Thanks for Dreaming, Dr. Gray

Dear Santa,

This is Brian. Thanks for the early Christmas present you sent Penny and me. We both love our smoking hot, uber cool iPhones. Not using a Microsoft device makes me feel naughty, but the iPhone is so nice that I just don’t care. I promise to switch back to a Microsoft phone as soon as it makes a device that’s even close to being as fun and useful as the iPhone. I bet Mr. Ballmer uses an iPhone at home. However, can you please ask your elves to port SQL Server to the iPhone? I’ve been nice all year long. Honest.

On a more serious note, a friend and I were recently reminiscing about a talk that we heard Dr. Jim Gray give about 10 years ago. In case you don’t know, Dr. Gray was one of the original thought leaders who invented relational database technology and had a long and distinguished career. He was lost at sea in January 2007 and is greatly missed. Anyway, my friend and I were talking about how Dr. Gray was discussing the concept of a terabyte-sized server that could be built for less than $10,000 and how that could change the world of computing as we know it. Recently, I bought myself an early Christmas present—an Acer-branded Windows Home Server on Black Friday. I spent about $300. And I now have 1TB NAS in my basement that cost me about $300. Thanks for dreaming, Dr. Gray.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to Dr. Gray and everyone else. I wish each and every one of you a blessed and happy end of 2009 and New Year.

Brian

P.S. In case your elves are wondering, I recently also played with a friend’s brand-new Droid. The iPhone you gave me is much cooler.