It is fair to say that I don't do a huge amount of real-time SQL.  As an application developer, the vast majority of SQL I write is in Stored Procedures and packages.  Very infrequently, I need to do a manual insert statement.  So why do I always forget to drop the VALUES keyword in a T-SQL statement when using a sub-query?  I mean every time!

So here it is.  A representative INSERT statement with sub-query:

insert into UserRoleMembership
(userIdx, roleName)
 
(
  select 488, roleName from Roles
  where appidx = 18
  and roleName not in ( select roleName from UserRoleMembership where userIdx = 488 )
)

Now I won't forget.

My home server finally died this week.  Even my daughter was inconvenienced.  The old PII on a SE440BX-2 has been a faithful, long lived servant these many years, but finally passed on.  I bought this board a long long time ago and have been running it 24x7 as my home server for over 5 years now.  I don't remember exactly how long, as it was 3 major upgrades ago.  BTW, you can still run a nice server on 256MB RAM for file, print, Web, and FTP with Win2003.  I believe the failure was with some component of the BX2 finally wearing out.

On to newer hardware!  I purchased a 35W Celeron to run the server on now.  Going to put it in a quiet Antec case with a Hi-Eff PSU.  Should be a simple and low-cost build.  Only spent $200 so far including the case (most expensive part), PSU, CPU, motherboard and optical (SATA).  I happen to have 1GB of DDR2 from a mistake purchase last year that I will use.

Yes, the comic feeds are down and will be for a few days.  Sorry.  I will get them up first thing.  *Heavy Sigh*

No, really, what is wrong with that company?  During the Super Bowl (oops, now I owe the NFL money for using their trademark), they ran ads for their new laptop/notebook/purse.  The advert focused on one crucial feature:  it's size. 

It fits in an interoffice envelope. 

That's it.  It fits in an envelope.  Ok.  So?  Who buys a computer because it fits in an envelope?  Who cares!?  Does it run the latest software, games, 3D-rendering suites?  We don't know.  Wireless?  Firewire/USB/Bluetooth?  No idea.  Two buttons on a mouse?  Does it even have one?  But I can sent it to you via Interoffice mail!

This is but the latest example of what's wrong with Apple.  If it doesn't matter what your computer is capable of, do you even need to have one?  Especially one that is that overpriced?  I am tired of this company diluting the computing gene pool.  Call me old; call me a tech-weenie; call me whatever you want.  Form is important; but for a tool, NEVER over function.  Never.  Get out of the business and go sell purses.  Of course, then they'll claim they invented them....

Well, the system upgrade is complete, finally.  Almost everything went very well.  There were a few moments of panic, but the end state is very satisfactory.  The best part is the Q6600 is running very happily at 3.005GHz with nearly no effort on my part.  I am going to leave it there for awhile, until I get the urge to tweak some more.  I will eventually replace the fan on the cooler with a better one and will tweak the timings a bit more aggressively then.  For now, everything is very stable and Mars hums along pleasingly.  The final configuration is below:

What can I say about the case beyond that it exceeded all my expectations.  From everything being well placed, to thumbscrews on all the right places, great sound baffling and excellent airflow.  This case was worth more than the $100 I spent on it.  I even love the "Gun Metal Black" finish it has on it.  The only changes I plan to make to it are the addition of a fan grill on the lower 120mm fan to prevent the HDD cables from potentially rubbing on it, replacing the 2 upper fans with something slightly quieter but with Motherboard connectors for variable speeds and the addition of a forced intake fan on the front.  None of these are necessary, however.

The Maximus Formula is an exceptional piece of hardware also.  Its difficult to choose a single feature that stands out above all else on this board, but it may be the "Q-Connectors" as illustrated to the right.  This particular one is a detachable standoff that allows all of the case leads to be attached before attaching it directly to the motherboard.  That has always been a difficulty to me, solved here with a simple piece of hardware.  Of course the huge cost difference would be ridiculous if not for the excellent over-clocking tools (see 1st paragraph of this post), excellent cooling features, onboard power and reset switches, 6 USB ports on the I/O shield alone, excellent built in sounds, and many more that come with this board.  Wow.  My only concern was the PC speaker.  It doesn't have one built in.  The case doesn't either; most modern ones don't anymore because the motherboard generally has them.  This generated the first panic state when the temporary PCI video card that I was going to use failed and there were no diagnostic beeps.  I had to go find an old case that I had that I could steal the speaker from.  Then it was off to Newegg to buy a $32 PCIe video card for the interim.

Not much that I can add about the Q6600 processor that hasn't been said by far more capable people than I.  It has a stock clock of 2.4GHz, and mine is running happily at 3.005GHZ at 45C idle and 68C at full heat load.  Stable, solid and 4 cores.  You got to love it.  The stock cooler kind of sucks, but that has always been the case with Intel CPUs.

Update: I have since updated the ASUS bios on the mobo which fixes incorrect temperature reading of the CPU. It actually runs between 32C idle and 55C under load.

The cooler I chose, and it was last minute, was the enormous Ninja Mini.  This thing was a pain to install, and I ended up installing it twice.  Well, the 2nd install was my fault.  I bumped the monitor extension cable and didn't notice it was loose.  I ended up reseating everything, including the CPU before noticing.  The fan it comes with is not great, but gets the job done.  "Mini" is a ridiculous name for this thing.  It is enormous.  Maybe calling it "Not so huge as it's namesake" is more appropriate.  It drops the temperature of the CPU by 20C in about 10 seconds when load is removed which is pretty stunning.  I will be replacing the stock 80mm fan with a quieter 92mm fan later on.  At $35, though, this was a great value.

