No flash, Flash and then back again.

My Oracle Support is changing again...the flash version - that got a some critisism in the very beginning - has come to an end.

Strange. That the HTML-version did not see the light earlier. Or that the HTML-version could exist a short period of time to wait for the version 2 of the HTML-variant.

Maybe the name will switch back to Metalink as well...:-)

Smaller foot print WebLogic Server

Find the file \user_projects\domains\ClassicDomain\bin\setDomainEnv.cmd and edit it.
In the beginning set JAVA_VENDOR to be Sun.
set JAVA_VENDOR=Sun
Change these values
set XMS_SUN_32BIT=256

set XMX_SUN_32BIT=512
to
set XMS_SUN_32BIT=128
set XMX_SUN_32BIT=256

Further more, find set EXTRA_JAVA_PROPERTIES=-Xms256m -Xmx512m and change that
to set EXTRA_JAVA_PROPERTIES=-Xms64m -Xmx128m. That will reduce foot print of the WebLogic Server substansially.

Last, change the same parameters for Reports. set EXTRA_JAVA_PROPERTIES=-Xms256m -Xmx512m to
set EXTRA_JAVA_PROPERTIES=-Xms64m -Xmx128m

Oracle Forms 11g and WebLogic Server

Remember that there is no local flavour of the old and useful - imho - OC4J Oracle Application Server Containsers for J2EE 10g in the new Forms 11g environment.
That could - and will present a problem to be solved- in the developer environment of the application life cycle management.

Further, the WebLogic Server needs a larger footprint that the old way of doing application development using the OC4J locally on your - typically - PC. Test and production environments is another more solvable issue, since they are mostly Linux based environments. But the development usually are done using the traditional PC with XP.

I have seen trouble installing the Forms 11g on a Vista PC so do not try that at home, it might not even be certified. Please consult the certification table at My Oracle Support for information on that issue.

There are means to lower the foot print for the local WLS Server that is needed if you want do perform basic tests on your PC environment. There are parameters to set, you will find them on google.

Check comments on the EOUC-meeting in Prague

You can do that using http://www.twitter.com and also by going to visible witter tools and search the tag EOUC.
Or use this link.

På möte med ordföranden i Prag

Om användarföreningar, java och Oracle = sant? Sun + Oracle = Sant?

Intressant, 1/3 av deltagarna är från Java User Group-föreningar. De twittrar om konferensen under tiden den sker, ett wake-up-call for Oracle tror jag. De är rakt fram dessutom och rakt på i deras åsikter.

Oracle är nog lite ovana det tror jag.

English...
At a meeting on Oracle User Groups in Prague, Java + oracle = True? Sun + Oracle = True?

Interesting is that a third of the delegates from the User Communities are from Java User Groups. It is the first time we see them in Europe, and they twitter about their feelings about the conference. And the presentators are...well...nervous about that very fact...

Amazon Cloud and mail

Be sure to check out this blog if testing the Cloud at Amazon. Please see David Peake's excellent article in Oracle Magazine on how to get there. It really works. Some things have changed to the better since the article was written.

Now APEX is pre-installed. And you get going at once. Impressive.

Mail in EC2, careful since there are things with mail, spammers wants to use the gate ways... So consult this article at OracleQuicks.

Send in the Clouds...

Clouds are here to stay, it is spring soon. But IT Clouds are here to stay.

Orcan - the swedish user group has a database going in the Cloud. And an ApEx application. Just for the fun of it.

What it is or becomes, is up to us...

Tom Kyte is on a ferry boat

Just if you like boats, and Oracle. Go on the ride...

Nice ride I think.

Memory lane...minnenas gata...

procedure query_details ( detail varchar2 ) is
begin
go_block(detail);
check_package_failure;
execute_query;
end;

Visst var det längesedan...

Still remembering Carl

I miss him without knowing him, his enthusiasm and knowledgeable but humble way of sharing.
Met him three years ago.
Sweating, in action.

And he seems to love it.

Back again - and up and atom

Have you seen TOR - the nice thing that makes China find places outside their locked in country?

Google on TOR and see what makes China go mad...

In the Oracle scene things are moving. New versions, new merger of companies.

ApEx is on the move in Sweden, there are lots of companies going in that direction. They migrate old legacy systems Access/Excel to new powerful ApEx tools to the user community at their companies.

Also, which is not spoke about imho.
If you got the Architecture in place, the Grid control, the things that you need to really go into dark room computing...then ApEx is an excellent tool for SQL knowledgable user to study the database, the base for the data.

If you set up an organisation that really takes into account cooperation and communication you are on the right track. Openness. But just as much as you like, you have to protect the data, of course. So...ApEx is an excellent read only tool for end user to be on the same platform when it comes to understand the underlying data.

Cow milk and Oracle

This is an interesting article about what sales at Oracle - and other companies - are thinking and doing. Thoughts on sales are always welcome. Since you learn how sales people think and negotiate in various situations.

