Provides DBA services for Production, test, and development databases
Administers and maintains the production, test, and development databases.
Performs SQL code releases
Reviews application designs for compliance with production acceptance requirements.
Complies with IT policies and procedures, especially those for quality and productivity standards
Complies with Information Security policies and procedures. Verifies deliverables meet Information Security requirements.
Participates in special projects and performs other related duties as assigned.
Operations are 24 x 7. May be required to be on call, work beyond normal business hours

Position Requirements

B.S. in computer science
2 to 3 years experience
Strong written and oral communication skills.
Strong analysis and problem solving skills.
Working knowledge of the following DBA practices and concepts: database backup & recovery, database performance & tuning, database monitoring, and maintenance.
Working knowledge of Visual Source Safe
Strong knowledge of database design and administration
Stored procedure and view development and troubleshooting
Database size management (includes volume/disk mgmt., file and filegroup allocations.)
Basic understanding of Microsoft Clustering technology
Proficient with Microsoft Office Suite
Entry level knowledge of networking
Entry level skill set of database performance tuning/indexing
SSRS, SSIS, and scripting experience a plus.

Interested? (say I referred you on the application form)

• Manage database configurations, schemas, and space • Manage database and system alerts. • Support new application code releases / builds in various production and non-production environments • Provide performance tuning, problem research/resolution, code reviews and deployments, SQL support, and data movement • Manage database changes for releases and new projects • Provide SQL and application tuning assistance • Build Backups / Recovery and High Availability • Manage disaster recovery support and testing • Monitor database health and alerts • Provide production on-call support on rotational basis • Manage database and product deployments and repeated database maintenance and monitoring tasks • Troubleshooting database issues • Open & follow-up on change request tickets for internal users • Open and follow-up on service requests with Oracle vendor support

Position Requirements

• Degree or equivalent experience in either Oracle or Sybase. • BS in Computer Science or equivalent specializing in Oracle or Sybase • Good understanding of relational methodology • Good understanding of SQL Plus or equivalent • Good communication skills and the ability to work as a team member • Good analytical and problem solving skills. • Self starter with willingness to do independent research and trouble shooting. • Willingness to learn new database skills in a fast paced environment • Education or Experience with Unix shell scripts helpful • Good understanding of relational methodology • Must be comfortable in both self-managed and team driven environment • Experience with Microsoft Office Tools helpful

Interested? (say I referred you on the application form)

I am uploading 246 photos initially with more to follow.  Please add your photos or find your friends in the photos

I just created the Flickr photo group Greater Chicago Jewish Folks Art Festival so everyone can share their photos from the Greater Chicago Jewish Folks Art Festival:

Flickr: Greater Chicago Jewish Folks Art Festival

www.flickr.com

Flickr is almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world. Show off your favorite photos and videos to the world, securely and privately show content to your friends and family, or blog the photos and videos you take with a cameraphone.

18063 Dixie Hwy. Homewood, IL 60430
708-798-1006

Chicago’s Largest South Suburban Comic Book and Gaming Store

O.T. Puente Open Mic TONITE at The ZONE Comics in Homewood!

Whether you’re a fan of open mic, graphic novels, comics or gaming, check out The Zone Comics tonight at 7pm!

Our contest for today is for the new, exciting WHOLE AND CHUNKY FRUIT BOX from TCF Organics.  The box contains a wide selection of fruits, some whole (obviously) and some already cut and prepped for you!  Anything that is appropriate to cut, like pineapple and melons, will arrive cut up and ready to eat.  Things that would turn brown, like apples, pears, and bananas, arrive whole, perfect for out-of-hand eating.

The box is normally a $35 value, including delivery.  And TCF is letting me give one away!

So, you want the details?  Not a problem!

To win this wonderful box full of fruit, delivered right to your door, you need to live within 100 miles of Chicago.  Please click this link to make sure that you are part of the delivery area.  If you enter, and aren’t eligible, I’m sorry to say that I’ll have to choose someone else.  So please, only enter if you can actually get the box.

Otherwise, all you have to do is leave a comment [at http://k2p2.net/blog2/2009/06/29/contest-time], saying what day TCF delivers to your area.  (You can find that out, conveniently enough, here.)

Delivering Affordable Organic Food to Homes in Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana For 20 Years

A BARcamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from participants. The name BARcamp was inspired as a complement to FOOcamp, a private tech gathering run by Tim OReilly.

