Chris Webb's BI Blog: Off-topic

Third Blog Birthday

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 22:07:52 GMT

It was this blog's third birthday on Sunday (which I forgot, sorry blog, I do love you really) and as in previous years I thought I'd spend a few minutes looking back on last year and looking forward to the next. This was the year when, according to Live Spaces own very dodgy counting, I reached a million page impressions; most of that traffic is caused by RSS readers but I estimate at least a few hundred people a day read this blog which is something that never ceases to amaze me.

This year was a busy one for me work-wise, my first full year as a self-employed consultant, and I've been having a great time. Hopefully the credit crunch won't lead to a recession next year because if it does, I know that consultants like me will be the first to feel the pinch and I'll be heading back to the world of permie work. The release of SQL2008 should help demand as people start thinking about migration but since the differences between AS2005 and AS2008 are neligible compared to the differences between AS2K and AS2005 then migration will be a lot less painful. I really need to get some real project experience with AS2008; I have something lined up, but if you are on the TAP program and would like some extra help then drop me a line! Blog-wise, I've got a few interesting posts in the pipeline including something I've been working on for the last few weeks which might even turn into a commerical product, so stay tuned for more news on that.

Happy New Year everyone...

Contact details

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 21:10:08 GMT

A few months ago Live Spaces introduced a new feature which has allowed people to send messages via the blogs it hosts. Lots of people contact me in this way to ask me questions etc, and that's fine - but at least 30% of messages I get I can't reply to because of how the person sending the message has set up their Windows Live Profile. So, if you'd like to get in touch with me please email me direct (you can find my email address at http://www.crossjoin.co.uk/contact.html) instead! Peter, if you're reading...

OK, after having received my latest message I can't reply to, I'm just going to switch off this functionality. It's a bit stupid of the Live Spaces team to let people send messages that can't be replied to.

Live on stage at the BI Conference

Mon, 21 May 2007 09:50:13 GMT

OK, last BI Conference-related post... you've heard about the technical stuff, what else did I get up to while I was in Seattle? Erm...

That's Christian Wade on guitar and me doing the whole Phil Collins singing drummer thing. Thank goodness the dvd hasn't made it to YouTube yet... If you're ever in Seattle I can definitely recommend a visit to the Experience Music Project!

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 15:42:52 GMT

After a long, hard day struggling with your cube, what better way to relax than with some multidimensional entertainment? Over the years I've had lots of conversations with people in the BI industry about the problems people have with learning to think multidimensionally, and something that has cropped up several times is the book "Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions", written over a century ago by Edwin Abbott. It's a book I've been meaning to buy for a while, and a quick browse on Amazon reveals that several other people have written similar books; indeed, as Christian Wade pointed out to me last year, there seems to be a whole internet subculture to do with imagining what life with more or less dimensions would be like, for example:
http://tetraspace.alkaline.org/

Anyway, the reason I'm blogging about this now is that Flatland, with a little bit of updating (as is always the way), has been turned into a film:
http://flatlandthefilm.com/index.html

Seems to have some good reviews too... I wonder if it'll ever get a release in the UK? They should organise a gala showing at the Microsoft BI Conference!

Five Things You Probably Didn't Know About Me

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 22:58:22 GMT

I thought I'd avoided this meme, but since Darren Gosbell tagged me and since Mosha (who was also tagged) has already joined in, here are my five things:

