Oracle system performance inefficiencies often go undetected for months or even years--even under intense scrutiny--because traditional Oracle performance analysis methods and tools are fundamentally flawed. They're unreliable and inefficient. Oracle DBAs and developers are all too familiar with the outlay of time and resources, blown budgets, missed deadlines, and marginally effective performance fiddling that is commonplace with traditional methods of Oracle performance tuning. In this crucial book, Cary Millsap, former VP of Oracle's System Performance Group, clearly and concisely explains how to use Oracle's response time statistics to diagnose and repair performance problems. Cary also shows how "queueing theory" can be applied to response time statistics to predict the impact of upgrades and other system changes. Optimizing Oracle Performance eliminates the time-consuming, trial-and-error guesswork inherent in most conventional approaches to tuning. You can determine exactly where a system's performance problem is, and with equal importance, where it is not, in just a few minutes--even if the problem is several years old. Optimizing Oracle Performance cuts a path through the complexity of current tuning methods, and streamlines an approach that focuses on optimization techniques that any DBA can use quickly and successfully to make noticeable--even dramatic--improvements. For example, the one thing database users care most about is response time. Naturally, DBAs focus much of their time and effort towards improving response time. But it is entirely too easy to spend hundreds of hours to improve important system metrics such as hit ratios, average latencies, and wait times, only to find users are unable to perceive the difference. And an expensive hardware upgrade may not help either. It doesn't have to be that way. Technological advances have added impact, efficiency, measurability, predictive capacity, reliability, speed, and practicality to the science of Oracle performance optimization. Optimizing Oracle Performance shows you how to slash the frustration and expense associated with unraveling the true root cause of any type of performance problem, and reliably predict future performance. The price of this essential book will be paid back in hours saved the first time its methods are used.

They might not know what the future holds, but they know they hold it in their hands. Mirany, the newly appointed attendant to the Speaker, is untested, in fear for her life, and keeper of the god's secrets. Seth, an ambitious scribe toiling in the shadow of the pyramid, has discovered the secret labyrinths and underground passages to the tombs. Hermia, the Speaker, interprets the words of the god and twists his wishes to suit her treachery. General Argelin, the cunning leader in league with the Speaker, intends to dictate the choosing of the new ruler Alexos, the quiet boy, is fated to rule the land -- unless his enemies succeed in their plot. Oblek, the foolish musician, may be the only person who can keep Alexos alive. The Jackal, the black-market tomb raider, will strike like a scorpion if anyone interferes with his scheme to rob the sacred catacombs

The cult-y pocket-size field guide to the strange and intriguing secrets of the Mojave—its myths and legends, outcasts and oddballs, flora, fauna, and UFOs—becomes the definitive, oracular book of the desert For the past five years, Desert Oracle has existed as a quasi-mythical, quarterly periodical available to the very determined only by subscription or at the odd desert-town gas station or the occasional hipster boutique, its canary-yellow-covered, forty-four-page issues handed from one curious desert zealot to the next, word spreading faster than the printers could keep up with. It became a radio show, a podcast, a live performance. Now, for the first time—and including both classic and new, never-before-seen revelations—Desert Oracle has been bound between two hard covers and is available to you. Straight out of Joshua Tree, California, Desert Oracle is “The Voice of the Desert”: a field guide to the strange tales, singing sand dunes, sagebrush trails, artists and aliens, authors and oddballs, ghost towns and modern legends, musicians and mystics, scorpions and saguaros, out there in the sand. Desert Oracle is your companion at a roadside diner, around a campfire, in your tent or cabin (or high-rise apartment or suburban living room) as the wind and the coyotes howl outside at night. From journal entries of long-deceased adventurers to stray railroad ad copy, and musings on everything from desert flora, rumored cryptid sightings, and other paranormal phenomena, Ken Layne's Desert Oracle collects the weird and the wonderful of the American Southwest into a single, essential volume.

Suddenly, it’s a world flooded with magic and danger draws closer with every passing second. When the powers of sixteen gods are inherited by four teenagers, destruction is not far behind. In Maxton City, everything changes in the blink of an eye. When a portal to the Chaos Realm – a place of torment, a world of horrors – opens up over Maxton City Park, the monsters begin to appear. Then comes the First Queen of Earth. Unbeknownst to anyone, four teenagers have found the means to battling these enemies deep in the Cradle of Humankind. They have found the Amulets of the Spirits, artefacts that house the souls of long-dead gods and grant the four powers beyond their wildest dreams, creating the new Guardians. Using these amulets, they can take the forms of the gods, and wield power that would incinerate mortals. But even that might not be enough... Serena, the First Queen, the Demon Queen, is searching for the most powerful artefact in existence, an artefact capable of granting the power of a god: The Oracle’s Journal. If she ascends, then not even the guardians can stop her. And there’ll be no gods to help them for what comes next...

