Over at Organization and Markets (link to post), Steven Postrel wrote a post about design puzzles. E.G.: Why do round tables outside cafe’s, etc, have four legs instead of three (in the case where four legs are difficult to maintain a level plane, and three legs would aleviate the imbalance).

What got me about the post was not the authors statements (which were great nonetheless), but instead the comment made by a person going by the handle ‘carl.’ Here’s a design puzzle-solution that he came up with:

When we call an 1-800 number, instead of saying, “Please wait for the next available representative,� they should say, “Caller ID detects your number is ### ### ####. We’ll call you back either when the next representative becomes free or 10 minutes, whichever comes first. *click*�

In addition to preventing a lot of cases of cauliflower ear, this would *save* the companies money, because they have to pay the long distance fees for the time period you’re connected.

It baffles me as to why this solution isn’t in place, but I think the original objective of the post was not only to outline some common design puzzles (why are mustard packets harder to open than ketchup?), but to also outline the reasons why this may be the situation (there are numerous reasons, all well documented; check the site out).

So I went to a Microsoft launch event a couple weeks ago, a few of the giveaways were a Free license to Microsoft Office 2007 and a 180 trial of Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate.

Now, I’m not in a position to just throw an OS around on just any machine, so I installed VMWare Server and installed Vista under a new Virtual Machine. All went well for awhile (I was underwhelmed with Vista, but that’s a post for another day) until I attempted to do a software update. The screenshot below tells me that my version of Vista (which came from Microsoft’s own DVD given away at the Office 2007/Exchange/Vista launch event) has expired as it’s only a beta.

That’s a damn shame. Microsoft had launched Vista to business partners last winter, and Vista was already available to retail by the time of the launch event, so why the beta DVD? I checked with the version number, the disc and anywhere else I could think to look and found no mention of a beta installation. Perhaps Microsoft doesn’t support their own software?

I’ve spent this past week in bed, sick as a dog. It’s now Saturday, and I’m still feeling ill.

It’s hard for me to think of things that bug me more than being sick: perhaps being broke, or having my hands torn up by our house guest cat (pictures of the beautiful, but terrifying, cat soon).

The odd thing about this cold has been in its great difference from day to day. Every day a different leading symptom. Monday night through Tuesday I couldn’t speak or swallow, and I ran a fever hot enough to cook food. Tuesday night through Wednesday I had chest congestion and more. Through the end of the week I bounced around sinus issues, throat, chest, head, and more. Being sick is not fun.

The worst thing about this week: I couldn’t have chosen a worse time to fall behind in projects and work. Every day that passed I told myself, “tomorrow I’m going to get into work, say hello and grab my laptop.” Each day that passed, I promised again, and did my best to crawl out of bed. I never did make it to the office - mine or works.

Update: Looks like it was pneumonia, and not just a general cold that’s gotten me down. I went to the doctor a week ago Friday and have been on medication and bed rest since. Today was my first day back at work (jeebus!). It feels good to be back to work, but it’s been tough getting back up to speed (not only in my waking schedule, but in the workload - many of my projects feel foreign now).

I’m sure I’ve come across this issue before, where I need to reference a 2nd or [n] database for additional information (using a join) when I will be getting the [n] database name from the source query initially.

Cryptic? Here’s the SQL I’m using (that’s not working, of course). I think the problem I’m having is the ‘dbname.[tablename]‘ is not valid (the ‘dbname’ part).

Also, here’s the dbmodel diagram that I’m using.

Update: I’ve decided to take the cheap way out and split this problem into two queries, using PHP to set the $database_name variable.
Sigh, I hate to do it, but that seems to be the fastest way to get this issue resolved so users can begin to run their reports. Speed to market sometimes takes precedence over quality.