Thoughts of a Systems Conversion Consultant

As Zimbabweans vote and April's fools day

2008-04-02T09:17:00.001+03:00

Yesterday was 1st April. Zimbabweans voted on the 29th of March and are still waiting for the slow trickle of election results. In Uganda a good fools day story of how RG Mugabe sneaked into the country for asylum makes it to the radio headlines.
It was easy to believe and we all know how Zimbabwe needs this change. Hopefully the change will come. For Zimbabweans like me working is becoming a headache as we all wait for ZEC to announce results. We hope that our brothers and sisters back home voted for the better. I am not good in politics but I feel cheated when the results of any election takes such a long time to be publicised.
Hopefully the results will be free and fair. We do not need the "Kenyan" style of after election protests. I hope and pray God will bless the sovereign country of Zimbabwe.

Was it a fool's day gimmick or real? CNN and other major news broadcasters had it last night that a deal was brokered by the South African government for RG Mugabe to step down and M Tsvangirayi to step on. Surely it was a breaking news for more than 2 hours just to be announced later that a deal like that never saw lights. We went into celebrations but they never lasted. At least thanks to Manchester United's win over Roma. we changed the purpose of celebrations to the later from the Zimbabwe deal.

Some thoughts

2007-12-10T07:13:00.000+03:00

I think I like that page.

why does sys_context....

2007-07-19T07:15:00.000+03:00

We have installed a billing system for a city water company. It is a big system running on an Oracle 10gr2 database. They use it for customer care, billing and receipting. With offices all over the city, the water company does not control software installed on the users computers.

The challenge was to stop the users from logging on to the database using other tools like SQL*Plus and other Oracle clients other than our Application. So after thinking a bit and asking google for some answers, we decided to use a trigger to control that. I will not show the trigger but to get the module name from the trigger I used sys_context function. During our testing it worked quite well. The problem came when we discovered that some application modules were coming with null names. We tried many things but we have failed. I am all for PL/SQL Developer. In PL/SQL Developer at times the one SQL Window was showing the correct value and another window was failing. We tried on different machines and the behaviour was different even with SQL*Plus.

So we concluded the problem must be on some networking or Oracle setup. I am not a DBA so I can be excused to think that it was something else. I am very lucky my DBA was not interested in researching on that subject. I finally opted out of SYS_CONTEXT('USER_ENV', 'MODULE') and implemented the trigger with this statement.

select sid, module
into li_session, ls_sess_module
from v$session
where audsid = userenv('sessionid');

It worked no more null module names. I am now looking for someone to explain why SYS_CONTEXT was failing on some sessions.

Customer is Always Right???

2007-05-11T02:18:00.000+03:00

A good blog on whether the customer is always right.

On another note, the victims of Kenya Airways flight KQ507, rest in peace. It was such a moment for the aviation industry especially in Africa. KQ is rated as one of the best in this part of the world. So much has been said about the crash from suspecting the pilots, the age of the co-pilot, Doula international airport and just the weather. It's of concern this time since I am currently based in Nairobi.

Of pfecha_lect function

2007-04-10T04:32:00.000+03:00

Oracle forgot to put some to_char functions for my buddy. The code is still in production and he does not understand why I think SQL is easier to do than this.


create or replace function pfecha_lect(ff_lect in number) return varchar2 is
  li_day   number;
  li_year  number;
  li_month number;
  lv_month varchar2(20);
  lv_date  varchar2(200);
begin
  li_day   := substr(ff_lect, 7, 2);
  li_year  := substr(ff_lect, 1, 4);
  li_month := substr(ff_lect, 5, 2);
  if li_month = '01' then
    lv_month := 'JANUARY';
  elsif li_month = '02' then
    lv_month := 'FEBRUARY';
  elsif li_month = '03' then
    lv_month := 'MARCH';
  elsif li_month = '04' then
    lv_month := 'APRIL';
  elsif li_month = '05' then
    lv_month := 'MAY';
  elsif li_month = '06' then
    lv_month := 'JUNE';
  elsif li_month = '07' then
    lv_month := 'JULY';
  elsif li_month = '08' then
    lv_month := 'AUGUST';
  elsif li_month = '09' then
    lv_month := 'SEPTEMBER';
  elsif li_month = '10' then
    lv_month := 'OCTOBER';
  elsif li_month = '11' then
    lv_month := 'NOVEMBER';
  elsif li_month = '12' then
    lv_month := 'DECEMBER';
  end if;

  lv_date := li_day || ' ' || lv_month || ' ' || li_year;
  return(lv_date);
end pfecha_lect;

He thinks with the SQL below it will be hard to read.
select upper(to_char(to_date(20070410, 'yyyymmdd'), 'dd month yyyy')) from dual;

Manchester United recover please

2007-04-10T04:21:00.000+03:00

Just wishing my favourite team Manchester United a quick recovery and hope tonight we will surely win.

Did you see the Portsmouth game and the Roma one. We are in trouble.

