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Jeff Smith's Blog
 
Author: JeffSmith Created: Monday, July 02, 2007 1:33 PM
Jeff Smith is a Solutions Architect at Quest Software. What does that mean exactly? He gets paid to talk about Toad and the other database products at Quest. He has been with Quest since 2001, working on the Toad R&D, Product Management, and Sales organizations. Jeff is the primary author of the Toad Handbook, 2nd Edition, published by O’Reilly and is currently working with Bert and Patrick on the next edition! He holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from West Virginia University. Jeff is a regular speaker at Toad User Groups and Oracle User Groups worldwide.

Jeff's blog provides information for Toad users that addresses their day to day challenges, with an additional focus on testing (functional and performance/stress.)

Recent postings on the Toad product family:


F-what?
JeffSmith Thursday, November 20, 2008 10:10 AM

After working with Toad for almost a decade (I think I first saw it as a new grad in ’99…), I tend to start taking things for granted when I do demonstrations for customers or present at conferences on the beauty of Toad. It’s very easy to get excited about CRUD Matrices and the beauty of PL/SQL debuggers, but overlook the critical core features that users often miss out on.

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It’s the Little Things…
JeffSmith Friday, October 03, 2008 8:00 AM

We often spend a lot of time trumpeting the sexy little widgets in our database tools and overlook the little things that really aid in the development of our applications or even just writing the mundane queries that fill up our day.

I’d like to just spend a quick 10 minutes on letting you know about a cool little feature that Toad for Data Analysis offers for writing your querie ...

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Compelling Features for Upgrading to Toad v9.7
JeffSmith Thursday, September 25, 2008 6:32 AM
So, another version of Toad has been released. It happens a few times a year. If you’re lucky it’s up to you if and when you want to upgrade to get your bug fixes or new features. If you’re in a larger organization, there’s a standards committee that decides who gets what when. I thought I’d spend a few minutes to document what I see to be the key features available in v9.7 t ...
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10 Things You Must Know about Toad’s Editor (Part 2)
JeffSmith Monday, September 08, 2008 11:25 AM
The editor window is probably where most users spend a majority of their time. In this blog, I’ll continue a conversation we had a few weeks ago.  Please note that all of these features are available in the standard edition of Toad for Oracle, version 9.6.
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Writing SQL in Toad for Data Analysis
JeffSmith Monday, August 11, 2008 9:28 AM
In my previous blog, I covered things that you should know about Toad for Oracle’s editor. I thought for today we could spend a few minutes on what users may benefit the most from Toad’s cousin, Toad for Data Analysis. This blog will concentrate on working with SQL.
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10 Things You Must Know about Toad’s Editor
JeffSmith Tuesday, July 22, 2008 8:06 AM
The editor window is probably where most users spend a majority of their time. In this blog, I’ll try to highlight the 10 features that will save you the most time when it comes to writing your SQL queries, SQL*Plus scripts, anonymous blocks, and PL/SQL stored procedures. Please note that all of these features are available in the standard edition of Toad for Oracle, version 9.6.
...
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Still Testing Your PL/SQL Manually? STOP-RIGHT-NOW.
JeffSmith Monday, June 30, 2008 7:51 AM
Anyone who develops, supports, or uses PL/SQL at some level also tests the PL/SQL. It may not be a formal testing environment, but there is a time where you will probably ask yourself, “Does this program actually do what it is supposed to?” I think this is something we can all relate to as computer users.
 
This type of testing ...
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Code Insight in 9.6 – Not seeing your Data Dictionary Views?
JeffSmith Thursday, May 22, 2008 6:48 AM
The Code Insight feature rewrite for version 9.6 is perhaps the most dramatic change as it will affect every Toad user who writes SQL or PL/SQL.
 
In a nutshell, for the 9.6 release, users can now start at the schema level, and use the ‘Dot Lookup’ feature to see all tables, views, synonyms, snapshots, PL/SQL objects etc. You can then dr ...
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Need Help Fixing Tables with Duplicate Values?
JeffSmith Thursday, April 24, 2008 7:45 AM

Despite the best intentions of the DBA or the person who designed the data model, the collection of primary keys, unique indexes, constraints, and triggers are not a foolproof method of keeping duplicate records creeping into your tables and views. Any business rule in the database can be disabled. An even more likely scenario is the business rule changing after the fact.   So ...

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Flood of Coffee Break Byte Videos, Thanks Gretchen!
JeffSmith Monday, March 31, 2008 7:22 AM
The Toad World visitors may have noticed a recent surge in the number of videos available for viewing in the past few days.   Toad World will debut a collection of 12 or so Coffee Break Bytes (video tutorials) to highlight the new features for the 9.6 release due out on April 1.
 
I think these videos very nicely compliment
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