Local Aussie Oracle related events

My family has made the big leap from Melbourne across this big brown country of ours to Perth. I had an excellent drive across the Nullarbor, one of the true beautiful desolate areas I've ever been. The Nullarbor is normally dry as a bone, but I crossed it during a long period of rain, with green everywhere (okay, it's still a brown-green), and fantastic sunrises and sunsets while dodging kangaroos and road-trains on the A1 highway. Oddly I even hit a snow storm in Victoria as I drove to South Australia, as well as huge amounts of rain from Coolgardie onwards in Western Australia.

Meanwhile the Oracle world moves on and there are a number of Oracle events happening in Australia that local readers may be interested in:

• Oracle Fusion Middleware Forum - Oracle is running a number of Fusion Middleware events during August in Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. Thomas Kurian will be one of the presenters in Sydney and Melbourne, and Roland Slee in Perth and Auckland. I'm not usually a fan of these Oracle events as they prove to be more marketing than technically useful, but if I was in Melbourne or Sydney I'd take the effort to see Thomas. I also note past and present AUSOUG presidents Dennis Remmer and Martin Power are also presenting. For those who want a no sales-fuss approach to presentations Dennis will meet your demands.
  

• In an effort to support the local Western Australian Oracle User Group (AUSOUG), they are running with "Common Stuff-Ups & How to Avoid Them" presented by Penny Cookson (Oracle Educator of the Year 2004). Perth for its small size is blessed by a number of local Oracle talents including Connor McDonald an Oracle ACE and well known presenter at the UKOUG. Both Penny and Connor are known for their down to earth presentations and are very popular at conferences (both have won numerous presentation awards). If you haven't before check out Penny this August Wednesday 1st. (Disclaimer: I work for Penny at SAGE Computing Services - but it's my blog, so I can post what I like ;).
  

In the "I'm not as good as them" vein, I'd like to thank the South Australian Oracle User Group for allowing me to present "All you (ever) needed to know about Java" (the ever so slightly abbreviated version) for Oracle professionals as I was passing through. It was great to see Oracle professionals looking outside the (dare I say PL/SQL ;) box with an interest in what other technologies have to provide.