Like a lot of Brits of my generation my first contact with computers was a BBC Model B that my father bought in the early 80s. Once he'd got bored of typing in programs from BEEBUG magazine that did things like play the Star Wars theme tune I got my hands on it, and in between long sessions playing 'Elite' decided it would be cool if I too could write games. Unfortunately my coding skills have not progressed much since those days.
I won the Computer Studies prize at school (I had moved onto Turbo Pascal 5.5 by then, on Sanyo machines which had <gasp> a floppy disk drive and <double gasp> 256Kb of RAM) when I was 16 but only because the two other guys in the class who were better than me told the teacher that they were too cool to accept it. I, however, had no such scruples and spent the £20 book token on a French/English dictionary.
My first degree was in Modern History, although later on I picked up one of those two-year part-time conversion course Computer Science degrees. After winning the Computer Studies prize I didn't go near a computer for several years; I was much better at arts subjects and so I concentrated on that side of things. However a year after leaving university, after having spent a few months for a guy who wanted to reform the UK's National Lottery, I decided to find a proper job. I didn't fancy law, accountancy or any of the other things that History graduates seemed to end up doing so I thought I'd try to get on an IT graduate training scheme instead. I got a job at IMS Health in London where one of my first projects was evaluating a beta version of the new OLAP server from Microsoft that had been recommended by Nigel Pendse...
While in that job I met my wife, Helen. She was headhunted to work for a large pharmaceuticals company in Switzerland and we decided to move out there together. I started looking for jobs out there and after one of my colleagues suggested sending my CV on spec to Microsoft I got a job in Microsoft Consulting in Zurich, where I stayed for three years. After the birth of our first daughter Natasha (joined last summer by Amelia), Helen and I moved back to the UK and I went back to IMS because they were doing some cool stuff with Yukon.
After the project I was working on got canned, I decided to leave and set up on my own as a consultant. But you knew that already... so what I shall I write for my fifth point? How about that I'm incredibly absent-minded about everything except (as my wife pointed out when she was telling me off recently because I'd taken out buildings insurance on our house twice) work. My worst experience was at Copenhagen airport when I went through security, sat down and started reading and didn't notice that everyone else had got on the flight. By the time I did notice the plane was already on the runway about to take off, but had to turn back because my bags were on board. It couldn't go back to the same gate though and had to go to a different one which was at the wrong height, so I had to climb halfway up the side of it to get on before walking the full length of the plane to my seat while the captain was very rude about me over the intercom.

Santa Dashboard

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 08:40:21 GMT

More Xmas silliness from the people at DSPanel:

http://demo.dspanel.com/sites/dspdemosite/MerryChristmas/default.aspx

“Running a large scale operation where time to market is extremely important makes having the right information at the right time highly valuable. With a very fast implementation, quickly understanding the critical issues and underlying business models, DSP has been instrumental in ensuring a successful Christmas of 2006 and also ensured that the demands put upon the organisation by Sarbanes-Oxely has been met.”

Santa Claus, Director of christmas joy and happiness

The Twelve Days of a BI Project

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 17:54:59 GMT

Here's a Yuletide song for you and your colleagues to sing (to the tune of "The Twelve Days of Christmas", if you haven't guessed already) before you disappear down the pub for an important offsite meeting this Christmas:

On the first day of work my consultants gave to me
A bill for their exorbitant fees.

On the second day of work my consultants gave to me
Two project plans
And a bill for their exorbitant fees.

On the third day of work my consultants gave to me
Three servers,
Two project plans
And a bill for their exorbitant fees.

On the fourth day of work my consultants gave to me
Four Gb of RAM,
Three servers,
Two project plans
And a bill for their exorbitant fees.

On the fifth day of work my consultants gave to me
SQL 2005,
Four Gb of RAM,
Three servers,
Two project plans
And a bill for their exorbitant fees.

On the sixth day of work my consultants gave to me
Six star schemas,
SQL 2005,
Four Gb of RAM,
Three servers,
Two project plans
And a bill for their exorbitant fees.

On the seventh day of work my consultants gave to me
Seven ETL jobs,
Six star schemas,
SQL 2005,
Four Gb of RAM,
Three servers,
Two project plans
And a bill for their exorbitant fees.

On the eighth day of work my consultants gave to me
Eight UDMs,
Seven ETL jobs,
Six star schemas,
SQL 2005,
Four Gb of RAM,
Three servers,
Two project plans
And a bill for their exorbitant fees.

On the ninth day of work my consultants gave to me
Nine slow reports,
Eight UDMs,
Seven ETL jobs,
Six star schemas,
SQL 2005,
Four Gb of RAM,
Three servers,
Two project plans
And a bill for their exorbitant fees.

On the tenth day of work my consultants gave to me
Ten lame excuses,
Nine slow reports,
Eight UDMs,
Seven ETL jobs,
Six star schemas,
SQL 2005,
Four Gb of RAM,
Three servers,
Two project plans
And a bill for their exorbitant fees.

On the eleventh day of work my consultants gave to me
Eleven hotfixes,
Ten lame excuses,
Nine slow reports,
Eight UDMs,
Seven ETL jobs,
Six star schemas,
SQL 2005,
Four Gb of RAM,
Three servers,
Two project plans
And a bill for their exorbitant fees.