Ah, the Radeon HD3870.  First time I have ever bought ATI's flagship product when released.  But for $250, it was a good buy, and only $50 over budget.  Too bad MSRP is only $220.  Very good performance and I haven't even considered over-clocking yet at all.  There were a few odd things about this card:  First off, it is a single slot cooler.  All the other 3870s, including Sapphire's are dual slot.  Nice, but odd.  Secondly, you can't even find this card on Sapphire's website; they only list the dual-slot version.  Finally, mine came without the hot-chick sticker.  I don't really care, just thought it was odd.  Anyway, I really like this card.  Very fast, great digital video performance and not a bad price.  All the games I have run (except Crysis, of course) are super smooth at the max settings so far.  I am very impressed.

In conclusion, I am very happy with the new setup.  This has been the most extreme "upgrade" I have ever performed for myself.  I was boxed into it with the AGP/Prescott setup I had before.  In order to upgrade the CPU, I needed to get a new motherboard, memory and a PCIe The video card.  It only made sense to go ahead and get the improved case and DVD-RW drive too.  It was also a very enjoyable build and blissfully successful.  It passed all my burn-in tests with flying colors.  Vista's performance score is maxed out at 5.9; I kind of hope that they raise the maximum value with SP1 so I can see the relative score increase over my last one.  Pure vanity, of course.  Overall, the system is very quiet.  I cannot hear it under my desk at all as long as the wife's machine or the server is running.  (They will be upgraded next.)  And so far, all I have lost is my CoD4 profile; no great loss. 

Final pictures are still on the camera, so I will post them at a later time.  For now, time to play more MOHA!

The last two pieces finally came in.  The new Sapphire HD3870 is a very nice single-slot card that looks great and performs well.  Haven't had a chance to really stretch its legs yet.  Will do that this weekend.

And the Scythe Ninja "Mini" is here.  There is nothing mini about it.  It's HUGE!  I will install it tonight.  I hope.  It may be a tight fit on a Maximus Formula motherboard.  I will update this thread with those results later.

Then its migration of systems.  Not the fun part.  Reinstall Vista, reactivate, reinstall apps, load games, restore backups.  The drudgery of the upgrade....  But it's all worth it! 

UPDATE:  I got the cooler in.  It was the hardest part of the build.  The 775 cooler mounting specs are not easy to deal with.  But it's all together.   Had a moment there when I thought I broke something, but turned out to be a loose connection on the monitor extension cable I was using.  whew. 

I am going to tweak the build a bit later.  Different cooler fan, maybe different case fans that can attach to the motherboard for variable control and maybe an forced intake fan as well.  But not for a while.  I am full concerning the build hunger.

I got everything together again this weekend for the system build and everything works well.  Very well.  I learned a couple things, too.

First:  While the stock cooler on the Q6600 is very nice and much better than any previous cooler I have used from Intel, it is a bit small for the CPU if you ever intend to do much with it.  Under full heat mode of Prime95, it reached 75C, which is not terrible, but a bit higher than I am comfortable with.  So a $35 Ninja Mini is on its way to replace that.

Second: $270 for a motherboard is a lot of money, but you really get what you pay for.  The Asus Maximus Formula is the easiest board I have ever used both for installation and configuration.   I have Overclocked the Q6600 from 2.4GHz to 2.94GHz with no effort at all, simply by setting the AI settings to Q6800.  Once I get the Ninja installed, I hope to push it up one more level and get 3.2GHz.  The irony being that is what my Prescott runs today.  I even got STALKER included in the box.

I wait for the Sapphire HD3870 to be delivered later this week, then it's super gaming season for me!  I can't wait to see how Stalker runs on the new rig with full dynamic lighting compared to my old system that would only run without.  And you should see LAME run, it's amazing fast 20x at high quality VBR settings.  That's 4 to 5 times the Prescott, and only on one core.  I can't wait to see video encoding performance.

Well, this is an interesting subject.  I got this book as a Christmas gift and it was an easy read.  If you don't know what the Darwin Awards are, you really shouldn't be on the Internet.  Contained within is a collection of the latest winners.

I am not going to summarize any of the entries here, you have seen many of them all over the Internet.  But it was a fun read.  Quick too.  However, all of the entries can probably be found online, and in fact, have been promised so in the text.  And it is probably more enjoyable to be fed them in small doses than all at once, anyway.  I will pass this book about, so others can enjoy it, but I wouldn't rush out and buy 1-3 or any following titles.

This has not been the best build I've done, procedurally anyway.   On Tuesday, after finally getting the parts together and ready to go, I did the assembly.  I had a wonderful experience mounting everything, although a newbie moment of forgetting to install the I/O shield before the motherboard.  Oops.  The motherboard has a detachable standoff for the case leads, so you just plug them into the standoff easily, then plug the standoff into the socket and you're done!

Got everything installed, powered on and...  nothing.  No beeps, no video, but power to all components, the motherboard lights and all the fans.  Another nifty feature: the motherboard itself has an on and reset button, illuminated even, right there next to the PCIe slots.  Called tech support and they ask if I had the case speaker attached.  Case speaker?  I haven't owned a case with a speaker in a long time.  Most MBs come with a little peizo buzzer just for diagnostics these days.  But the Maximus line doesn't.  So I had to find one.  Sure enough, plugged it in, powered up, and I got the diagnostic tones for "No VGA detected".  Guess my old PCI card that I was going to use for burn-in and tweaking is not going to work.  And there are no local shops that I can get a cheap PCIe card.  So I wait for Newegg,com to deliver a $30 x1550 for testing.

This weekend it will live!  Following will be a week of burn-in, OC-ing and tweaking.  By February, I hope to have the HD3870 in hand and ready to game.  It's been an interesting and long build.