text:
People don't always march in rock step with their religious leaders in terms of thinking about social and political issues. —Greg Smith, Senior Researcher at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life
In the months since Alabama passed the nation's toughest immigration law, Yenny Laney's life has changed drastically. Once childless, she's now playing foster mom to five boys whose parents are in immigration detention. Her home in Cullman, Ala., has been transformed into a storage facility where illegal immigrant families fleeing the state can safely leave their belongings. She's traded her Ford sedan for a Kia minivan so she can both cart around her new, larger family and act as a chauffeur for her Hispanic neighbors who are afraid to drive lest they be pulled over, ticketed and deported.
"It is busy," she said, raising her voice to be heard above the squeals coming from the back of the van, where the boys, ranging in age from 20 months to 9 years, were engaged in a full-out pinch war. But she doesn't complain. As a minister for First United Methodist Church, Laney believes with all her heart and soul, "This is what God wants me to do."
Tired of waiting for federal immigration reform, Arizona, Georgia, Utah, South Carolina and Indiana have all passed laws in recent years attempting to remedy the complications caused by illegal immigration. But no one has gone quite as far as Alabama, whose law has been branded as radical. Its hard-line stances on hiring and renting to undocumented residents, demands for schools to identify illegal students in classrooms and forbidding the transportation of undocumented residents in any way, shape or form have many up in arms.
In Alabama, where close to 85 percent of the population is Christian, the Bible has become a major talking point in the often hot-blooded debate over illegal immigration. Nearly all of the state's major Christian denominations have officially spoken out against HB 56. At least four bishops — an Episcopal, a Methodist and two Roman Catholic — have sued the state, claiming the statute compromises their right to free exercise of religion and makes it "a crime to follow God's command to be Good Samaritans."
Church leaders say the fight has been a unifying experience, bringing together different churches in a way that hasn't been seen in Alabama since the civil rights era. But within congregations, illegal immigration remains a divisive issue. While leadership leans toward leniency, statistics suggest the majority of their followers lean the other way. Christians from both extremes cite scripture to support their positions and Christians from both extremes believe scripture should be left out of this discussion of politics altogether. Believers disagree about the scope of America's illegal immigration problem, what should be done about it and even to what extent their faith can and should influence their opinions on the subject.
Helping a neighbor in need
Some religious leaders in Alabama worry that the language of the new legislation will make crucial parts of their ministries — like giving people rides, inviting them to services and performing marriages and baptisms — punishable under the law. The concern prompted the Sisters and Monks of the Order of St. Benedict to join forces with other religious leaders, the U.S. Department of Justice and several civil rights groups to sue the state. As a result of the lawsuit, parts of the law have been put on hold.
"HB 56 prevents us as Catholics from being faithful to our call to minister to our sisters and brothers regardless of their immigration status," said Sister Lynn Marie McKenzie, a nun from Sacred Heart Monastery in Cullman who handles the church's legal affairs. "The gospel says, 'When I was hungry, you fed me. When I was lonely, you comforted me. When I was in prison, you visited me.' No scripture ever said, 'If I had documentation, then you gave me food.'"
While the legal battle over HB 56 wages on, religious leaders are stuck in a doctrinal gray area. The law puts two Biblical teachings at odds. In Romans 13, Christians are told they are under "biblical mandate to respect the divinely ordained institution of government and its just laws." But the Bible also commands believers to "show compassion and justice for the sojourner and alien among us."
Laney, a small, peppy woman with dark eyes and a dark bob, acknowledges the importance of both teachings, but, for her, compassion takes priority. She served the illegal immigrants in her congregation before HB 56 and, she said, she won't stop — regardless of the court's decision. She continues to teach English classes and hold Bible study in Spanish. She shuttles undocumented immigrant children to and from school "with a clear conscience," she said.
"This is a hard time for them," she said. "They need me now more than ever."
Mac Buttram, a former Methodist pastor who is now a state legislator, though, refuses to make such a compromise. His congregation gave clothes and toys to underprivileged children from local schools at Christmas time and used a church-owned van to transport boys from a Hispanic Boy Scout troop, "so it's likely," Buttram said, that he's lent a helping hand to undocumented immigrants in the past. But he never had a known undocumented immigrant in his congregation.
"I think we can have compassion for people at the same time that we're insisting that they obey the law," he said. "I don't think those are necessarily oppositional."
For his decision to vote "yes" on HB 56, he has been called cruel, racist and unchristian.
"When I look at myself and my fellow legislators who voted in favor of this law, I don't find that any of us came to this in a mean spirited way — in a way that was racial or intending to punish anybody unnecessarily," he said. "The bottom line is that if you're here legally you deserve to be here and if you're here illegally you need to leave."
Immigration and the pulpit
Mitchell Williams, a pastor at Cullman First United Methodist Church, was contemplating starting a Hispanic branch when legislators passed HB 56. Since the law went into effect this summer, though, his Hispanic following has dropped by almost 75 percent. When a tornado blew the roof off his chapel, the roofer he hired struggled to get the job done because many of his workers had stopped showing up.
"They are afraid to go to church," he said. "They are afraid to go to work."
As he watched his congregation struggle, he said, he concluded that HB 56 is "mean spirited." Along with 150 other Methodist pastors, he signed a letter pleading with the governor to repeal the law. But while he preaches the principle of "loving the stranger among you," he doesn't talk about HB 56 over the pulpit.
"We teach basic principles like how we should take care of the poor and be a good neighbor to everyone regardless of their immigration status," he said. "But we are suspicious of declaring Jesus' blessing on any particular law or law maker. We don't tell people how to vote."
While many church leaders have been vocal in their appeals to government leaders, immigration ranks low on the list of issues religious leaders speak about in church, according to a 2010 report by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Of people who attend religious services once or twice a month, only 24 percent said they'd heard their clergy speak out about immigration, which is significantly lower than was found for issues like gay marriage and abortion.
As the war against illegal immigration heats up in Alabama, though, many pastors are becoming more specific in their sermons on the subject, said R.G. Lyons, pastor of the Church Without Walls in Birmingham. He's not shy about discussing HB 56 during Sunday sermons and has even started coordinating with other religious leaders to put on regular "Immigration 101" meetings during the week.
"I absolutely preach about the law," he said. "I absolutely tell stories of people who have been affected by the law."
Of those people whose pastors do talk about immigration in church, half say they've heard clergy say things in favor of immigration, a quarter say they've heard things against it and a quarter say they're unable to classify, according to Pew. People who said their clergy talked about immigration over the pulpit were more likely to have positive views of immigrants, saying they "strengthen the country with their hard work and talents."
The clergy's tendency to make positive comments about immigrants — illegal and otherwise — may not be entirely based on interpretations of doctrine.
Immigrant populations are a big growth area for Christianity, said Alan Wisdom, former vice president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, an ecumenical alliance of U.S. Christians that seek to contribute to the renewal of democracy by strengthening churches' social witness.
"Churches look to those communities as a source of new members and vitality," he said. "They're hesitant to do something that would offend them and they have a great amount of sympathy for them."
According to a survey conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, the adult population of the Roman Catholic Church has been able to remain at a fairly steady 25 percent of the overall population. The most significant factor that accounts for this stability is a "disproportionately high number of Catholics among immigrants to the U.S." which has off-set the roughly 10 percent of the overall population that was raised Catholic, but left the church in adulthood.
Evangelicals' opinions about immigration may also be increasingly influenced by greater dependence on undocumented residents for numbers and better exposure to their plight. Exposure makes people more likely to lean toward policies that emphasize compassion, said Richard Land, former president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of TIME Magazine's "Most Influential Evangelicals in America."
"It puts a human face on the issue," he says. "Many of these illegal immigrants have been evangelized by Evangelicals, and now they're connected."
Marching in rock step
Lyons and other pastors organized "Immigration 101" meetings hoping to humanize the issue of illegal immigration.
"If you just call someone an illegal, they remain nameless," he said. "My greatest hope is to inspire people to see undocumented immigrants as human beings and people we are called to see as our brothers and sisters."
Lyons recognizes, though, he won't be able to win everyone over. If nothing else, he said, he hopes by getting people to talk about HB 56 in a religious setting, he can encourage them to think about how their faith relates to immigration policy.
"It's helpful for people to ask, 'You're Christian, how does your faith influence the way you look at this issue?'" he said. "I tell them, 'Let's not look at immigration from a political or economic view point. Let's look at it from a faith standpoint.'"
The vast majority of church-going Christians don't use their faith to frame their opinions on immigration. While 50 percent of the people Pew surveyed indicated religion influenced their views on immigration, only 7 percent said their beliefs were the biggest influence. That's a significantly lower response than was found for issues like gay marriage (35 percent), abortion (26 percent) and the death penalty (19 percent). More people said personal experiences, media or education were the biggest factor in determining their opinions on the topic.
"What you hear depends on where you're attending religious services," said Greg Smith, Senior Researcher at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. "White Evangelical Protestants, for instance, are much less likely than Catholics or mainline Protestants to say immigrants today strengthen our country because of their hard work and talents."
