I've been long overdue for a new PC.  I think the last one I built was in Jan of 2003 and if you're a gamer, you're usually getting a new rig every 2 1/2 years, not counting graphics card upgrades, etc. along the way.  So last Friday I spec'd it out and ordered up all the parts from newegg.  And when I got home from work yesterday it was like Christmas.  3 boxes of goodies on my doorstep.

I didn't think the price was too bad.  The machine is pretty close to one of the best you can build atm.  Short of RAID or a small step in a better processor.  But the RAM, Video, HDD are the best.  For now anyway... wait 6 months.

We had dinner at a tappas restaurant so I didn't get started building until about 7:30pm but I had it all together and loading the OS by 10pm.  I'm already amazed at how fast the hard drive is.  WinXP SP2 was thrown down in about 15 minutes.

Looking forward to installing some games and seeing how they look.

Here's the specs on the PC (for future reference):

I can't help but gloat right now over the weather difference back home to here.  Now I may be crying in a couple months but hey... it's nice out right now!

It was dark on the start of the ride this morning, and I had to wear the headlamp for the first time this year, but the sun was beautiful as it rose up next to Mt. Hood.  I forgot the camera at home.  I'll try and remember to catch a shot going over the I-5 bridge on Friday morning.

Rode home tonight.  First time in a few weeks.  Maybe like 6-7 I think.  Anyway.  Beautiful day.  84 - sunny.  Must've been alot of bugs out because I ate quite a few.  Noticed I was pretty slow climbing the hills too.  Pushing the low gears at low reps.

Normally I'm a beer or wine drinker.  Last week we had a stretch of cooler weather and a couple days of rain.  Well there's nothing like a Tuaca and Hot Apple Cider.  Mmmm.  Do you know in Oregon and Washington you cannot buy hard alcohol at the grocery store?  What a pain in the ass.  You can buy beer and wine but you have to go to a liqour store to buy the hard stuff.  And the liqour store is only open until 7pm.  Not only that but you can't buy beer or wine at the liqour store.  So you are forced to make two trips... saving gas and good for the environment my ass.

I'm going to geek out on you for a minute. I may start doing this abit more from time to time. Anyway...

We had an interesting discussion at work. Which is faster? Loading an xml document from hard disk or loading it from SQL Server. I had assumed it would be faster to load from HDD but never one to assume - I decided to let science do the work.

So I built up a little console app. It simply displays the time after loading an xml file from either hard disk or sql server.

Bottom line? Based on my tests, loading from disk is 4x faster. Even if sql server has your query cached, so it doesn't have to pull the data from disk, it's still 4x faster to load from HDD. Why? Because of all the API's you have to pass that data through just to get the data across the wire. In fact, I gave sql server the benefit of the doubt, loading the xml file into a table with only 1 column and 1 row, running the query over and over so it was cached, and finally the data is sitting local to the same machine the app is on. If the data was buried in a large table on a remote sql server, I'm sure the local copy would be even faster.

Starting ... [9/25/2006 9:33:56 AM]
Finished ... [9/25/2006 9:33:56 AM]
Elapsed time: 00:00:00.0156253

00:00:00.0156253
00:00:00
00:00:00.0156253
00:00:00
00:00:00.0156253

Starting ... [9/25/2006 9:34:40 AM]
Finished ... [9/25/2006 9:34:40 AM]
Elapsed time: 00:00:00.0937518

00:00:00.0781265
00:00:00.0625012
00:00:00.0937518
00:00:00.0781265
00:00:00.0781265

C# code:

   1:  using System;

   2:  using System.Collections.Generic;

   3:  using System.Text;

   4:  using System.Xml;

   5:  using System.Data.SqlClient;

   6:   

   7:  namespace LoadXml

   8:  {

   9:      class Program

  10:      {

  11:          static void Main(string[] args)

  12:          {

  13:              DateTime startTime = DateTime.Now;

  14:              Console.WriteLine("Starting ... [{0}]", startTime);

  15:   

  16:              //LoadFromDisk();

  17:   

  18:              LoadFromSqlServer();

  19:   

  20:              DateTime endTime = DateTime.Now;

  21:              Console.WriteLine("Finished ... [{0}]", endTime);

