proposals do you want to send forward. Dataware housing is different from DBA, although related, they have different concepts. If you already use Globus, (which i believe a lot of banks in Nigeria use), then there is already a building block of the business requirements, and you probably won have to start from scratch.

hmmm,
something isnt right.
How many Oracle Services do you have in you registry?

Are they all started now? And while you were installing, did you get any errors in the preconfig check you ignored?

I know you know that name of your sid. I was just running a process of elimination, since i am not there to see the machine. And I was kindda hoping, it might have been a case of misspelling.
I find it strange that you don't have a sysman user. Because by default, the sysman account is the owner of enterprise manager and grid control. And you really cant do anything without it. Whilst the dbsnmp account is the 'gateway' for gathering metrics from targets.

Do you get an TZ errors? timezone issues

A-40,
Check your email. I will send more as i have time


Jim, Lets take it from the top.

Then logon to the database as dba and run
select name from v$database;
Use the output to set your sid.

Then let me know the answer to the following questions

Que.1 - Why do you have to start Enterprise Manager, after a clean install, Oracle starts all the services for you. Was this service started at anytime, and did you stop it?
Que.2 - Log in to the database and check the account status of sysman and dbsnmp. sysman is the owner of grid/enterprise manager. Is any of them locked? Did you change the sysman password?
What about you Listener. Is it setup to point to the new database?

Then logon to the database as dba and run
select name from v$database;
Use the output to set your sid.

instead of using the set option for the Oracle sid, use
export ORACLE_SID=sid.

Besides, how many times have you installed and unistalled Oracle on the computer. Because, even when you do an install, OUI does no clean up the registry, so EM might still be pointing to a previous intallation.
In this case you might have to do a manual registry clean up (please be careful when cleaning up your registry.

type ./emctl stop agent
then do
./emctl start agent

Did you install Enterprise manger? What OS are you running on (cos i can see something about XP)?
if you did, try the following
set ORACLE_SID= 'your sid'
cd $ORACLE_HOME/agent10/home (i dont know your exact path but cd to the Agent home on your OS.
cd /bin
At the prompt
./emctl status agent.

This will tell you the status of the agent, if any xml fimes are being uploaded and how many are pending.

From the error you posted I would think you SID is Db_1.

pespes,
Noone can tell you what to expect? What is your job description? What environment are they running? Oracke, Mysql, Mssql what versions? what OS?
Is your job database related?

A-10,
Handling deadlines isnt fun, that is one of the few times, when you are very visible in the organization, and everyone is looking to you to make things work (even when it isnt your fault),

I havent mailed you. I have been quite busy. One of the projects I am handling is going live in a couple of weeks. So we are in crunch time, and i just sneak on here to quickly post, besides, i dont keep most of my docs on my office pc, so I have to get home before i can send anything. i will endeavor to remember this weekend.

yeah, EM makes like a lot easier. But imagine when you have Grid Control and you have upwards of 300 dbs being monitored by this tool. It makes life easier, but doesnt necessarily make the dba lazy. There is still a lot of monitoring to be done. A lot of architecture, and sizings which EM/GC wont do for you, not to mention jobs, scheduling u have to do etc etc.

You should be good to go

I dont know your system specs, so i dont know the effect dual booting would have on your computer.
But if you do have the resources (memory, harddisk space, cpu), then partitioning wouldnt be a bad idea.
I havent used a partitioning tool in a while, but i hear partitioning magic is good.

Hope this helps

Oracle should have run a Pre-Requisite pre-installation check.
Look at this certification Matrix to decide if your OS is compatible. There is no point tweaking it and forcing it to install, then later have problems having it run smoothly.
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/content-management/cert/UCM_Certification_Matrix.pdf

It will give you a list of compatible OS.

You need a lot. But depending on the the environment you find yourself. Oracle has made dbms job scheduler easy to use. Now you can set up a job in 5mins using Grid Control without even seeing the underlying code. Whilst this is quite good, it is advisable to know what is going on underneath, just incase, you find youself in an environment where you have to debug codes, or still have to use the command line to schedule your jobs.

I will hit you up on yahoo.