Who is it for?  From BarCampChicago.com:

Its a community thing, so its open to all. My thoughts are that these types of people would enjoy it the most:

• hackers, coders, engineers, programmers,admins, and lowly architects
  designers, graphic artists, web monkeys, and artists interested in tech
• entrepreneurs, tech business guys, investors, sales guys lookin for a product
• professors, students (grad and under-grad), researchers, and academic types wanting to see whats going on in the start-up world
• Significant-Others brave enough (or crazy enough) to attend (be prepared to hear jargon and acronyms more than english).

Two videos capture the essence of BARcamp. Take a look at video summaries from BARcamp SF and BARcamp Austin.”

BlogsPhotosVideos – from last year, flickr set, youtube, et al

Interested? Looking for a business reason?  BusinessPOV has an article/video that should help you justify going it to your boss.

I’m going to be there.  I would like to see lots of new and old friends there as well

The goal of the Flourish Conference is to promote the use and adoption of Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) by demonstrating the practical applications of FLOSS in the business and academic world. While everyone is familiar with businesses that focus on creating non-free proprietary software, the same cannot be said for those who specialize in developing and supporting FLOSS software, and an Open Culture.

I missed a part of Bruce Perens’ Innovation Goes Public presentation due to Chicago’s closing several sidewalks that go over or under the tristate. I’m not quite sure I agree with him that the road a head for open source is all rosey. Perhaps I misunderstood him but it seemed to me that the idea of simply giving the source of an application to the public would allow the programmers to still be paid via the support/service agreements.  This may work for some applications, but for others there wouldn’t be a sufficient number of support contracts to financially support the programmers Personally, I prefer open source but I will also pay for commercial proprietary software. I use what works.

The company I work for, Sungard Investment Systems, uses open source for many internal projects. One such product uses VMware and Linux for a portable monitoring system so I was highly interested in rBuilder Online from rPath. I attended the Appliance Development and Conary session presented by Stephanie Watson from rPath. I’m currently investigating on how well and easy it is to make a VMware appliance that would house a Sybase ASE server (DBMS) with no unnecessary os files. If the testing turns out well, I will ask my fellow Sybase ASE DBAs whether Sybase need certify it or whether we are ‘on our own’. The monitoring machine itself really doesn’t need Sybase ASE on it but since we have the license….

Dr. John Waclawsky, from Motorolla, gave a feel good presentation about the state of communication between wireless gadgets. The Revolution at the Edge of the Network Abstract. Short version: things are going to get very interesting in the next year

James Gray, from IBM, presented IBM’s Open Source Strategy – Turning Threat into Opportunity. While essentially a case study of how IBM has interacted as a semi-liason between the business executives and the open source community. IBM, to me, has seemed to be stuck in a love/hate relationship with open source and a dislike/hate relationship with the Free Software Foundation. That being said, it is necessary to give IBM credit giving credence to the open source community with the business executives. The IT folks no longer had to quietly use open source in the business but were free to use it extensively in many places. Linux, in particular, is no longer the wild west in many CTOs’ eyes but a integral part of their business.

I met Tony Wong in the Chicago Perl Mongers ‘booth’. We discussed the upcoming Yet Another Perl Conference (YAPC::NA 2008) that is being held in Chicago and the horrible documentation of the Catalyst MVC web framework. I informed him that the only way to learn Catalyst was the new book Catalyst by Jonathan Rockway (ISBN: 978-1-847190-95-6). I also warned him that the book should have gone through another round of proofreading prior to being published due to excessive example code errors, etc. I playfully suggested that Joshua McAdams be tormented because he wasn’t able to make it Friday morning.

The panel discussion on Friday afternoon was highly entertaining and a bit of a kangaroo court for Bobby Moore of Microsoft. I do not believe Mr. Moore was expecting Bruce Perens to repeatedly ask very pointed and informed questions. Moore did an excellent job of remaining cool and listening with an open mind to the criticism of Microsoft as a company. He explained that, yes, Microsoft did some not so nice things in the past but they are attempting to work with the open source community. Bruce Perens, Jon “Maddog” Hall, and James Bottomley brought up the pending MS Office OpenXML standard format issue where much of the format is proprietary and the published format won’t actually be used by Microsoft. Moore conceded that it was unlikely that Microsoft would use the published format as-is but the Office developers would likely base the actually used format off of the published format. Perens, Hall, Bottomley and James Gray all expressed their opinions that this was very typical of Microsoft. (side note: Microsoft has been accused of having the attitude of Embrace, Extend, Eliminate when it comes to industry standards.)