It is interesting that "Oracle ‘knows’ what its customers are using." is an item explaning how Oracle still is making money. The shift to My Oracle Support comes into a new light. Especially the new feature that we are to send in our configurations to support. That information is very very useful, not only to give us support but to plan Oracle sales department activities.

Read more at http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howlett/?p=1805&tag=nl.e539 and adjust purchase accordingly.

Project, time estimates, lead time and newbies

I had a project today. To put together three BILLY 40cm wide book shelfs.

Interesting, since it was some time I did that. The time to put the first one together was
one hour or so. Why?

Because it was a long time I did it, they changed the mounting method (new kind of screws)
and I was unsure where my tools were.

The two following shelfs did go well. But, as always, when you think that you know something you are starting to make mistakes. Not hard mistakes, but mistakes. In my case one visible, but luckily it will be facing a wall or another BILLY. So, no harm done.

The other mistake was during the mounting of the shelf. Or the integration test you could say :-)

So...the bearing on IT projects is obvious, at least to me. On FACEBOOK a friend of mine who often runs projects wrote after the first one "so, the other two are ready now?". Of course...he is a project manager...what can he write? :-)

Edition-Based Redefinition

Oracle 11g does include an interesting feature, the feature to upgrade your applications in a well ordered and controlled manner. You can test the application before you GoLive with it, and you do not loose any information. The users can do their job in the pre-upgraded version whilst you change the new version, test it and change to it.

Edition-Based Redefinition is, Tom Kyte says, the most important thing that happened since we got PL/SQL in the database. And, Mr Kyte always - in my opinion - knows what he says.

So, go for the manual pages and study EBR. You can have editions on SYNOMYNS, VIEWs and PL/SQL-modules in the database. And there are some rules to consider when you try this out. So carefully study the steps in the manual.

Oracle 11g Reports enhancements

Oracle Reports is here to stay as well, there is lots and lots of money and people time invested in that product. The new release makes it more easy to hide the sequential number in the URL created, now you can say "lets do it random" so it is more hard to guess. In previous releases you could easily see other reports by just decrease the seq nr in the URL by one. If the report was there you could see it.

Also, the JVM is the same JVM as the Forms process, so there is performance gains to do if you are calling Reports from Forms. Most of us still do... And further, there is no need to pass the password anymore to the Reports call. That is taken care of.

Oracle Forms future and Oracle 11g Database

Oracle Forms is here to stay, officials says at Oracle Open World. So, stay calm you Forms Developers out there. The new Oracle Forms 11g has many new features though to make it easy to incorporate new functionality, using web services or Javascript.

Also, Oracle Forms 11g has the capability to react asynchronous to external events, that has not been possible with earlier editions of Forms.

Speaking of editions, upgrading your application in a 24/7 environment is now possible as well. Using the feature in Oracle Database 11g R2 called Edition-Based Redefinition. Simply speaking it works on synonyms, views and PL/SQL-objects. And you have a pre-state and a post-state of the application running in parallell. Looks like a good trick. Lets try this at home! :-)

Oracle Open World has started

This Sunday it all started, the Oracle Develop sessions. Tom Kyte was a blast, as always, talked about developers and what we do wrong.

Also, early this morning there was an excellent presentation on integrating Oracle Forms into Application Express. Worth looking into.

The ApEx platform is a platform to be counted on.

Up where we belong...

The cloud is coming, Oracle has found a way of licensing the Cloud. Sounds good on paper. The trouble is that there is not the same situation if you ask middle-sized customers, not at least if you ask Swedish customers.

There is some fuzz around pricing policies here in Sweden, and Virtual Computing. "OK, you can upgrade to a 64 bit version, but Oracle want you to pay 120 000 USD in license fees".

"Say what?"

"Yes, it says so here in the list of prices".

"OK, let's see, we have to think about that, what about moving to MySQL what price tag is there in doing that?"

Oracle Corp must have an answer, and an answer soon. Or think again, do it again, do it right.

Ah yes...Oracle Support do listen to us, Oracle customer base. We will have an simple HTML-interface to access Oracle Support. Or My Oracle Support. The more flashy guys will have flash...

Oracle Open World is soon here

I hope to see you there, it was almost a year ago. I do not know about you but I am curious about the focus on Oracle Open World this year.

More curious than before, there are new things in the Oracle realm to think about and relate to.

• Transition to My Oracle Support
• The new appplication server platform - Middleware
• Is SOA really mature as technology. This is CORBA, as we have seen before, but now it can really be efficient.
  
• Is PL/SQL dead and we shall go for coffee, sorry Java...at Starbucks?
• The Cloud - very existing, I really do hope that you all tried Amazon Web Services. Very interesting and it really works. See article by David Peake in Oracle Magazine here.
• Is Oracle DB 11g now stable - I know nothing
• Another aquisition I suppose that we do not yet know about
• Is there a Sun behind the Cloud...?
  

Networking people, communication with peers. That is Oracle Open World at its best.

See you in San Francisco!

Cheers,