Data also shows that across a variety of issues, "people don't always march in rock step with their religious leaders in terms of thinking about social and political issues," Smith said.
Among Catholics, 64 percent support ramping up enforcement efforts to encourage illegal immigrants to go home, while just 23 percent support conditional legalization, according to a recent Zogby poll of religious communities. Sixty-four percent of mainline Protestants and 76 percent of born-again Protestants favor enforcement over legalization.
Wisdom said he thinks many Christians prioritize one Biblical value over another in forming their personal views on immigration, but said the wide array of attitudes also has a lot to do with differing senses of the relationship between church and state, an influence many might not attribute directly to religion.
"The two have distinctly different obligations as far as the Bible is concerned," he said. "The role of the church is to love neighbors without respect to origin. The state's role is justice — to protect citizens and advance their wellbeing above those of other countries. That's not to say they can't be reconciled, but different traditions balance those out differently."
There are also different readings of the facts on the ground. Scholars come to different conclusions about the economic effects of immigration, and there are many different interpretations of its history. Without the directness many Christians find in the Bible on other issues, for many, those contradictions are especially weighty.
Despite the Bible's apparent lack of clarity, though, clergy insist scripture is relevant to the immigration discussion. Buttram uses its verses to justify voting for HB 56. Laney and Lyons turn to its pages to justify their decisions to rebel against HB 56.
"The bible has as much to say about immigration as it does about any other issue," said Land, who was influential in crafting a recent Southern Baptist Convention resolution titled, "On Immigration and the Gospel." "It's just a matter of whether or not people are paying attention."
Email: [email protected]
TWITTER: elizMstuart


text:
Skim 1.4.8
(3.72 MB) Safe & Secure
Latest Version:
Mac OS X
User Rating:Click to vote
Author / Product:
Old Versions:
MD5 Checksum:
Skim is a very small and fast PDF Reader and note-taker that can be easily used by every Mac OS X user. Skim's main feature is a powerful but easy to use ability to annotate and mark important data in the PSD documents (scientific papers, work files, research papers, etc.) in nicely created user interface that will nicely show both original document and your custom notes. While many other apps focused their development to support every single feature known to man, even those that will never be used and will only cause those apps to boot and work slowly, Skim for Mac is totally focused on being lightning fast, streamlined and able to satisfy users who want to easily read PDF documents and make notations on them. In addition to that core ability, Skim of course supports many other necessary services such as text highlighting, preview of internal links, full screen rendering, bookmarks, remote control support (perfect for making presentations using PDF files), and much more.
Interface of Skim is streamlined, with tools arranged around PDV viewing area for page navigation, Zoom levels, Tool modes (text selector, hand tool, area select) and Add Note section that supports all possible ways of note taking and highlighting that users will ever need. Visual style of Skim and app services can be precisely tweaked in Configuration window that is separated in four main sections – General tweaks, Display, Notes and Sync options. If you are in school or in work, Skim is definitely a must own peace of software for you.
Skim Features:
- Viewing PDFs.
- Adding and editing notes.
- Highlighting important text.
- Making 'snapshots for easy reference.
- Navigation using table of contents or thumbnails.
- View all your notes and highlights.
- Convenient reading in full screen.
- Giving powerful presentations.
- Handy preview of internal links.
- Focus using a reading bar.
- Magnification tool.
- Extensive AppleScript support.
- Bookmarks.
- Support for Apple Remote Control.
- Interaction with LaTeX and PDFSync.
- Spotlight support.
- Highly customizable.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Ghosts of Stonehenge
Season 44 Episode 14 | 53m 36s
Stonehenge is the grandest and most enigmatic of Europe's prehistoric monuments, and has inspired countless theories to explain who built it and why. Join NOVA as we reveal intimate details of the Stonehenge people and why their power began to fade soon after they raised the mighty stones.
Aired: 08/31/17
Expires: 10/10/20Video has closed captioning.
Buy Now:
Problems Playing Video?
Secrets of Stonehenge
New archeological finds shed light on this misunderstood monument of the ancient world.
Astronomy at Stonehenge
An expert discusses whether Stonehenge was an astronomical observatory.
Sacred Architecture
Some medieval builders drew on sacred measurements laid out in the pages of the Bible.
Europe's Mysterious Megaliths
See stone circles and other prehistoric ceremonial sites stretching from Scotland to Malta


text:
Arizona execution drug case bound for Supreme Court
PHOENIX – A federal appeals court ruled Monday that Arizona cannot execute a death row inmate without providing detailed information about the drugs intended for his lethal injection, a decision that prompted state officials to say they will take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The dispute centers on whether a man convicted of killing his estranged girlfriend and her father should have access to information the state of Arizona has refused to provide, and it comes amid nationwide scrutiny surrounding capital punishment and whether condemned inmates unduly suffer.
Arizona officials lost their attempt to overturn a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled recently that death row inmate Joseph Rudolph Wood, convicted in the 1989 shooting deaths, "raised serious questions" about whether he should have "access to lethal injection drug information and executioner qualifications."
The ruling marked the first time that an appeals court has delayed an execution based on the issue of drug secrecy, said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.
Arizona is among several states that refuse to disclose the supplier of their execution drugs, how or whether those drugs are tested, or details about the qualifications of the execution team.
Some of the most active death penalty states — including Texas, Florida and Missouri — have been the subject of similar lawsuits from virtually every death row inmate facing imminent execution over the past several months, but courts have rarely stepped in.
Wood, in winning the delay, argued that he had a constitutional right to know the withheld details about his execution.
Dale Baich, an attorney for Wood said his team is "looking forward to Arizona turning over the information that we requested."
"The 9th Circuit has correctly recognized the importance of the information that Joe Wood sought," Baich said.
Arizona attorney general's office spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, however, said the state will file an application with the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to dismiss the ruling and allow prison officials to put Wood to death without any such disclosures.
It's not clear whether the high court will take up the case, but Dieter said it shows judiciary disagreement on the issue. "That is often an invitation for the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene," Dieter said.
If the Supreme Court does step in, death penalty experts say it's likely the appeals court decision will be overruled.
Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, of the 9th Circuit, dissented from the decision Monday that led to the state's planned Supreme Court appeal.
"I have little doubt that the Supreme Court will thwart this latest attempt to interfere with the State of Arizona's efforts to carry out its lawful sentence and bring Wood to justice for the heinous crimes he committed a quarter century ago," Kozinski wrote.
The process of lethal injections and whether inmates unduly suffer has come into focus several times this year.
An Ohio inmate in January snorted and gasped during the 26 minutes it took him to die. And an Oklahoma execution was botched in April as prison officials halted the process after noticing the drugs weren't being administered properly. The inmate died of a heart attack several minutes later.


text:
Gaming website php jobs
Hello, we are looking for a professional facebook fan page designer to design our facebook fan page. We are not a big company and mostly sell pc games and vouchers to games on xbox. I need one wallpaper photo and profile photo that will showcase our brand. :)
wanting a custom desk maybe 3 options designed I have an idea of what I am looking for , and am wanting someone who understands and has a good imagination of what is needed to be done this can turn into a long term business relationship comment GAMINGDESK or dont bother applying
I have a channel where I stream games. I want to convert it to a gaming channel. It should be worth watching for the audience. Currently, it looks like this but I visualize it better and to be the best out of all. As a beginner, I can't give it all at once so my budget is set at 100$. If you prove yourself the best then we can go further. :)
I will play Fortnite with you and help with you're weekly challenges
Looking to create a logo for a tabletop gaming club. Activities the club associates with are mostly war themed tabletop miniature games. Genre of most games is more sci-fi, with some fantasy. Looking for a logo which is rather simple in design, or at least simple enough that detail is not lost on small scale, as we sometimes print logo onto small
I need a content writer for my website. It is about gaming & tech. Website [login to view URL] The writer should go to Wordpress dashboard and enter the article by itself. I will review and post it later on. Requirements: -At least 1 year of experience in content writing -Good English writing skills -Knowledge of games -Basic SEO -Basic Wordpress
It's a video game and Ian good at this game
This website will have: - Game (game + relevant Admin Panel data) - Deposit and withdraw (Bitcoin/VGO + Welcome Bonus) - Affiliates (Invite friends for % of commission with affiliate code/link) - Level up (levels up the user and rewards user with free coins) - Chat (including moderators) + extra Message me for more information including images and
I would like to get website designers that love to game and would like to help create a social network that gamers want and need. a place that has everything in one place. think you would be interested in something like this?
This website will have: - Game (game + relevant Admin Panel data) - Deposit and withdraw (Bitcoin/VGO + Welcome Bonus) - Affiliates (Invite friends for % of commission with affiliate code/link) - Level up (levels up the user and rewards user with free coins) - Chat (including moderators) + extra Message me for more information including images and
Hi The project is called XP Minute. We make videos about video games that are 1 minute long or shorter. XP stands for experience points in video games. We want a logo with yellow as a primary color. It's got to be abstract because we will animate it (ourselves) in an intro. Should be with thick strokes of a dark color (black or any other color) that make it cartoonish or comic-like. Please...
I am self employed business man. i run a lottery company in africa. current the lottery is paper base and would like to move it online to better connect to customers.