Just came from Zimbabwe

2007-03-30T09:41:00.000+03:00

Its not a thing that comes every 6months, though its supposed to but it came after 16months. I visited my parents back home. The guys were very excited in seeing me again so was I. Met with my young brother Nyasha we had too many beers with Uncle Kudzi and Frank Makavi. It was a good one week away from my favourite internet. Mum and dad I love you so much. Gogo Micho and Musonza (sorry we couldn't meet) you are the angels moving through man. PaNyama pedu paya paya, Zvishavane we had a lot of fun. Gweru massive, Glen View 1 and all the CFI crew who came for one we big up. Now I am back in Nairobi and work is too much as usual.

2007-01-23T05:11:00.000+03:00

2007-01-16T01:19:00.000+03:00

I have moved from the capital city of Ethiopia and I am now based in Nairobi. Here everything is almost like home, but I think it's quite dusty and the traffic congestion can be hell. Check my other blog, I wrote a lot about my trips to and fro Nairobi.

I have decided that it's time I start writing about my experiences at work. I have been asked by so many people on different forums a lot of questions pertaining to my work and I think I must put it out for them to read and share knowledge.

I guess it will be nice to write something different from having a beer or going for a serious party. So lets talk about it all, SQLLDR, SQL, PL/SQL, Powerbuilder, Oracle Forms and many more tools out there.

Blogger Comments...not good

2006-04-28T11:21:00.000+03:00

I am using a Firefox plugin called Blogger Comments, hopefully the name is correct. This tool has failed me. I have been failing to connect of late.Also all the formatting is lost after clicking publish. Now I have been trying to compose this one and it was seriously trying to underline everything. I couldn't turn off underlining.Something must be done to make this a great tool. A good idea but I am not impressed.

And I had a Good Weekend

2006-02-06T17:05:00.000+03:00

The weekend of 4th February saw me travelling to Shashamane. BTW Shashamane is the famous rastafarian town in Ethiopia. I had a great time with a number of Rastas in the area. Unfortunately I was not expecting much so I didn't carry my camera and my mobile phone's battery was down too.Who needs a better time in this world after the Shashamane thing the next morning was a wedding.

Yes some oldish Ethiopian (Abesha) couple tied the knot. It seems like it was a great thing but they forgot to buy beer but instead offered Tej (Ethiopian honey wine.)Okay that was for the wedding now I ask myself when will I wed. Reminds me of the Morgan Heritage song, "A man in love." Unlike the Morgan Heritage guy I have two children with two different ladies. The Morgan boy has five with two different women. I am asking Lord to give me a perfect and permanent one.

I am no longer sure if I am supposed to write about this old piece of news now. Zimbabwe was shown the door at the AfCON 2006. The good thing is the boys went down in style by beating Ghana 2-1. The boys lost first to Senegal 0-2 and a similar margin to Nigeria.Okay now comes the problem who is supposed to win this tournament? Farai on BBC had a very nice argument. Read on. Now for my team was supposed to be Cameroon but the guys lost in penalties to Cote d'ivoire. Sorry Samuel Eto'o it was not the best thing to say the time Wome missed that penalty. Fine Cameroon are out so it gives me a few choices, maybe the AfCON 2006 kings will be Egypt. Sorry Nigeria you are lacking the front towards the enemy thing. Ivory Coast will be number two then;)

Zimbabwe name Nations Cup squad

2006-01-17T17:53:00.000+03:00

I t's that time again, AFCON 2006. This time is in Egypt and Zimbabwe is representing as well. I won't be in Egypt but I know the warriors will be there. Go Warriors Go! The team was announced and I am glad we have the best in it. Coach Charles and the boys I wish them the best though we are in the group of death I am sure we will make it. They have said a lot but I know we have the guts in the Warriors. Score Zimbabwe Score. BTW now I can blog easily and always to my blogger.com using this Firefox plug-in called Blogger Web Comments.

Itsbho.com - the home of zimbabwean entertainment

2005-12-29T12:10:00.000+03:00

Ever wondered whats happening in Zimbabwe music industry,

Read more at www.itsbho.com/

2005-09-23T17:49:00.000+03:00

True to the post title I would like to give you the experiences of Addis Abeba weekly, unfortunately someone I hate has been on my back and some funny Anonymous guys were of late replying badly.