On the twelfth day of work my consultants gave to me
Twelve angry users,
Eleven hotfixes,
Ten lame excuses,
Nine slow reports,
Eight UDMs,
Seven ETL jobs,
Six star schemas,
SQL 2005,
Four Gb of RAM,
Three servers,
Two project plans
And a bill for their exorbitant fees.

I'm an MVP!!!

Wed, 05 Apr 2006 15:35:16 GMT

I found out earlier this week but I thought I'd mention it here. Obviously I am very chuffed indeed. Time for a tearful Oscars-style acceptance speech: I'd like to thank everyone out there who has helped me over the years, whether at work, on the newsgroups or on this blog... (sniff)... I love you all!

MDX Limericks

Thu, 19 Jan 2006 14:29:07 GMT

Since last summer's 'OLAP Jokes' entry was the most popular (in terms of links to it) entry I've made on this blog so far, I've been wracking my brains for a suitable follow-up. During my lunchtime browsing today I came across this posting on a certain Phil Factor's blog:

http://blogs.red-gate.com/blogs/philfactor/archive/2006/01/13/124.aspx

...and thought that anything those SQL guys can do, us MDX-ers can do better. So I'd like to announce an MDX limericks competition. No prizes apart from the admiration and respect of the entire Analysis Services community, I'm afraid, but who needs prizes when faced with a noble challenge such as this?

Here are the rules:

Each entry must be an MDX query executable against any cube/perspective in the Adventure Works database, and must take the form of a limerick (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerick_(poetry for details)
The query must return at least one cell which contains a value other than null
Entries should be posted as comments to this blog entry
Extra points will be awarded for wit and creativity

It's actually pretty difficult. Here's my first attempt:

WITH MEMBER [Date].[Day Name].[TODAY]
AS 1 + [Date].[Day Name].[THURSDAY]
SELECT [Average Rate]
ON 0, [Date].[Date]
ON 1 FROM [Direct Sales] WHERE([MAY])

As an aside, this brings up the vexed question of how you should pronounce MDX. In my limerick I'm not pronouncing the punctuation so it reads:

WITH MEMBER DATE DAY NAME TODAY,
AS ONE PLUS DATE DAY NAME THURSDAY,
SELECT AVERAGE RATE,
ON ZERO, DATE DATE,
ON ONE FROM DIRECT SALES WHERE MAY.

However I'm prepared to be flexible on this point.

So come on all of you (and especially you Jon, as I know you can never resist something like this) and get composing!

UPDATE: I've decided two rule changes, to make things easier. First I'll allow queries from Foodmart 2000 for those of you on AS2K; second I'll allow statements other than SELECT statements (eg CREATE SET, UPDATE CUBE etc) so long as they execute without errors.

Blog Birthday

Fri, 30 Dec 2005 14:06:27 GMT

It's my blog's first birthday today! Seems like I've been writing it forever... Anyway, I'm quite pleased with how the first year of blogging has gone - I've managed to keep my resolution and posted something just about every week, and hopefully it's been interesting and useful. I've learnt a lot too, made a lot of new friends and even managed to become the top-ranked "Chris Webb" on Google (for the moment)!

Next year will see a lot of changes for me professionally and with a bit of luck they will leave me more time for blogging as well as provide me with some new Microsoft-BI-related topics to blog about. As always, I welcome any kind of feedback/suggestions/tip-offs for news, either in public via comments or by email (check my profile for how to contact me).

Happy New Year!

Do you know anyone Scottish?

Thu, 24 Nov 2005 17:13:16 GMT

Here's something fun to show them:

Open SQL Server Management Studio
Connect to the AdventureWorks cube
Run the following query:
select [Measures].[Internet Sales Amount]
on 0,
[Geography].[Geography].[State-Province].[England].children
on 1
from [Adventure Works]
Scroll down the result set and point out that according to AdventureWorks, Scotland is a city in England.

A new form of MDX

Thu, 27 Oct 2005 09:37:28 GMT

I guess those of you in North America have already seen this on TV:

http://www.benocturnal.com/

(Thanks to George for sending the link)

"Coming to a store near you in November" - to coincide with the launch of SQL2005, no doubt.

Who reads my blog?

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 10:51:45 GMT

Sorry, this is completely off-topic, but I've got a little tired of the poor information that MSN Spaces provide on blog visitors and I'm curious to find out who is reading. So I'm going to run a little experiment with Site Meter - just click on the link below to see some detailed stats about visits to this blog:

Pity there's no way of putting this permanently on my front page that I can see.