I need you to create a website for me that is nearly identical to the one below. I would need custom profiles, daily automatic tournament posts, etc. I need to know if you are capable of something such as this. Please look through this thoroughly. [login to view URL]
Hi, I have a small gaming project. I need experts.
I am searching for a marketing expert that knows the right target group which fits too my app and who also can advertise for my gaming app: ANDROID: [login to view URL] iOS: [login to view URL]
We want a decent looking logo for a small gaming league for a game called Rainbow Six. The name of our league is called "Cartel Esports". We need a logo 500x500 and a banner 2560x1440 with the original template.
I need a logo just like the e-sports ones
I need a logo designed for YouTube channel logo and the cover logo both
I need you to create a website for me that is nearly identical to the one below. I would need custom profiles, daily automatic tournament posts, etc. I need to know if you are capable of something such as this. [login to view URL]
Similar to [login to view URL] like in the video shown at [login to view URL] Only additional feature to the above functionality is for the user to be able to edit activities and save as new activities by changing position & background images of each components as shown in attached screenshot([login to view URL]). An activity will be loaded from JSON like attached file. ([login to view URL])...
Gamico ([login to view URL]) is where gamers can start winning money playing their favourite games and achieve esports greatness. [login to view URL] We are looking for a PR Experts to help us get media coverages both online and offline. We are targeting coverages in all sort of media, but especially esports related media outlets. Responsibility: Prepare media/ barter contacts, Outreach to blog...
Computer gaming product web site it is mainly to let customer to check the photos of products Easy to copy and paste the spec etc you can refer to example page we provide here for your reference same structure as this web site (please refer to example page [login to view URL]) PS: including set up all the detail at hosting
Ludo game
I am looking for someone who has created content for video games. Your role is to make content for all types of games. You will be creating content like, How To, Best of, Guides etc. You must show your previous articles related to video games you also much have the game yourself. If you believe you fit this role please apply.
We are looking for talented authors on gaming / eSports / game development. Please, send us the link for your previous texts/articles. And the prices for your work. The price can be discussed. Just write to me:)
...web visual artist, the Website is very similar to: [login to view URL] Page required : - Home page - SHOP - media social video / post page. - support / faq / support ticket system and RMA forms - contact us - live chat system payment method : interac transfer, bank wire, credit card, paypal, coinpayment plugin website capable of having over
...charity collection box. We are a video gaming lounge at an airport: [login to view URL] We have thousands of American soldiers coming home for Christmas via the airport where we are located and we want airport passengers to be able to donate money to gift our active military troops the experience of gaming. 100% of the proceeds go towards paying
Website with multi APPs to manage Gaming Center Needs. WEB Admin + Sub Domain + Multi Database + Smartphone APP + mini Computer Program (6 Windows) for more information please contact me...
We are looking for a face filter game to insert into our app (ios and android). It is an AR gaminification tha tuses a mask to promote a game that generates points based on usage (time spend as well as number of times used)
I need someone who is very good at building computers
We are looking for a writer who can provide articles for our Gaming Blog website. We prefer someone who has extensive knowledge on gaming of all genre and platforms. Please provide a sample article for us. If you have more then send as many as you can.
I want to play the game and like pubg is a modern game the best way to play the pubg on pc for use tencent gaming buddy but you didn't forget me request i will buy the royal pass and the job i am the student of 8th standard
Looking for Esports Content blog writers to write about professional gamers, pro leagues, pro tournaments; anything and everything about esports. The esport writer should be well versed in one of the following games that are typically played in pro tournaments/leagues: League of Legends (LoL), Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO), Call of Duty, Hearthstone, Overwatch, Rainbow Six Sieg...
Hi, I'm in need of an illustrator/graphics artist who can create ongoing thumbnails for my youtube channel. MUST have working knowledge of video games and other gaming channels (e.g. Game Grumps, Markiplier, Jacksepticeye, etc.) -- need to see sample(s) of prior work. Portfolio samples are fine as long as you can easily replicate the style. My overall
Looking for a professional logo for a gaming studio/brand. Company Name/Required Text - JEM Interactive May increase the budget as we get entries.
New Worker Gaming Logo Designer 7 months experience
the logo i want is a drawing of myself (Ill send add a photo) And some computer games.. not fortnite.. (rocket league ,pubg, gta, call of duty) The name is "Gaming...photo) And some computer games.. not fortnite.. (rocket league ,pubg, gta, call of duty) The name is "[login to view URL]" I am adding a reference of something i liked (nightmare gaming)
We are looking to lease online casino games for a huge percentage of profits on our online casino. We have a development team creating our website however we are looking for a reliable, experienced gaming software company that has already developed casino games such as Roulette, Blackjack, Poker and Slots. We would need the company to have strong
...who can provide us with casino gaming software. We are a start up in online casinos and are looking for software developers who have already developed casino games and have these on hand. All details of the job will be disclosed to successful candidates. We are looking for a reliable company who provide flawless gaming programmes. We are only looking
Hi, I own a gaming news website where we give news, game play videos and reviews. I am looking for someone that can bring users to my website, within 3 months and have me ranked for high powered and low powered keywords within 6. I will prove 5 of my own keywords they are very competitive and I expect you to search for 5 keywords. That is 10 keywords
...I have a concept that I would love to see become a reality. Basically I have an idea to start up my own boosting services website for the game call of duty black ops 4. [login to view URL] < Take a look at this website, this is the kind of design I am looking for. Though I don't have any blueprints on what I want the design the exactly be like
Hello, I'm the owner of The Gaming Black Market (https://thegamingblackmarket) which is mainly blog to make money through gaming. It also has a marketplace to sell your products / services. I'm looking for someone to build quality backlinks, contact me with the process you wan't to build this (with at least some details please.)
Our company is looking to launch a Christmas special game and currently we are looking for freelancers who have good knowledge about Buildbox tool or who are ready to learn it in a short period of time. More details will be discussed with interested candidates. Remuneration will be negotiable .
I need a gaming website with points and payment system. I will give you full details after your bid is approved.
I need a new landing page similar to [login to view URL] It must be mobile friendly and responsive.
setup my website with the things that I had a proper domain, proper hosting plan & I had PHP script of gaming.. you just set up things of PHP script to my domain & to my hosting plan. If there are any few needs to set up the website, told me i can arrange those needs... I'm not a high budget guy, I just completed normal bachelor degree, I am a 21
Would prefer someone who is familiar with online gaming.
Hi! I need a dev for my future gaming server on the game called Garry's Mod! I dont know my self how to dev so i need someone to help me with it.
I have designed this logo message me to design more logo or edit a video


text:
Joseph S. Calvaruso, '78, and his wife, Donna, established an endowment fund in 2005 to support the annual Elkin R. Isaac Symposium keynote address. The keynote address now bears Calvaruso's name.
An Albion native, he currently serves as executive director of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation in Grand Rapids. Before joining the foundation, he was senior vice president and director of risk management for Mercantile Bank in Grand Rapids.
Active in the Republican Party on the state and national levels, Calvaruso is a member of the Gerald R. Ford Institute for Public Policy and Service Visiting Committee at the College.
In keeping with Calvaruso's personal goal to "try different things in life," the keynote endowment ensures the symposium will continue to provide an exceptional variety of presenters from the arts, sciences, social sciences, and humanities.


text:
Since the first release of the Black Ops title it has had more success with longevity and player satisfaction. So Paul Ireson, wanted to figure out what factors other than the zombies that are driving this title to be more popular with himself and other players. While Black Ops 2 not enjoying the highest sales figures of the Call Of Duty franchise, over time Black Ops 2 always seems to pull out a shinier more polished better looking and playing game. Paul Ireson, explains this by speaking from his personal experience as well as what many other sources have to say on the subject .
CoD needs a new engine and less arcadey gameplay mechanics if it wants to keep the spotlight.
Black Ops 2 is a good multiplayer game but there´s many inconsistencies in it.
I prefer Battlefield much more, even though I don't care for EA, and I hate their DLC practices...
The game is horrible. It lags, the sound sucks, the maps suck the game modes are tired etc..
I used to HATE BO2, but after the latest patch I've found it much more enjoyable. Is it the best shooter out right now? No! I still spend more of my time on Halo 4, but it is finally starting to be playable...a mere 4 months after its launch.


text:
Ben Cipollini needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 127 designs submitted by 21 freelance designers.
We "track" every "deal of the day" offer from across the web. This means that we constantly scour our partners for their latest "daily deal" offer.
More and more big sites--from Amazon.com to Target to TigerDirect--have been identifying "deal of the day" offers as a great way to obtain recurring traffic. We are the #1 site in bringing this information to our users; just google "deal of the day" and see for yourselves!
Our audience is split between:
* Bargain shoppers - these can be college students or people who are simply looking for information on great deals to make a buck.
* People with disposable income - these people come to our site to look for gadgets or interesting items to buy. They do not care about getting the absolute best price, but are more interested in getting something "cool" at a price they can be confident is reasonable.
So, our site is for fun, but must maintain elements of cleanliness and order. We love color and design, but nothing obnoxious or overwhelming.