Today I am on the issue of Zimbabwe soccer, remember I am a Zimbabwean. The story as I tried following it started with two teams leaving Zimbabwe for the United Kingdom. Being Zimbabweans they were duped to play soccer in a rugby field and the match only had 2 match officials. The best part is that the match lived long enough to be a rugger game, lasted 80 minutes. I read the players were treated to some nice living. The two teams are called Caps United popular with vegetable vendors because of its green colours. The other one looks like a zebra because it is known with darkness and light. I am saying darkness because I was told black is not a colour. Am I correct? Absent of light I think? The team is called Highlanders and its totem is Bosso.
The night after the match the boys from the vege side went drinking and the news man have it that the one of the boys found beauty in a club and he started dancing the night out that's how a problem came in. One irate and maybe husband to be to the lady got annoyed and the guy pulled in a very heavy fight. After losing the battle in the bar the host boy decided to smash the veges team bus. What a mistake he made as the UK police punished him for that.
The next days the newspapers in the country and abroad ran articles with the headlines Caps Players Disappear in UK. The coach of the veges defended the position of his players and the next few days the truth dawned on the two teams that 3 boys decided to stay behind. I am still to get the names of the remaining boys but the truth is the boys left behind.
Now we have the very famous Football Association "FA" and the infamous Zimbabwe Football Association "ZIFA". The later sanctioned the movement of its team to the UK and the UK officials are lodging an appeal with the International administrator FIFA on why the two teams came to play in their majestical country.
Too many problems in my home country? Thats it for the football circus. Just been reading that our cricket team lost to India. Too bad for sport in my country of birth.
Enjoy the weekend I will give you a feed back on my weekend, check my other blog

2005-09-16T14:05:00.000+03:00

Happy New Year. Last week I spoke to a certain friend back home on chat. He was surprised when I told him we will be celebrating new year over the weekend. Yes we celebrated Ethiopian new year on Sunday 11 September can you dig it? We are now in 1998. Maybe it's time to upgrade my windoze 95 OS to windoze 98.
In Ethiopia I did not see much of the hype that makes New Year's eve a night to remember back home. Okay its true drinking places were over subscribed by patrons but not drinking as deadly as our museve boys back home. On Friday people did not go to kumusha/ekhaya (rural homes) like they do in Zimbabwe. I am sure they killed a lot of sheep here, since the guys who had a lot of these animals were fat pocketed on Sunday morning and, off course drinking a few St. George beer. Back home if Sunday is a holiday then we know that our precious holiday giving government was surely going to declare Monday a public holiday, not in Ethiopia.
The highlight of the night or should I say rich people's highlight was a live perfomance by Wyclef Jean in the poshy Sheraton Addis Hotel. The show was very dear and to be honest US$132 is just too much money considering that many Habeshas/Abeshas are getting less than US$100 a month. That aside I still commend Ethiopians for having special nights for the ordinary people like me all over the city. I enjoyed my St. George beer all night off course after a long day in office on Sunday.
The beauties of the night plying the roads after 2100hrs were missing that night and were seriously under threat from the male population which was walking on every road. What a peaceful Ethiopia? I went to many places on this night but Addis flowers were all a happy family. Imagine I did not here any incidence of any fight that busy night.
What a New Year experince I had.

2005-08-22T11:19:00.000+03:00

Now I am tired of doing the same PL/SQL programming and I have been looking for something challenging. I am not sure of what to do to challenge my mind. I was thinking of just changing the whole system I am working on to work in Java or a J2EE environment but, my boss does not want to buy webservers. I am thinking of finishing up my classifieds website and offer it for free. What can I do? Can I start writing a book on PL/SQL or PHP programming? Can I study for my Masters or what can I do?

2005-08-20T05:14:00.000+03:00

Funny yesterday a certain lady asked this question on a Yahoo! groups "Cyber Friends International." I am impressed with the way how people view the issue. Being a Zimbabwean man and talking to Zimbabweans I had an opportunity of airing my views from the side of a Zimbabwean man. I said a bit but I think I will be very happy to write a lot about that now. I just have to call a spade a spade here guys.
Firstly let me say I am a well initiated and linked man and I am also married. By being linked here I mean I have met and chatted with many people from different worlds. Firstly I would like to say that I still feel that my sister's issue was not very balanced since the way she asked was trying to mean that its only in men to cheat. I will surely wait for her reply on why do women cheat.
I have seen in many countries I have been to, many married women with such high and low class husbands cheating. I am a man who beleives that women can survive a man who cheats than vice versa.
Here I will look into some aspects which will surely send me and many others of mind into cheating.
Getting little or no attention - This is very common in the ladies of all races. The time a woman settles in a house with a husband and make family, most or all of them forget that the husband still wants the love he had the time you met. Lets not forget that a wife will come for the husband and not the children, so ladies give the dude enough attention.
Getting under her hands - Please let the Mr. man free. Have you ever applied pressure on a springing wire? Then after a day you remove the load. What do you expect. Do not tight the screws on the brothers ladies. Let the dog off the leash he will go checking every dust bin around him, the goodness is he will come back home later.
Getting into infinite loop - It's true too much of sugar will distort the taste of coffee. I am a man who hates doing the same things for too long, hence why I am working in projects, I find different issues at different projects. This I will not explain it but ladies be warned, if you are the lady who beleives that him alone is supposed to start the whole thing then sorry.
Experimenting - As a computer programmer, I like to check for the new features in a new software. I know many of my friends who really like experimenting with women. You have all come across man who leave a beautiful house to follow a woman without anything.

Oh my oh my. I have a lot to say on this issue but being a Friday let me go and drink some beer.