Cool.
Let me know if u come across any issues you might need someone to explain to you,

Sent yo uan email.
Holla if you have any questions

If you check my earlier posts. I mentioned I don't have OCP (certifications) material. Whilst I appreciate and understand why a lot of pple go thru the certification route, I personally believe a hands on experience beats certifications any day. i will sooner give my databases to a college drop out with experience that to someone who has 5certifications, but hasnt done a day of real life DB administeration.

But with that said, I will answer your question. Without trying to sound cliche. The key to being a good DBA is common sense application and due diligence. Do not be afraid to break stuff (I mean stuff in test environments not production). You just need to keep practicing on real databases and you can use books as a back up. What you will learn in 1month on the Job in a real life oracle environment, you cannot read it up in a year. Because theyare just very different scenarios and the books paint an ideal environment. Something any experienced DBA can tell you couldn't be further from the truth. There are simple questions I can ask anyone purporting to be a dba, that will show if the pereson has just being reading books or if they have handled a database in real life. I need to know that if my database goes down for some reason at 2am, I have some one that can recover the database 'by any means necessary' and have it up and running before business resumes the following morning. And if it is in a High Availability environment, then I need to know my standbys can be used whilst my 'primary' database is being recovered.

Finally, this might not seem like a very sound advice, but the key to been a good dba is to 1st get your foot into the door. even if it means the monetary returns are not immediately gratifying. if you have the requisite experience, the money will come. I dont know how much dba's earn in Nigeria anymore, but I can tell you the average salary for a good dba with 3-5yrs in the US goes from anywhere between $65 - $85 per hr. I know of instances where people have been brought in to handle disasters for $125hr.

Now, u forgot to give me your email. if you are just starting out. I think I have some materials that might be useful. If you do find it useful let me know, I will get you more. p.s I am not charging anyone anything for any materials I give them. All I ask is that, when someone comes to you with the same request, you should also share any knowledge you might have gained along the line.

Any Updates?
A little feedback would be nice

The 1st thing you need to determine is what the 'S' stands for,

Hi Monex
Use this documentation. it should come in useful.

If you are running from linux, make sure you have x-windows installed. This will ensure the GUI comes up when you hit runInstaller.
For the run Installed, make sure you are in the directory (In this case, it is usually in Disk1, after you have unzipped the files).

If you are using the cd, change directory to the folder that has runInstaller and make sure at the promp type ./runInstaller.

Dont forget the ./ and it is case sensitive. So runInstaller isn not the same thing as Runinstaller or rininstaller,

But you are in Texas, and it is undoubtedly one of the better cars to drive in US. I drive an '05, and looking forward to the new one. I was actually wondering if I could send mine down and use it anytime I am in naija. Rather than dispose out here, (I personally love them, and they have been faithful workhorses for me over the year)

The 05 Altima is pretty much the same as the 04-07 Maxima. The Altima is buitl on the D-cage which houses both the maxima and the murano. Some Altimas now come with the same 3.5 engine that now comes standard with the maxima, tho' the 2.5 is the standard.
It is all a marketing ploy. The Altima has been promoted to have the same features as the maxima, whilst a new 7th generation maxima (09) is been released this coming Friday. The new maxima is going to attempt to claim back the Nissan 'flagship' title, and also reclaim the 4DSC (4door sports car) title which made it one of the best selling cars at some point in the US in the 90's. It is going to be closer in competition to the upscale infiniti M35 brands.

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/06/20/first-drive-2009-nissan-maxima/

I am just wondering if these cars are still popular in Nigeria.

I have been a Maxima enthusiast since d early days it had the same shape as the bluebird. I had the 90 model in the early 90's and i remember there were only a few of us who had it, and people were scared of the maintenance. But that car was a workhorse. When i was in Nigeria in '03, I noticed a lot of them on the road. And the one I had was/is still being used by my parents, with over 400k miles on it now. But when I came back in december 07 all i saw on Nigerian roads are Honda's and Camry's, and a few 5th gen (00 - 03) maxima's, but i only saw the 6th generation (04-07) sitting in Dealer lots. I know they are very reliable cars.

Are they still popular and do people use them?