A great place to start would be our website and our partners; see http://www.dodtracker.com/ and http://www.dodtracker.com/deals/.
DODTracker.com is getting a make-over. In this posting, we are looking for a new logo, but will be changing our site colors and layout in future postings. We outsource ALL of our design work, and are looking not only for a great logo design, but someone we can count on to lead our design efforts in the future.
We're looking for something that incorporates elements of our name and our business:
* "deal of the day" - one sale item per day on a website at a special discount. Or, a website (such as woot.com) that only offers one item to buy per day
* tracker - we "track", or aggregate information, for all "deal of the day" offers on the web.
We're looking for a logo that will bring in an interesting color palatte, will lend itself into integration small button-sized images as well as larger banner ads, and overall that can set the tone for our redesign moving forward.
The designer who creates the winning logo will have the inside track to a number of new design projects we will post here, including site layout redesigns, spin-off site designs, and designs for other applications. Currently we have at least 4 projects that need to be done ASAP (i.e. within the next 2-4 weeks), and would love to find someone to work with.
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


text:
So, you've decided to be a Database Administrator (DBA). Great choice! On top of that, you've chosen Oracle as the Database Management System (DBMS) that you want to work with. Even better! All you need to do now is figure out how to learn what you need to know to do the job. Reading this book is a great start. However, the job of a DBA cannot be learned entirely in a few short months. It is a work in progress that can take several years to become really good at. Don't get us wrong—you can learn the basics that will make you a productive DBA in a few short months, but there is a great deal to learn, and we don't become really good at this job until we've actually run the utility, executed the SQL, or performed the task. In other words, don't just read this book—try the examples and don't be afraid to make mistakes.
Critical Skill 3.1 — Learn the Job of the DBA
The role of a DBA is more of a career than a job. Those of us who have been doing this for many years are always learning new things and just trying to keep up! That's the exciting thing about being a DBA: the job keeps changing. Databases are growing at a phenomenal pace, the number of users is increasing, availability requirements are striving for that magical 24/7 mark, and security has become a much greater concern. As you will see in this book, databases now include more than just data. They are also about the Internet and grid computing and XML and Java. So, how long will it take you to learn how to be a DBA? For as long as you're practicing this career.
There are some concrete steps that you can take to jump-start your learning process. Undertaking an Oracle Certification will provide you with a structured program that offers you clear steps to help learn the details of the job. Instructor-led courses as well as CD- and Internet-based classes can help you through the process. Also, read as much as you can and then get your hands on a test database and practice what you've learned.
Applications come and go, but data stays around. All of the information that makes your company valuable is (or should be) stored in a database. Customer, vendor, employee, and financial data, as well as every other corporate data is stored in a database, and your company would have great difficulty surviving if any of that data was lost. Learn your job well. People are depending on you.
CRITICAL SKILL 3.2 — Understand the Oracle Database 10g DBA Skill Set
There is good news for DBAs: Oracle has tools to help you do your job and manage your databases. These tools have existed for many versions of Oracle and have improved with each release to the point where the Oracle Database 10gofferings are extensive. In many cases, you will have the option of doing your job using a GraphicalUserInterface(GUI),and you will also have the option of using a command-line interface. We recommend learning both. You will need to use the command-line interface in many cases to schedule work through scripts. The GUI can be used for performing day-to-day operations and can also be used as a great learning tool the first time you perform an operation. In many cases, you will be able to generate the low-level commands from the GUI and can copy them to a file to be used later on.
As we've mentioned, there is a great deal that you will need to know in order to be able to provide well-rounded coverage of your Oracle environment. We can categorize the specialized areas of database management so that you will be aware of the whole picture and can break your work into well-defined groupings.
This chapter is from Oracle Database 10g: A Beginner's Guide, by Abramson, Abbey and Corey. (McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2004, ISBN: 0072230789). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.
{mospagebreak title=Perform Day-to-Day Operations}
CRITICAL SKILL 3.3 — Perform Day-to-Day Operations
In order to properly perform the role of Database Administrator, you will need to develop and implement solutions that cover all areas of this discipline. The amazing part of this job is that you may be asked to do many, or perhaps all, aspects of your job on any given day. Your daily tasks will vary from doing high-level architecture and design to performing low-level tasks. Let's take a look at the things that you will be getting involved in.Architecture and Design
DBAs should be involved with the architecture and design of new applications, databases, and even technical infrastructure changes. Decisions made here will have a large impact on database performance and scalability and database knowledge will help choose a better technical implementation. Data design tools such as Oracle Designer can assist the DBA.Capacity Planning
Short and long range planning needs to be performed on your databases and applications. This will focus on performance and sizing characteristics of your systems that will help to determine upcoming storage, CPU, memory, and network needs. This is an area that is often neglected and can lead to big problems if it is not done properly.Backup and Recovery
A backup and recovery plan is, of course, critical in order to protect your corporate data. You need to ensure that data can be recovered quickly to the nearest point in time as possible. There is also a performance aspect to this since backups must be performed using minimal resources while the database is up and running and recoveries need to be performed within a time limit predefined by Service Level Agreements (sla) that are developed to meet customers' requirements. A complete backup and recovery implementation should include local recovery and remote recovery that is also referred to as disaster recovery planning (drp). You will see more on backup and recovery later in Chapter 5.Security
This is an area that has become very sensitive due to the number of users that can access our databases and the amount of external, web-based access. Database users need to be authenticated so that we know with certainty who is accessing our database. They must then be given authorization to use the resources that they need to do their job by granting access to the objects in Oracle. This can be managed with Oracle Enterprise Manager, and we will show examples of this later in this chapter. External users require extra web-based security that is beyond the scope of this book.Performance and Tuning
Performance and tuning is arguably the most exciting area of database management. Changes here are noticed almost immediately and every experienced DBA has stories about small changes they've made that resulted in large performance gains. On the other hand, every performance glitch in the environment will be blamed on the database and you will need to learn how to deal with this. Statspack, OEM Performance Management, and third-party tools will assist you in this area. There is a lot to learn here, but the proper tools will simplify this considerably.Managing Database Objects
We need to manage all schema objects such as tables, indexes, views, synonyms, sequences, clusters, and source types such as packages, procedures, functions, and triggers to ensure they are valid and organized in a fashion that will deliver adequate performance and have adequate space. The space requirements of schema objects are directly related to tablespaces and datafiles that are growing at incredible rates. Using OEM, this can be simplified, something we will see examples of later in this chapter.Storage Management
Databases are growing at incredible rates. We need to carefully manage space and pay particular attention to the space used by datafiles and archive logs. Online utilities are supported to help reorg objects while they remain online. Reorgs use considerable resources, however, so do not perform these operations unless it is necessary. See the section "Managing Space" for more on this.
Change Management
TIP Do not reorg unless you absolutely need to.
Being able to upgrade or change the database is a discipline that includes many areas. Upgrades to the database schema, procedural logic in the database, and database software must all be performed in a controlled manner. Change control procedures and tools such as Oracle's Change Manager and third-party offerings will assist you.Schedule Jobs
Oracle Database 10gcomes with a new scheduler that allows you to schedule a job for a specific date and time, and to categorize jobs into job classes that can be prioritized. So, resources can be controlled by job class. Of course, other native scheduling systems such as "at" in Windows and crontab in UNIX can be used as well as other third-party offerings.Network Management
Oracle Networking is a fundamental component of the database that you will need to become comfortable with. Database connectivity options like Tnsnames, the Oracle Internet Directory (OID), and the Oracle Listener require planning to ensure that performance and security requirements are met in a way that is simple to manage. You will see more of this in the next chapter.Troubleshooting
Though troubleshooting may not be what you'd consider a classic area of Database Management, it is one area that you will encounter daily. You will need tools to help you with this. Oracle MetaLink technical support, available to customers who purchase the service, is invaluable. Oracle alert logs and dump files will also help you greatly. Experience will be your biggest ally here and the sooner you dive into database support, the faster you will progress.
You've seen the areas of database management that need to be handled, now it's time to look at the Oracle schema and storage infrastructure.
This chapter is from Oracle Database 10g: A Beginner's Guide, by Abramson, Abbey and Corey. (McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2004, ISBN: 0072230789). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.
{mospagebreak title=Understand the Oracle Database 10g Infrastructure}
CRITICAL SKILL 3.4 — Understand the Oracle Database 10g Infrastructure
Oracle's memory and process infrastructure have already been discussed in Chapter 1. In this section, we will take a look at the Oracle schema and storage infrastructure since these are a large part of what you will be required to manage.