  22:              TimeSpan timeSpan = endTime - startTime;

  23:              Console.WriteLine("Elapsed time: {0}", timeSpan);

  24:          }

  25:   

  26:          private static void LoadFromSqlServer()

  27:          {

  28:              XmlDocument xmlDocument = new XmlDocument();

  29:   

  30:              using (SqlConnection sqlConnection = new SqlConnection(@"Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=tempdb;Integrated Security=SSPI;"))

  31:              {

  32:                  SqlCommand sqlCommand = new SqlCommand("select [xmldocument] from [dbo].[sqlxml]", sqlConnection);

  33:   

  34:                  sqlConnection.Open();

  35:   

  36:                  // use a reader since it's the fastest way to read data from sql server

  37:                  SqlDataReader sqlDataReader = sqlCommand.ExecuteReader();

  38:   

  39:                  sqlDataReader.Read();

  40:   

  41:                  // use column ordinal instead of column name for faster access

  42:                  string xmlString = sqlDataReader[0].ToString();

  43:   

  44:                  xmlDocument.LoadXml(xmlString);

  45:              }

  46:          }

  47:   

  48:          private static void LoadFromDisk()

  49:          {

  50:              XmlDocument xmlDocument = new XmlDocument();

  51:              xmlDocument.Load("Sample.xml");

  52:          }

  53:      }

  54:  }

XML file:

 1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
 2 <books>
 3     <book>
 4         <author>Carson</author>
 5         <price format="dollar">31.95</price>
 6         <pubdate>05/01/2001</pubdate>
 7     </book>
 8     <pubinfo>
 9         <publisher>MSPress</publisher>
10         <state>WA</state>
11     </pubinfo>
12 </books>

SQL Server Script to create the table and data:

 1 /* Create the table in tempdb and load the xml into it */
 2 use [tempdb]
 3 go
 4 
 5 if  exists (select * from sys.objects where object_id = object_id(N'[dbo].[sqlxml]') and type in (N'u'))
 6 drop table [dbo].[sqlxml]
 7 go
 8 
 9 create table [sqlxml]
10 (
11     [xmldocument] nvarchar(2000) not null
12 )
13 
14 insert into
15     [sqlxml]
16     (
17     [xmldocument]
18     )
19 values
20     (
21 '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
22 <books>
23     <book>
24         <author>Carson</author>
25         <price format="dollar">31.95</price>
26         <pubdate>05/01/2001</pubdate>
27     </book>
28     <pubinfo>
29         <publisher>MSPress</publisher>
30         <state>WA</state>
31     </pubinfo>
32 </books>'
33     )

Based on some advice from the Green Bay girl last weekend, we tried out the local packer transplant hangout, the Corbett Fish House.  Around here they call fish fry's "Fish and Chips" (like we're in Great Britain or something).  Actually maybe that's what they call it in the New England.  Maybe Kevin can confirm that?

So we walk in and I start taking pictures because I can't stop laughing.  The owner is a Wisconsin transplant (I forget which city).  There's a large Green Bay Packer flag hanging from the ceiling and all sorts of Green Bay paraphernalia hanging all over the place.  Towards the back near the bar there's an office that looks like a shrine.  The only thing missing was packer shirts and jackets on all the patrons.  The staff had green and gold shirts on.  But that might also be related to the University of Oregon Ducks.  Which are followed with strange type of madness around here... (get a real team people).

So how about the food?  Good beer.  Widmer Brothers Hefeweizen (the beer that started Ray and my beer snobbery 10 years ago).  Real Midwest fish fry although with a Northwest spin - Gluten free and environmentally friendly (no overfished species).  Deep fried cheese curds (of course).  Heidi had the perch.  I took on the Walleye.  Pretty good although I will say I prefer the fish without the skin which these still had on 'em.  In fact it's pretty hard to run across fish fry's with the skin on back home. 

It was no Seibert's but still pretty good for being 2200 miles away (btw, if you're reading this and still live in Wisco and have never done Seibert's you should... best I've ever had - if you don't like fish the stuffed shrimp are awesome.  Just ask Ryan er "Frank the Tank" - just watched that last night buddy!).