No worries. Just keep this thread alive and pass on anything you learn.
If you need anything else holla

Like fotodaddy said, unless you are a race car driver, putting unleaded fuel in an engine recommended for premium, will result in a 10-15% loss in power. E.g if your car is rated at 290bhp for premium fuel, then with regular it will be out putting 246bhp. Will this damage ur engine? No, especially if your car has a regular engine that isnt tuned for sports or high performance, but ur mpg will be affected and the car wont do so good on fuel consumption. (And this was confirmed to me by engineers at Nissan Plant when i asked the same question). Boosters are good, but most of them are like cancer drugs, not really tested, but all make claims to glory. and even when they do work, the improvement is marginal.

If your owner's manual calls for premium fuel, follow the recomendation. Usually this will be specified by manufacturers of high compression, high performance engines. If lower octane rating fuel were used in these engines, performance would suffer because the engine's computer system would have to retard the ignition timing (reducing horsepower and fuel economy) to keep the engine from knocking. But most cars run fine on regular fuel aand unless otherwise stated by the manufacturer, premiums and boosters are not needed.

Anyones best bet will be to stick to buying the recommended octane rating to get the best out of ur engine. if not over time engine perfomance will be degraded

Confirm if u recieved any docs,

Mileage does matter and it also doesnt matter. Depending on the car manufacturer and the owner.

A well maintained car at 200k miles is better than an ill-maintained car at 40k miles. A car that gets regular services, oil changes etc at the recommended distances will work well into 400k miles without any problems. Also the car manucfaturer and the state of tuning of the engine also affect the longevity of the car. There is a concept called 'planned obsolecense' by manufactures (not just autos' but in all things ) where by items are no longer built to last, and also the need to get consumers coming back, because lets face it, if an item was made to last, then pple will only buy once and never again.


Back to the topic, also the country in which the car was used also matters a lot. A car under warranty in the US up to 100k miles, gets an over haul at 100k miles and most of the serviceble parts in it are replace with new ones. Such a car at 101k miles has technically 1k mile usage and will be better than a car at 59k miles which is yet to get its scheduled service at 60k.

There is no blanket answer for it, and each case should be taken independently and wisdom applied before buying. Also I would like Nigerians to monitor world news, and then tie such news to trends they see. A lot of pple see 'brand new' cars with low mileage at relatively cheap prices, and they never ask why it is that cheap, in the past few weeks there has been flooding in the midset in the united states, there will be a lot of cars written of by insurance and they will find there way to the auction market. Soon we will have another wave of late model 07, 08 cars hitting the market in nigeria at cheap prices, and most pple wouldnt realise they are buying cars that had been damaged by flood in some other part of the world. They buy it and 6months down the line, things start developing. And it ends up costing more than they thot.

Using a factory fitted AC will have no adverse effect on an engine, because it would have been tuned for load balancing in such a way that it would not impact the engine, but the fact is that, it will use up more petrol. Its just a case of the engine having to do more work, and to do the work, it needs energy and the source of energy is the petrol. All u have to do is to run your car on idle and monitor the rpm. Put on the AC and watch the rpm drop slightly.

Finally, i have noticed pple asking for carfax reports and vin numbers. Carfax reports are good (quite good actually) but they are not fool proof, and a good carfax, doesnt necessarily mean the car never had an accident, all it means is that the accident (or incident whicever the case maybe) was never reported. You still have small shops that pple use to beat the system, and would not log any repairs they make.

This is just a heads up from a car enthusiast and follows motoring trends.

What about marrying someone with good character, regardless of his financial status?

timi, i will holla at you later on yahoo.

Jimblaze, i will send you pdf books i have on administration. Covers a lot and it will serve as a good reference point when u run into road -blocks. And when u do start, if u have any issues, ask, and we can look into it together (but u still didnt send me ur email or where u want me to send it.)

I dont do too much of Pl-SQL anymore. I am now more of an Architect and i set up imfrastructure for organisations. Database design, and relationshipt with data warehouses, back-up and recovery strategies and the set-up of stand-by databases. I still do performance tuning, minimally (My mantra is to get it right from the design stage, and u will be coasting later). But my experience has shown me thet, 90% of the time, bad performance is normally tied to bad codes, then user errors. Oracle Database itself, (if set-up correctly) is rarely ever the issue.