An Oracle database has many schemas contained in it. The schema is a logical structure that contains objects like segments, views, procedures, functions, packages, triggers, user-defined objects, collection types, sequences, synonyms, and database links. A segment is a data structure that can be a table, index, or temporary or undo segment. The schema name is the user that controls the schema. Examples of schemas are the System, Sys, Scott, and SH schemas. Figure 3-1 shows the relationship between these schema objects.Segments, Extents, and Blocks
As you can see in Figure 3-1, a schema can have many segments and many segment types. Each segment is a single instance of a table, partition, cluster, index, or temporary or undo segment. So, for example, a table with two indexes is implemented as three segments in the schema. A segment is broken down further into extents, which are a collection of contiguous data blocks. As data is added to Oracle, it will first fill the blocks in the allocated extents and once those extents are full, new extents can be added to the segment as long as space allows. Oracle segment types are listed here:
- Tables are where the data is kept in rows and columns. This is the heart of your database and a table is implemented in one schema and one tablespace. The exception to this is a special type of table called a partitioned table where the table can be split into different ranges or sets of values called a partition and each partition can be implemented in a different tablespace.
Figure 3-1: The database and user schemas
Remember, however, that each partition is itself a segment and each segment can only reside in one tablespace. Clustered tables are another special case where two tables with a close link between them can have their data stored together in a single block to improve join operations.
- Indexes are optionally built on tables for performance reasons and to help implement integrity constraints such as primary keys and uniqueness.
- Temporary segments are used as a temporary storage area by Oracle to run an SQL statement. For example, they may be used for sorting data and then discarded once a query or transaction is complete.
- Undo segments are used to manage the before image of changes to allow data to roll back if needed and to help provide data consistency for users querying data that is being changed. There will be more on this in Chapter 5.
Segments can be thought of as physical structures since they actually are used to store data that is kept in a tablespace, although some of this is temporary in nature. There are other structures stored in the schema that are more logical in nature.Logical Schema Structures
Not everything stored in a database and schema is data. Oracle also manages source modules as well as supporting structures such as sequences that are used to populate new unique and primary key values when inserting data into the database. These objects belong to a schema and are stored in the Oracle Catalog. These can all be easily managed through OEM, as shown in Figure 3-2. Take a look at the following for a brief description of these logical structures:
- Views give you the capability of subsetting a table and combining multiple tables through a single named object. They can be thought of as a stored query. With the exception of a special type of view called a materialized view that is used for data warehousing, data is not stored in views. They are simply a new way of defining access to the underlying tables. These can be used for security, performance, and ease-of-use.
- Synonyms are used to create a new name or alias for another database object such as a table, view, another synonym, and sources such as a procedure, package, function, java class, and so on. They can be used to simplify access. As with views, data is not stored in a synonym.
- Sequences are used to generate new unique numbers that can be used by applications when inserting data into tables.
- Source programs can be stored in the catalog and written in Oracle's proprietary PL/SQL or Java. PL/SQL source types include business logic that can be written as Packages, Procedures, and Functions. Triggers can also be used to implement business logic, but are often used to implement data integrity since they are not executed directly by a user or source program, but rather are automatically executed when an action is performed on the database. Java Sources and Java Classes are also implemented directly in Oracle. This server-side support of application logic improves performance since the logic resides with the data and it also improves performance.
- User types can be created by you to support object-oriented development. Array types, Object types, and Table types can all be created by you. As well, the Oracle XML Schema Processor supports XML processing by adding data types to XML documents that can be used to ensure the integrity of data in XML documents.
So now that you have seen all of our schema objects, it's time to tie these together to our storage architecture.
Figure 3-2. Enterprise Manager table definition view
Storage Structures
As shown in Figure 3-1, the physical schema objects are stored as segments in the database. Each segment can only be stored in a single tablespace and a tablespace can be made up of one or more datafiles. If a tablespace is running out of space, you can expand the datafiles it is made up of, or you can also add a new datafile to the tablespace. A datafile can only store data for a single tablespace.
A single tablespace can store data for multiple segments and in fact for several segment types. Segments from multiple schemas can also exist in the same tablespace. So, for example, table_a from schema1 and index_b from schema2 can both be implemented in the same tablespace. Oh and by the way, a tablespace can only store data for a single database.
The logical structures such as views and source code are stored in the Oracle catalog but are part of a schema. So, this means that the Oracle-supplied SH schema can contain all of the objects that it needs to run the entire application under its own schema name. This provides strong security and management benefits.
Progress Check
- Name five areas that you will need to address as a DBA.
- What is a schema and what does it contain?
- Can a tablespace store more than one segment type?
- Under which circumstances would you bother to start up the database in nomount mode?
Progress Check Answers
- As a DBA, you will need to address architecture, capacity planning, backup and recovery, and security and performance, among others.
- A schema is a logical structure that contains objects like segments, views, procedures, functions, packages, triggers, user-defined objects, collection types, sequences, synonyms, and database links.
- A single tablespace can store data for multiple segments and different segment types. Segments from multiple schemas can also exist in the same tablespace. So, for example, table_a from schema1 and index_b from schema2 can be implemented as two segments in the same tablespace.
- When started in nomount mode, the parameter file is read and memory structures and processes are started for the instance. The database is not yet associated with the instance. You will use this in cases where you need to re-create the controlfile.
This chapter is from Oracle Database 10g: A Beginner's Guide, by Abramson, Abbey and Corey. (McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2004, ISBN: 0072230789). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.
{mospagebreak title=Operate Modes of an Oracle Database 10g}
CRITICAL SKILL 3.5 — Operate Modes of an Oracle Database 10g
Oracle is a software package like many others that you may have used. However, when you run most programs, they run one and only one way. So when I open my accounting software, I run it the same way all the time. However, you have options with Oracle. This section discusses the many ways that you can run Oracle. Some of these methods will be important to administrators, while others will allow for full use. This feature is important when you need to perform both critical and noncritical activities, and not interfere with your users or your data.
Modes of Operation
Oracle has several modes of operation. In most cases, when you start Oracle, you will simply issue the command:
> Startup;
This command actually takes Oracle through three distinct startup phases automatically, or you could also choose to explicitly step through these phases:
- In the nomount phase, the database reads the spfile or the init.ora parameter file and starts up the Oracle memory structures as well as the background processes. The instance is started, but the database is not yet associated with the newly started instance. This is usually used in cases where you need to re-create the controlfile. The command to perform this is
> startup nomount;
- In order to associate a database with the instance, the instance "mounts" the database. This is done in the mount phase. The previously read parameter file is used to find those controlfiles, which contain the name of the data files and redo logs. The database is then mounted to allow some maintenance activities to be performed. Datafiles and redo logs are not opened when the database is in mount mode, so the database is not yet accessible by end users for normal tasks. Commands to mount a database are
> startup mount;
> alter database mount;
- When Oracle opens the database in the open phase,it opens the data files and redo logs, making the database available for normal operations. Your redo logs must exist in order for the database to open. If they do not, the resetlogs command must be used to create new redo logs in the location specified in the control files.
> Startup {open} {resetlogs};
> alter database open;
There are some other options for opening a database. For example, you may want to open it in Read-Only mode so that no database changes (inserts, updates, or deletes) can be performed. There are also the upgrade/downgrade options that allow a database to be opened to perform a downgrade or upgrade to another version of Oracle.
> alter database open read only;
A common option you will use to perform maintenance will be to open the database in restricted mode. When you issue the command startup restrict, only users with both the create session and restricted session privileges will be able to use the database. So, as a DBA this is a helpful way to open the database that only you can use.
> startup restrict;
The database can be placed in a state where only the sys and system users can query the database without stopping the database and performing a subsequent startup restrict. The activities of other users continue until they become inactive. This can be performed using the quiesce option of alter session when the Database Resource Manager option has been set up.
> alter system quiesce restrict;
> alter system unquiesce;
Over time, you will run into situations where Oracle has not shutdown properly and you are unable to restart it. In these rare instances, you will need to use the force option of the startup command. This will first perform a "shutdown abort" that forces the database to shutdown (see the next section for more information on this) followed by a database startup.
> startup forceDatabase and Instance Shutdown
When shutting down an instance, perform these steps, which are reverse from those you just saw when opening a database:
- Close the database, including the data files and redo logs, so that it is no longer usable for normal tasks.
- Unmount the database from the instance so that only the instance memory structures and background tasks are left running without a database associated with them.
- Shut down the instance to close the control files.
In order to shut down a database, four different approaches can be used: Shutdown Normal, Immediate, Transactional, and Abort.
- Normal is, in a sense, the "perfect" way to shut down, since this approach will wait for all users to disconnect from the database and all transactions to complete before the shutdown occurs. Once this command has been issued, new users are not allowed into the system. This can be impractical in cases where users remain on the system for long periods of time.
> shutdown normal;
- Immediate is a practical shutdown approach that also leaves the database in a consistent state. When the database is put through a "shutdown immediate," all current transactions are rolled back and users are disconnected. No new transactions are allowed into the system. This will be relatively quick if the rollback operations are small, and is an excellent way to shut down the database before performing a database backup.
> shutdown immediate;
- A transactional shutdown is similar to the immediate variety except that running transactions are allowed to complete. So, once transactions have been committed, the user running it is disconnected. This is useful in cases where you do not want to shutdown until currently running transactions have finished or in cases where it will be quicker to complete existing transactions than it will be to roll them back.