Perens, Hall and James Bottomley, as well as members of the audience, pummeled both James Gray of IBM and Bobby Moore of Microsoft for their companies’ approach and support of software patents.

Unfortunately, I was only able to attend the first day as my mother was in town from North Dakota to visit my three month old daughter (and the rest of us). If only I could have cloned myself… Don’t forget to check out the Flickr photo group for the Flourish 2008 Conference in Chicago!

Hello All,

Flourish Conference 2008 starts tomorrow! Flourish 2008 will run from Friday, April 4th till Saturday, April 5th. Everything seems to be coming together and everyone on the Flourish Team believes we are about to put on a great confererence for you. We have 16 speakers, 6 special events and activities and currently over 325 registered attendees. If you know someone who has yet to register for Flourish 2008 who would like to take advantage of our free online registration, that person should sign up by 8:30 PM today!

The directions for how to get to UIC and Flourish 2008 are posted below this e-mail message. You can also refer to our venue page for the directions, a campus map, a link to the Flourish 2008 location in Google Maps and pictures of event locations. The venue page is located here: http://www.flourishconf.com/venue/.

We would like to bring to your attention that the Flourish 2008 Schedule has changed considerably in the last few days. Yesterday we added a new speaker and changed a couple of speech times. Unfortunately, these changes will not be reflected in your Flourish 2008 phamplet (although we may provide a corrective insert). You can see the updated Flourish 2008 schedule here: http://www.flourishconf.com/schedule/.

One event we particularly would like to bring to your attention is the Code for a Cause Hack-a-thon. The Code for a Cause Hack-a-thon is a great way to get involved with writing open source software while performing an act of community service. Dozens of open source developers and enthusiasts will collaborate to build open source websites and applications for local non-profit organizations. Projects include an interactive map of homeless shelters in Chicago, a website for a reforestation program in Ethiopia and a Facebook widget framework for raising awareness about critical social issues. Volunteers of all skill levels and backgrounds (including development, design, documentation, etc.) are welcome to attend!

See you soon,
The 2008 Flourish Team

Directions to Flourish 2008:

By CTA Train:

1. Take the CTA Blue Line to the UIC Halsted station.
2. Walk east to the Halsted St. exit.
3. Once on Halsted St., turn right and walk south past Harrison St. to Polk St.
4. Turn right (west) and enter UIC Student Center East (SCE).
5. Take the escalators up to the third Floor of the building to enter the registration area.

By CTA Bus:

1. Take CTA #8 Halsted Bus to Polk St.
2. Exit at Polk St. and enter UIC Student Center East (SCE)
3. Take the escalators up to the third Floor of the building to enter the registration area.

By Car from I-90 West (Dan Ryan Expressway West):

1. From westbound I-90, turn off at Exit 52B (Roosevelt Rd./Taylor St.).
2. Continue north past Roosevelt Rd.
3. Turn left (west) on Taylor St.
4. Cross over the bridge and turn right (North) into the UIC Halsted Street Parking Structure. Parking costs about $12 on Friday and $7 on Saturday. When entering the parking structure, use the left most lane unless you happen to have a parking permit.
5. Walk northwest to Polk St. and Halsted St., cross the street and enter UIC Student Center East (SCE).
6. Take the escalators up to the third Floor of the building to enter the registration area.

By Car from I-90 East (Dan Ryan Expressway East):

1. From eastbound I-90, turn off at Exit 52A (Taylor St./Roosevelt Rd.).
2. Turn right (west) on Taylor St.
3. Turn right (north) into the UIC Halsted Street Parking Structure. Parking costs about $12 on Friday and $7 on Saturday. When entering the parking structure, use the left most lane unless you happen to have a parking permit.
4. Walk northwest to Polk St. and Halsted St., cross the street and enter UIC Student Center East (SCE).
5. Take the escalators up to the third Floor of the building to enter the registration area.

By Car from I-290 East (Eisenhower Expressway East):

1. From eastbound I-290, exit onto I-90 East.
2. Before merging onto I-90, turn off at Exit 52A (Taylor St./Roosevelt Rd.).
3. Turn right (west) on Taylor St.
4. Turn right (north) into the UIC Halsted Street Parking Structure. Parking costs about $12 on Friday and $7 on Saturday. When entering the parking structure, use the left most lane unless you happen to have a parking permit.
5. Walk northwest to Polk St. and Halsted St., cross the street and enter UIC Student Center East (SCE).
6. Take the escalators up to the third Floor of the building to enter the registration area.