Diana Bishop journeys to the darkest places within herself—and her family history—in the highly anticipated fifth novel of the beloved #1 New York Times bestselling All Souls series. “The Black Bird Oracle deftly explores the nexus of memory, history, and parenthood—the magic, pain, and promises mothers pass onto their children.”—Jodi Picoult Deborah Harkness first introduced the world to Diana Bishop, an Oxford scholar and witch, and vampire geneticist Matthew de Clermont in A Discovery of Witches. Drawn to each other despite long-standing taboos, these two otherworldly beings found themselves at the center of a battle for a lost, enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782. Since then, they have fallen in love, traveled to Elizabethan England, dissolved the Covenant between the three species, and awoken the dark powers within Diana’s family line. Now, Diana and Matthew receive a formal demand from the Congregation: They must test the magic of their seven-year-old twins, Pip and Rebecca. Concerned with their safety and desperate to avoid the same fate that led her parents to spellbind her, Diana decides to forge a different path for her family’s future and answers a message from a great-aunt she never knew existed, Gwyneth Proctor, whose invitation simply reads: It’s time you came home, Diana. On the hallowed ground of Ravenswood, the Proctor family home, and under the tutelage of Gwyneth, a talented witch grounded in higher magic, a new era begins for Diana: a confrontation with her family’s dark past and a reckoning for her own desire for even greater power—if she can let go, finally, of her fear of wielding it. In this stunning new novel, grand in scope, Deborah Harkness deepens the beloved world of All Souls with powerful new magic and long-hidden secrets, and the path Diana finds at Ravenswood leads to the most consequential moments yet in this cherished series.

Achieve 24x7 database uptime and expand your Oracle knowledge using the hundreds of tips and techniques provided in this unique reference.

It could be a cloud in the shape of a loved one's face or an extremely relevant song playing on the radio at the exact time of a friend's death--if we allow ourselves to stop, look, and listen, we can identify what spiritual teacher Ann Bolinger-McQuade calls personal oracles. And when we tune into these subtle messages from Spirit, we will discover guidance for navigating life's most trying situations. In this illuminating book, readers will learn that the universe is constantly conspiring in our favor and is ready to lend a helping hand when we need it most--if only we can look closely and open our hearts to the divine messages that are on display around us. Sharing stories of divine inspiration from her own life, as well as the lives of others (many of them well-known historical or contemporary figures), McQuade shows readers how: A PAIR OF SPARROWS SAVE A MAN'S LIFE: Journalist Byron Pitts narrowly escaped being hit by a car and saw a couple birds circling in front of him. The birds reminded him of the lyrics to his mother's favorite hymn: "His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me." The comforting reminder of guidance and provision encouraged him to persevere in his challenging career in broadcast journalism, which was ultimately rewarded when CBS offered him a position on 60 Minutes. A LITTLE BOY BRINGS HOPE BACK INTO A WOMAN'S LIFE: Nancy was reeling from her husband's recent diagnosis of AML, a rare form of leukemia, when a seven-year-old boy knocked at her door collecting donations for AML research. He smiled at her warmly as he told her how he had had AML since he was two, and then he announced proudly that a transplant had saved his life. SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S APPLE WAS ACTUALLY AN EVERYDAY ORACLE: Many are familiar with the story of how Sir Isaac Newton first discovered gravity when an apple fell on his head. It is a lesser known fact that Newton was interested in the supernatural. Born in the 1600s, when astronomy and astology were considred one and the same, the highly respected alchemist looked to the heavens to assist him in his quest to decode the mysteries of the universe. The falling apple that arrested his attention acted as a personal oracle. In addition to illuminating oracles through examples, McQuade discusses the history and science of oracles in general and of personal oracles specifically, offering the reader practical instructions for identifying and decoding the divine messages in their own lives.

The Wizard of Oz has captured the imagination of the public since publication of L. Frank Baum's first book of the series in 1900. Oz has shaped the way we read children's literature, view motion pictures and experience musicals. Oz has captured the scholarly imagination as well. The seventeen essays in this book address numerous questions of the boundaries between literature, film, and stage--and these have become essential to Oz scholarship. Together the essays explore the ways in which Oz tells us much about ourselves, our society, and our journeys.

If you work with Oracle in any capacity, whether as a Java programmer, Database Administrator, or PL/SQL programmer, chances are good that you write SQL statements to query for data within the database. Knowledge of SQL, and particularly of Oracle's implementation of SQL, is the key to writing good queries in a timely manner. In this book, authors Sanjay Mishra and Alan Beaulieu share their knowledge of Oracle SQL, and show you many creative techniques that you can use to advantage in your own applications. Book jacket.