> shutdown transactional
- Abort is the least graceful shutdown option of the four. When this is used, all transactions are ended immediately without waiting for a rollback or commit and all users are instantly disconnected while the database is brought down. Use this only if you are experiencing problems shutting down the database using one of the three options described previously or in cases where you need to shutdown the database immediately. The database needs to go through recovery procedures the next time it is restarted. After a shutdown abort has been performed, you should try to immediately start up the database so that you can then perform a shutdown (normal, immediate, or transactional) to bring the database down in the proper manner.
> shutdown abort;
OEM can help with instance and database startup and shutdown, as shown in Figure 3-3. Open OEM. In the left panel, choose the instance you want to work on and select "Instance" under the instance name (in this case, it's ora10g), then on the right side of the panel, choose View And Edit The Values Of Instance Parameters.
Figure 3-3. Enterprise Manager instance configuration view
This chapter is from Oracle Database 10g: A Beginner's Guide, by Abramson, Abbey and Corey. (McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2004, ISBN: 0072230789). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.
{mospagebreak title=Get Started with Oracle Enterprise Manager}
CRITICAL SKILL 3.6 — Get Started with Oracle Enterprise Manager
Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) is a great tool to assist the beginner DBA through to the experienced one. You should, however, also learn the low-level commands that will allow you to do your job through an interface like SQL*Plus. OEM can help you with this by showing you the SQL that it has generated when you select the Show Sql button that exists on many windows. Given how many options OEM has to help you do your job as a DBA, we will take a quick look at them here.
First off, OEM can be used to manage all of the databases in your network. As you can see in Figure 3-3, once you expand the network, you can select Databases and manage your databases from there. The right side of this OEM panel shows all of the objects that can be managed through OEM such as instances, schemas, security, distributed, warehouse, and workspace management features.Instance Configuration
Once you select a database, which in our example is named ora10g, you can drill down to the instance and then the configuration of that instance. Figure 3-3 shows that we can see the state of an instance as well as all initialization parameters and whether the database is running in archive log mode and if it is in a restricted state. As you can see from the tabs on the right panel of this screen, we can see and manage memory settings, recovery options, resource monitors in effect, and undo information.User Sessions
Now that we have a good handle on managing our instances and databases, we can drill down to our user sessions to see exactly what is going on inside the database. By choosing a session, we can see some general information such as the user session ID, when they logged in, and what the OS username and terminal name are for this user. As you can see from Figure 3-4, we can also see the SQL that is currently running, along with the explain plan being used. You can follow the order that each explain step is being performed in by the Step # column and can step through the plan or see it in a graphical layout using the far right column. You can also manage sessions and disconnect users by right-clicking the username and issuing the kill session command. I admit that the command name may be a bit harsh, but it does get the idea across.Resource Consumer Groups
Next, we can select the Resource Consumer Groups item to see all of the groups that exist. A resource consumer group provides a way to group together users so that they can share similar processing requirements. The DATABASE_RESOURCE_ MANAGER package is used to allocate the maximum amount of CPU that a session can use or to set a limit for parallel execution for a session or to set the number of sessions that can be active for a consumer group as a few examples of this capability. OEM can assist in managing these groups by giving us an easy way to add new groups and edit those that exist. This panel allows us to enter a description of the group and attach users and database roles to a group. If you look at Figure 3-5, you will see all of the resource consumer groups listed. If you select one of these consumer groups, you will be presented with the capabilities to manage users, roles, and general information it.
Figure 3-4. SQL explain plan
A resource plan builds on the resource consumer groups by providing a way to define how system resources will be allocated to the resource consumer groups that we just discussed. Figure 3-5 shows a list of the groups and subplans that can be set up here. We see tabs that allow us to define maximum parallelism, concurrently active sessions, undo pool space, and execution time limits for the group. Group switching allows for a session to change groups after a predefined amount of execution time has been reached. Presumably, you would move the user to a lower priority group to free resources to other sessions. The resource plan schedule can be used to set daily schedules to enable and disable resource plans.Schema, Security, and Storage Management
The next items on the OEM console are schema, security, and storage management. We will visit these in sections 3.7, 3.8, and 3.9/3.10, respectively. It is worth mentioning now, however, that all three of these can be completely managed through OEM.
Distributed Management
Figure 3-5. Enterprise Manager resource group view
Some Oracle distributed capabilities are handled through the Distributed option. These include the ability to:
- Manage in-doubt transactions that can result from two-phase commit.
- Create, edit, and drop database links.
- Use streams to implement messaging.
- Use advanced queues and replication to pass messages and data to applications.
This can be a difficult area to manage and having a tool such as the OEM Console to help us out with this is a very welcome feature.Warehouse Features
Warehouse options such as summary management, materialized views, and dimensions can all be dealt with through OEM, as shown in Figure 3-5.Other Tools
You will notice that the toolbar has an option called Tools. This includes more advanced tools for managing our environment. Let's very quickly review the Tools that are included here. These tools can all be selected, as shown in Figure 3-6.
Database Tools to analyze data, perform backup management, and provide data management for utilities such as export, import, and load are included in the first option. Choose Tools and then Database Tools to get to these. Once Database Tools has been chosen, you will be presented with options to back up, recover, maintain, and configure your backup and recovery jobs. Backup management can be selected under Tools, as shown in Figure 3-6.
Figure 3-6. Enterprise Manage tool options
Database change management can be performed through the Change Management Pack. Under Tools, choose Change Management Pack or Standard Management Features and these will lead you to the Change Manager utility.
Database applications will provide support for the spatial index advisor, SQL*Plus Worksheet, and the Oracle Text Manager.
Tuning facilities such as performance manager, outline management, and tablespace maps are provided through Standard Management Features and Tuning Features, as shown in Figure 3-6.
As you can see from this overview of OEM console capabilities, many of the tools that we need to perform our day-to-day tasks can be found in this one console. Now that we have confidence that there's a toolset to support us, let's take a quick look at what you need to think about when managing database objects.
This chapter is from Oracle Database 10g: A Beginner's Guide, by Abramson, Abbey and Corey. (McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2004, ISBN: 0072230789). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.
{mospagebreak title=Manage Database Objects}
CRITICAL SKILL 3.7 — Manage Database Objects
A large part of your job as a DBA will be to manage the objects that exist in a database. Let's look at the objects that you need to concern yourself with and discuss the main management issues that you will have in each of these areas.Controlfiles
It is critical to the database that you have at least one valid control file for your database. These are small files and can be multiplexed by the Oracle instance. Ensuring that you have at least three copies of the controlfiles (remember, they are small), as well as text and binary backups whenever a data file, log file, or tablespace is changed and on a regularly scheduled basis (at least daily) will go a long way towards ensuring that your control files are in good shape. Controlfiles will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 5.Redo Logs
Redo logs are necessary to ensure database integrity and should be duplexed in Oracle. Oracle mirroring helps even if your redo logs are mirrored by your storage subsystem since Oracle will use the alternate redo log if one should become corrupt. You will need to ensure that you have enough redo logs and that they are sized properly to support database performance. How large should your redo logs be? They should be large enough that a log switch does not usually occur more than once every 15 minutes due to the checkpointing that occurs during a log switch and the overhead that is incurred during this operation. How many redo logs should you have? You should have enough redo logs that the system will not wrap around to a log that has not yet completed a checkpoint or completed archiving (for systems in archivelog mode). Redo logs can be added, deleted, and switched through OEM.Undo Management
The Undo segment is where the before images of changed rows are stored. Oracle will manage your undo segments for you, but you need to determine how large to make the tablespace that the Undo segment is stored in. The size that you make this depends on the length of time that you want the undo information to be available to you. If you look at Figure 3-7, you will see how OEM helps you determine the length of time that Undo can be retained based on the system activity and Undo tablespace. This is in the Configuration section for an instance. If the tablespace is not the correct size, it can be changed using the Storage feature of OEM, which you will see later in this chapter. Undo segments are covered further in Chapter 5.
If you choose to implement user-managed rollback segments, then these can be managed in the Storage section of OEM by choosing Rollback Segments and then selecting the segment name that you want to manage. If you look at Figure 3-7, you will see a Rollback Segment named System. By the way, the System rollback segment will always exist but should never be used as a rollback segment for user processes.
Schema Objects
Figure 3-7. Enterprise Manager Automatic Undo Management view
Schema objects were discussed earlier in this chapter, and you saw that we can manage schema objects through OEM. There are also some things that you may want to do with your own SQL scripts that run as scheduled jobs. When managing schemas, you need to ensure that those physical objects that take up a great deal of space, do in fact have enough space to grow. This includes tables, indexes, clusters, and partitioned tables. Manage this space through the tablespace that they are implemented in and ensure that there is enough room to grow in the tablespace. Ensuring that the extent sizes are large enough that you do not need to allocate too many extents is something that you need to monitor. But, do not become reorg-happy. You do not need to reorg a table if it is in hundreds of extents. You only need to reorg if there are a large number of chained or migrated rows. Indexes, on the other hand, will need to be reorged more frequently. We will find out more about managing space in the next section.