OLAP Jokes

Thu, 25 Aug 2005 15:17:19 GMT

With the cricket rained off we had nothing to waste our time with today at work, so Jon decided to challenge the rest of the team to come up with some OLAP jokes for my blog. Naturally Colin and I were up for the challenge and 50 (yes, 50) jokes later here are some of the best - although I thought a few were too risque to post and they were, of course, the funniest. If you aren't a fan of puerile humour then now's the time to stop reading...

Q: What does a calculated member have in common with a eunuch?

A: They both can’t have children

Q: Why couldn't the hierarchy become a tightrope-walker?

A: It was unbalanced

Q: Why did [Year-Quarter-Month] beat Measures at an arm wrestle?

A: Because it was a strong hierarchy

Q: What does tired cube do?

A: Has a KPI

Q: Why did the dimension go to prison?

A: Because it was degenerate

A cube walks into a bar, pops himself on a bar stool and says "Whisky please".

"Double?" says the barman

"No thanks replies the cube "Just a measure"

A girl goes speed dating and after a run of duff prospects a dimension sits down opposite her and they engage in sprightly conversation. After the event is over, her friend asks "Did you get that dimension's number? You two really seemed to hit it off"

"No" replies the girl "He was really deep at times - had a lot of levels - but you know parent-child dimensions, just too much of a mummy's boy"

Q: Was the cube straight or gay?

A; Neither, it was BI.

Have you heard that the [Date Shipped] dimension is playing Hamlet at the National Theatre? It’s a role-playing dimension!

Q: What kind of a dimension is [Dictionary]?

A: A reference dimension

Q: What do pre-menstrual BI developers suffer from?

A: PTS

Q: How did the police catch the serial-killer query?

A: They used a Profiler

Did you know that Disney want to turn the Adventure Works cube into a multi-million dollar blockbuster movie? They’ve already optioned the MDX Script.

Q: What on earth was the cube trying to do when it set fire to its wallet?

A: It must have been trying to warm its cache.

Q: What’s the angriest MDX function?

A: Crossjoin

Q: What's a dentist's favourite MDX function?

A: Extract

Q: Why did the dimension take all day to take off its suit and put on a pair of jeans?

A: It was a slowly-changing dimension

Q: Why did the dimension keep itself to itself?

A: It was a private dimension.

Q: Why wasn't the Level allowed in the fascist cube?

A: It was disabled

Q: What's the porn director's favourite MDX function?
A: BottomCount

Q: Why did the YTD calculation always finish last?

A: It always lagged too far back.

Q: Why were the other hierarchies frightened of Year-Week-Quarter?

A: It was unnatural

Q: Did you hear about the badger whose home wasn't allowed in the subcube?

A: It was an arbitrary shaped set.

Q: Why was the MDX expression never able to get a date?

A: It was rank.

Q: What MDX function makes Previous Year Growth and Market Share blush?
A: StripCalculatedMembers

Q: How did the BI developer send his backed-up database to a colleague on the other side of London?

A: In a .cab file

Q: What do cellsets use to cut down trees?

A: Axes

Q: What did the cube leave on the floor when it fell over in the toilet?

A: A minidump

Q: What function would you use to retrieve [Product].[All].[Dried Fruit].[Raisins]?

A: CurrentMember

Q: Why did the cube have nothing to do after the meeting?

A: It had no actions

Q: Whilst walking through the MDX Script mountain range, why did the assignment not mind reports of a FREEZE on the peaks?

A: He was in a lower pass

UPDATE: if you think you can do better then leave your jokes in a comment. We tried to think of a prize for the best one but baulked at the idea of giving away something worth having and paying for the postage.

Improving performance of VPC

Mon, 21 Mar 2005 16:27:55 GMT

Great tip from Roman Rehak here, if like me you're running Yukon on Virtual PC. NTFS compression certainly hasn't harmed my performance and it's saved me 4Gb of disk space!

Jon Axon's blog

Thu, 20 Jan 2005 14:41:52 GMT

OK, this is nothing whatsoever to do with BI, but my colleague Jon Axon has started his own blog here. If you're interested in concurrent programming then check it out - and make sure you hit the site several times to make him feel like someone is actually reading his blog! It will make him feel so much better...