Figure 3-2 shows an example of how the SH.Customers table can be managed through OEM. Note the Storage tab that allows you to change the table's storage parameters. You should also try to maintain statistics on your tables and indexes so they are up-to-date. This will assist the optimizer make better decisions when choosing access paths for your queries and can be used to validate the structures. In Oracle Database 10g,a scheduler job called gather_stats_jobwill run during a maintenance window between 10:00 P.M. and 6:00 A.M., by default, and will run statistics for those objects in cases where they have not been collected yet or are stale. Setting the Oracle Database 10ginitialization parameter statistics_level to typical (the default) will allow Oracle to automatically update statistics as a background task on a regular basis and is the recommended approach for gathering statistics. In pre–Oracle Database 10greleases, the DBMS_STATS package should be run manually or can use the Monitoringkeyword in a CREATE or ALTER table. Monitoring is a deprecated feature in Oracle Database 10gand the keyword (along with "nomonitoring") will be ignored.
Logical schema objects that do not take up a lot of space need to be watched to ensure they are not invalid. Triggers, views, synonyms, procedures, functions, and packages are examples of the objects that should be valid. You can check this with the SQL statement that follows.
select owner, object_name, object_type from dba_objects where status ^= 'VALID';
We've looked at many of the database objects that will require your attention. (The next section will) explore one area that requires special attention due to the size of today's databases.
Ask the Expert Q: Why is it important for DBAs to get involved with the architecture and design of a new system?
A: Decisions made on the technical infrastructure as well as data and application designs here will have a large impact on database performance and scalability. Database knowledge will help choose a better technical implementation. Once chosen, these can be difficult to change.Q: Which method do you normally use to shut down a database?
A: Although the shutdown normal operation is a recommended approach, it is often impractical since you need users to disconnect themselves. The approach that I prefer is to perform a checkpoint using the command alter system checkpoint which will write data out to data files and speed up the restart. I then perform a shutdown abort, immediately followed by a startup restrict, and shutdown immediate. This is a fast, guaranteed shutdown that leaves the database in a consistent state once all of the steps have been completed.Q: What is the best way to become a good Oracle DBA quickly and then to keep improving?
A: There are many things that you will need to do and many skills that you'll need to develop to do this job. First, learning the basic DBA skills, which you can get from books such as this as well as from courses, will give you a head start. Practicing what you see is probably the quickest and most practical way to learn. Getting involved in supporting some databases in development and production will force you to learn very quickly. Then working on development systems for different types of applications will help to round out your skills. Keep reading and learning and never assume that you know it all and you will do very well.
This chapter is from Oracle Database 10g: A Beginner's Guide, by Abramson, Abbey and Corey. (McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2004, ISBN: 0072230789). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.
{mospagebreak title=Manage Space}
CRITICAL SKILL 3.8 — Manage Space
The challenge of managing data in your Oracle Database 10g is one that provides you with options. In this section, we will look at the methods that have been used in the many versions of the database to manage your information. Today's version of the database provides us with options. The first that we will discuss is managing your data and the files in which they reside in a manual way. Another option, automatic storage management, is discussed in Chapter 9.Archive Logs
When you put the database in archive logging mode, the redo logs are written out to a directory that is named in your parameter or SPFILE. If that directory becomes full and the database attempts to write another archive log, the database activity will be suspended until sufficient space is made available for the new file. Create a large directory and schedule jobs to move the archive log files from online storage to tape before you encounter a space issue. RMAN does a nice job of helping you manage this. Please see Chapter 5 for more information on this.Tablespaces and Datafiles
Space should be managed at the datafile and tablespace level rather than at a lower level such as a table or index. Using locally managed tablespaces with uniform extent sizes will simplify your management. Do not worry that you have some extents in a tablespace or for an object. This does not create a performance issue since the extents contain a number of blocks that must be contiguous. You can see the amount of space available in your datafiles by selecting Datafiles in OEM, as in Figure 3-8. This shows the amount of free space available in the currently allocated space. If you have used the autoextend feature to allow a datafile to extend in size when more space is needed, the extra space is not shown in this graph. Do not allow temporary tablespaces or undo tablespaces to autoextend since they will grow to use all of the space.
TIP Do not autoextend temporary and undo tablespaces, since they will quickly grow to use all of the space to which they can autoextend.
What do you do if you run out of space in a datafile? Just enter OEM, click the datafile, and choose the Storage tab. Once there, you can change the autoextend feature and enter the size of the extensions that you would like. Do not forget to limit the size of the datafile so that it does not grow to use all of your space. After you've completed this, click Apply and you're done. If you select the Show SQL button, you can see the alter database syntax, which is also shown next.
alter database datafile '/u01/oradata/ora10g/example01.dbf'
autoextend on next 50M maxsize 5000M;
Figure 3-8. Tablespace view in Enterprise Manager
You can write your own scripts to compare the amount of allocated space for a datafile in view dba_data_files to the amount of free space, as shown in view dba_free_space.
OEM also provides you with a more detailed map of how space is used. In OEM, select a tablespace and then navigate from Tools to Tuning Features, finally choosing Tablespace Map. This opens a graphical layout showing each segment in the tablespace. From the tablespace map, you can choose the Tablespace Analysis Report tab for a written report on the space being used.
Managing the database objects discussed earlier will be a large part of your role as a DBA. In the next section, let's take a look at setting up and managing users. After all, without database users, there is no point in doing any of this!
Progress Check:
- What's better: "shutdown transactional" or "shutdown immediate"?
- Do you only need to worry about logical schema objects that do not take up a large amount of space?
- What happens if your archive log directory becomes full?
- Why would you want to use a command-line interface rather than a GUI to perform your tasks as a DBA?
Progress Check Answers:
- Both leave your database in a consistent state. It depends on how long your transactions will take to complete or roll back. If all things are equal and you think that it will take as long to commit the transactions that are already running, then you should use "shutdown transactional" since commits will be allowed to complete and no data will be lost.
- Logical schema objects need to be watched to ensure they are in a valid state.
- If database attempts to write an archive log after the directory has become full, the database activity will be suspended until sufficient space is made available for the new file.
- You may want to place the command in a script that is scheduled or run as a repetitive task.
This chapter is from Oracle Database 10g: A Beginner's Guide, by Abramson, Abbey and Corey. (McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2004, ISBN: 0072230789). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.
{mospagebreak title=Manager Users}
CRITICAL SKILL 3.9 — Manage Users
Before you can do anything in Oracle, you need to have a user ID created to enable you to log in to Oracle. As a DBA, you will begin with the SYS or SYSTEM accounts since these accounts both have the DBA role and exist in all Oracle databases. They are often used to perform database administration tasks. The SYS account is also granted the sysdba privilege and is the schema that the Oracle catalog is stored in. You should only use the SYS account when you need to perform a task as SYS or need the sysdba privilege. If your database was created using the Database Configuration Assistant (dbca), then you will also automatically get the SYSMAN and DBSNMP accounts. SYSMAN is used to administer Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) and DBSNMP is used by the agent that OEM employs to monitor Oracle databases. Several other accounts will also be set up for the "example" schemas, such as the Sales History ('SH') user that we will utilize throughout this book. The OUTLN schema will be created to allow you to use plan stability through the stored outline feature. Depending on the options you choose when creating your database, other accounts may be set up for you. For example, if you install the OLAP option, the OLAPSYS account will be created.Create a User
When you create a user, you can either use the create user syntax or the OEM, which is an easier approach. In order to create a user, you will need to decide the following things:
- The default tablespace where segments created by this user will be placed unless a tablespace name is used in the DDL to override this.
- Whether to expire the password so that the user needs to change it the first time they log in to Oracle.
- A temporary tablespace to store internal data used by Oracle while queries are running. Sort operations make use of the temporary tablespace if there is not enough room in the SGA to perform the sort operation.
- Whether to employ user quotas on tablespaces, which put a limit on the amount of space that a user's objects can take up in that tablespace.
- The authentication type, which allows you to specify whether you want Oracle to force the user to specify a password when they log in, or you can trust the operating system to do this for you.
- The initial password that the user will log in with. The user must change this during the first log in if you chose to expire the password in advance of the user's first logon.
- Privileges to grant to the user. These can be direct privileges or roles. We will discuss them in the next section.
- A profile for the user, which can be employed to manage the user's session by limiting resources that sessions can use, and that help implement corporate password policies. We will also see this in the next section.
- Whether to lock or unlock the user.
The OEM console in Figure 3-9 shows the options available to you to create and edit a user. For each user, there are eight separate tabs that allow you to easily enter a user's information. You can see the SQL that will be generated by selecting the Show Sql button at the bottom of the panel. Another great option allows you to model a user and create another user like one that already exists. To do this, click the user that you want to model, select Object from the top of the panel, and then select the Create Like option.
Here is a sample CREATE USER statement:
CREATE USER "NEWUSER" PROFILE "DEFAULT" IDENTIFIED BY "newpassword"
Figure 3-9. User Management view
Edit Users
Once a user has been created, you will be asked at different times to edit users to change quotas or reset passwords or unlock an account. This can be easily performed through OEM by selecting the User, choosing the option you want to change through the Gui, and then applying the change.
Editing users can also be performed using the ALTER USER statement, as shown next, where a user account is unlocked, the password is changed, and a tablespace quota is increased.
ALTER USER "username" IDENTIFIED BY "newpwd " QUOTA UNLIMITED ON TOOLS ACCOUNT UNLOCK;
We've now created a user and it's time to grant them some privileges. Let's see how we do this in the next section.
This chapter is from Oracle Database 10g: A Beginner's Guide, by Abramson, Abbey and Corey. (McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2004, ISBN: 0072230789). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.
{mospagebreak title=Manage Privileges for Database Users}
CRITICAL SKILL 3.10 — Manage Privileges for Database Users
Creating a user in Oracle has accomplished the first part of user setup and that is authentication. We have a user ID and password and have authorized this user to use an Oracle database. Once the user logs in, however, they will not be able to do very much because they will not have privileges that allow them to access any objects. This leads us to the second step of setting up a user: authorization. In order to authorize a user to perform their tasks, we need to grant access.Grant Authority
You now need to give permission to the user to do things in Oracle. Actions like accessing a table or executing a procedure or running a utility require you to "grant" the authority to that user. When you perform a grant, you can specify four things:
- The user that is being granted the authority.
- The object that is being granted. Examples of these are a table, procedure, or role.
- The type of access being granted, such as select, insert, update, or delete on a table, or execute on a procedure, function, or package.
- Whether this user has authority to then grant the same authority to other users. By default, they do not, but this can be added by using the With Grant option.
Here are two examples that grant a user "NEWUSER" access to a table and then to a package.
There are two types of grants that can be given to a user: system privileges and object privileges.
- System privileges are predefined Oracle privileges granting authority to overall system objects rather than individual ones. The ability to perform a create tablespace, alter system, and back up any table are just a few examples of some system-level privileges that can be granted to a user.
- Object privileges are a lower-level authority where a named object is granted to a user. So, the ability to perform an operation on a particular table, or execute an individual function, package, or procedure are object privileges as opposed to the ability to execute any procedure or select any table, which are system-level privileges.
What is given can be taken away. In order to take privileges away from a user, we use the REVOKE command and the syntax is very similar to the syntax we use when issuing a grant. Here are two examples of a REVOKE operation:
When you think of the number of privileges that need to be managed in situations where you have thousands of database objects as well as thousands of users, you quickly realize that it would be nice to organize the privileges into groups that can be easily managed. This is where roles come into play.
A "role" is used to group privileges together into a predefined group that can be granted to users. So, rather than granting object and system privileges individually to every user in your system, you can grant them to a role, which in turn is granted to the user.Oracle-Defined Roles
Some special roles are created by Oracle through the install process or by running Oracle-supplied scripts. The DBA, Connect, Resource, Imp_Full_Database, and Select_Catalog_Role are some examples of roles that are supplied by Oracle and should not be changed.
Create and Grant a Role Roles are created using the create statement in the same manner as creating users. We can also revoke privileges from roles and drop roles when they are no longer needed. Roles can also be granted to other roles. You can see an example of this next where the Oracle role CONNECT is granted to the newly created role TESTROLE, along with a system and object privilege.
GRANT SELECT ON "table_name" TO "TESTROLE"
The new role can then be granted to a user as shown next, where "testrole" is granted to user "Testuser."
Grant "testrole" to "Testuser";
The "TESTROLE" is then dropped since it is no longer required.
Now that we've created users and roles, we can fine-tune our management of these by implementing some user policies through profiles,which we will explore next.Profiles
A profile can be used to implement a password management policy, as well as limit resources for a user. When you created the user NEWUSER earlier, a password was supplied along with the DEFAULT profile. Using this DEFAULT profile, the user never needs to change their password and there are no limits placed on any system resources. You can create new profiles to implement your corporate password policies in Oracle. For example, you can specify the number of days after which a user must change their password. You can also establish a policy where a password cannot be reused within a certain period of time and must contain a certain number of changes. A function can be used to ensure that a complex password is created by the user. For example, you may require that a password be more than eight characters long, use alpha, numeric, and special characters, and that it does not repeat a character more than twice. This can all be implemented in a function. An account can be locked after a specified number of login attempts and can remain locked for the number of days defined in the profile.
System limits for a user can also be implemented by a profile. These include limiting system resources such as those for CPU, connect, and idle time as well as the number of sessions employed by the user, limits on reads, and the SGA used. You should note, however, that the Database Resource Manager is the preferred way to limit resources and that you should use profiles to manage passwords.
The following is an example of the creation of a new policy that will lock an account after three failed login attempts and will keep the account locked indefinitely. The password needs to be changed every 60 days and the new password will be verified by your custom function COMPLEX_PASSWORD. The old password cannot be reused for 120 days.
Now, let's grant this policy to user NEWUSER:
In Conclusion
As you have seen in this chapter, there is a great deal that a DBA needs to be aware of to properly manage a database. The good news is that you will have tools such as OEM to help you. Do your best to keep your environment as simple as you possibly can! You will be glad that you did as your overall database environment continues to grow.
This chapter is from Oracle Database 10g: A Beginner's Guide, by Abramson, Abbey and Corey. (McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2004, ISBN: 0072230789). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.
{mospagebreak title=Project 3-1: Creating Essential Objects}Project 3-1 Creating Essential Objects
This project will walk you through the creation of the essential storage and schema objects after a database has been created, which in this project will be called ora10g. You will create a new tablespace called NEW_TS and will than add a user NEW_USER who will be given the authority to this tablespace. You will then create a role called NEW_ROLE and grant privileges to it. Afterward, you'll grant this role to the new user. A table and index will be created on this tablespace by the new user. Lastly, you will resize the undo tablespace to make it larger. You will see how to do this in OEM and the generated SQL will also be shown to you so you can do this in SQL*Plus.Step by Step
- You have been asked to create a new used named NEW_USER who will need to create objects in a new tablespace called NEW_TS that should be sized at 5MB. Your first step will be to create the tablespace. In OEM, log in as user SYSTEM, go to database ora10g, choose storage, then choose tablespace and select an existing tablespace to model. Under Objects in the toolbar, select the Create Like option to model your new tablespace after the existing one. Enter the new tablespace name, datafile name, and all properties including the size. Make this a locally managed tablespace 5MB in size with uniform extents 96KB in size. If you choose the Show Sql button, you will see the generated SQL. It should look something like the following SQL. You can either apply the change in OEM or you can copy and paste the generated SQL and run it in SQL*Plus.
DATAFILE 'C:ORACLEORA10ORA10GNEW_TS1.ora' SIZE 2M REUSE AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 1280K MAXSIZE 32767M EXTENT MANAGEMENT LOCAL UNIFORM SIZE 96K SEGMENT SPACE MANAGEMENT AUTO;
- Now you will create NEW_USER. As with the preceding tablespace creation, you can model an existing user. In OEM, go to Security and then to User, choose an existing user to model, and select Object from the toolbar. Once again, use the Create Like feature. The user should now have a password of new_password, which will be unlocked. Set the default tablespace to NEW_TS.
CREATE USER "NEW_USER" PROFILE "DEFAULT" IDENTIFIED BY "new_password" PASSWORD
- Create a role called NEW_ROLE. In OEM, go to security, and then choose Role. Under Object in the toolbar, select Create and enter the role name.
- Grant the CREATE TABLE system privilege, the OLAP_USER role, and the object privilege SELECT on table SQLPLUS_PRODUCT_PROFILE to NEW_ROLE. In OEM, go to role and choose NEW_ROLE. Use the tabs System, Object, and Role to choose the objects listed here. Click the Apply button to make the changes. The generated SQL will look like the three grants listed next.
- Grant NEW_ROLE and connect to NEW_USER. Also, give NEW_USER an unlimited quota on NEW_TS to allow for objects to be created in the tablespace. In OEM, navigate to Users and choose NEW_USER. Once there, choose the Role tab and select NEW_ROLE, and then select the down arrow. Click the Apply button to make the change.
- You will now log into the database as NEW_USER and can use OEM with the NEW_USER account. Once in OEM, you will create a table called NEW_TABLE with columns col01 as number(15) and col02 as varchar2(30). In OEM, in the toolbar, select Object and under that choose Create, and then choose Table. Make sure the table is created in NEW_TS. Follow the screens to add col01 and col02. You will then create a primary key called NEW_TABLE_PK using col01. Follow the screens and choose the options you would like. We recommend you name any keys and constraints rather than relying on system defaults. Choose Finish and you have created a new table with a primary key!
- You now have one last task: resizing the undo tablespace to add 100MB to it. Log in to OEM as user System and choose the datafile under the undo tablespace. Enter the new size and click Apply. It's as easy as that. The SQL to increase this from 50MB to 150MB is shown here:
ALTER DATABASE DATAFILE'/u01/oradata/ORA10G/
Project Summary
This project has taken you through the basic steps of creating an environment for a new user, including using roles and granting privileges. You've seen how to manage users as well as space and have even created objects. Armed with these capabilities, you are now on your way to being a productive DBA. Congratulations!Chapter 3 Mastery Check
This chapter is from Oracle Database 10g: A Beginner's Guide, by Abramson, Abbey and Corey. (McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2004, ISBN: 0072230789). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.