In the Mix - Oracle User Groups

It didn't take long for Oracle user groups and SIGs to be represented on Oracle's new site mix.oracle.com. The Mix proves to be a particular good fit for the user groups, because it allows non-technical discussions and posting of ideas for each group, unlike other technical forums hosted by Oracle or the user groups in particular.

If you're a registered user of the Mix, take the chance to dive in and start posting ideas and questions for your respected group. Given enough votes your ideas could persuade the group to take action.

User groups:

• Australian Oracle User Group - AUSOUG
• German Oracle Users Group - DOAG
• Higher Education User Group - HEUG
• Northwest Oracle Users Group (USA) - NWOUG
• Oracle Applications Users Group - OAUG
• Oracle Development Tools User Group - ODTUG
• Quest International Users Group
• San Diego Oracle Applications User Group - SDOAUG
• Standard Life Oracle User Group - SLUG
• Turkish Oracle Users - OracleTURK

Special Interest Groups (SIGs):

• Contracts SIG
• Quest Public Sector SIG
• UKOUG Development Engineering SIG

Miscellaneous:

• International Oracle User Council Product Development Committee - IOUC PDC
• OAUG Customer Support Council
• Second Life Oracle Users Groups

Apologies to any groups I missed out. Note I also haven't had the chance to check that these are all legitimate user groups, but you get the idea.

New Aussie Oracle database blogger

Yah, my 100th blog post! You just can't shut me up.

Talking about people you can't shut up, with Marcel Kratchovil this year I had the chance to meet Richard Foote from the Australian Capital Territory (you know, where Canberra the capital of Australia is) at OOW this year. Richard is an ex-ACT Oracle User Group President, is full of great DBA stories and good opinions to boot, and I note he had a number of people rapped at his OOW Unconference session on indexes.

Richard has decided to finally dive in as an Aussie Oracle blogger, with his new blog Richard Foote's Oracle Blog. While I'm not going to give Richard any points for an inspiring blog name (sorry Richard, with a surname like "Foote" you had so many great puns you could have gone with), I wish him all the luck in his new blog endeavours.

+1 to the Aussie team. 0 for the rest of the World.

My top 8 JDeveloper technical blog entries

I'm in the process of moving houses, states and family in Australia so time is just a little limited at the moment. This presents a great time to post a little re-hash of my blog and the top technical JDeveloper blog entries as ranked by my web counter, giving new readers a chance to look at some of my older material:

1. Using multiple faces-config.xml files in JSF
2. Back to programming: Programmatic ADF Faces Tree component
3. Some explicit language about implicit EL objects
4. Don't constrain yourself: displaying alternative database constraint error messages with ADF BC
5. Bah! What is JBO-35007?
6. Handy JDeveloper utility: the Http Analyzer
7. JDeveloper and the art of the rollback
8. I rest my case: Converting ADF BC EO/VO attributes to upper and lower case with custom properties

Of all the articles definitely the multi faces-config.xml files page gets the most hits each day, mostly from Google searches.

Happy reading..... and I intend to start posting again once I've driven to the other side of this big brown country of ours.

4 things I read more recently

Yet another 4 things I read more recently that you may be interested in:

• Comparing the GlassFish and OC4J Admin Consoles - I haven't had much time to look at other J2EE server consoles in comparison to Oracle's OC4J console. Jason Lee puts together a good summary of the consoles for these 2 popular products. Worth a read to see if the grass is greener....

• The grass isn't greener on the other side - talking about the green grass of yonder, there seems to be a large amount of negativity about the Java platform. Is the grass oh so greener on the .Net side? Cay Horstmann has a look at a few .Net woes.

• Is .NET or Java dying? - James Crisp undertakes a comparison of the .Net vs Java vs RoR job market, including some information from an Australian perspective.

• Developer Ramp up time - as a developer-consultant I've always taken the head-first approach into new work. Partially it's from the perspective of saving clients money, but more for the reason I just get bored waiting around for some organisations to get their act together to give me what I need to do my job. Such an approach apparently isn't the forte of everyone though. Derik Whittaker discusses his thoughts on why some developers ramp up faster than others on new projects.

4 things I read more recently (about Java)

This is a my usual regular post on links around the web I've been reading, this time posts specifically related to Java that may interest those in the Oracle Java and JDeveloper arenas:

• Get to know Java EE 5 - the last few months has seen the publication of some good "new features" Java posts, including this one from Roland Barcia at IBM that specifically looks at JEE. Articles like these are good for those who don't have time to read the huge array of publications but would like to keep up to date in a concise form. Obviously being from IBM this article has a Websphere focus but looking further afield to see what others are doing can provide some valuable information.

• Java EE 6 wishlist part 2 and part 3 - the wheel never stops turning and JSR 316 has been approved for the development of JEE 6.0 specification. Already the Hibernate Team have jumped forwards for suggestions on improvements and issues to be addressed from J2EE 5.0 and earlier. These discussions I find interesting because I find my learning of JEE is fairly boxed in by the Oracle world and others sources can provide useful insight into what needs to be improved in the technology I use -- either that or I just like reading stuff and not doing any work. I linked to part 1 in a previous post.

• Why do people insist on doing EVERYTHING in Java? - I've encountered sites where I have to ask why are we using Java? -- where the only serious answer seems to be we're using Java because Java is Java. Huh? Anyway, Gregory Pierce has started a bit of a barney on why some sites insist on doing all development in Java. Your opinions may vary.....
  

• JUGs Offer More Than Free Pizza - okay, Jason Lee's post here could equally apply to any technical user group including Oracle User Groups. Given my own background as an Oracle Ace Director which was greatly facilitated by my committee participation in the Australian Oracle User Group, Jason's words ring true here for me, Java User Group or not. Forget all that Web 2.0 social website belavar, head out to your local user group meeting and meet some real people.

Drowning in Oracle blog aggregators

Have you ever wanted to merge all the separate Oracle RSS aggregators into one, and subscribe to the merged feed?

Lazytom's FeedJumbler provides such a service, where you can list a number of RSS feeds, and FeedJumbler will publish a single RSS/Atom which you may subscribe to instead.

This has been a godsend for myself, having nearly drowned in Oracle aggregator feeds more recently. The FeedJumbler site feed makes it very easy to see duplicate entries and only read what I need to.

Now, if I could only find another RSS service that eliminates duplicates from a feed, I'll have 100% perfection.

4 things I read more recently (about all things "developer" and "programmer")

4 things I read more recently about "developer stuff":

• Cost of Developer Interruptions - having been a consultant at many customers' sites, I'm used to being stuck in all sorts of odd locations, including cupboards, hallways and kitchens. Mostly the environments are noisy, and interruptions are undoubtedly a productivity killer, especially to my Internet surfing. David Carr blog's about his observations on this issue.

• Programming can ruin your life - boy, I nearly feel like Marvin the Robot after reading this article posted on devizen. I'm not depressing you am I?

• Thirteen Patterns of Programmer Interviews - it would be funny if it wasn't so true -- I haven't had to undertake a serious interview for just on 7 years, having realised they're all a farce. Greg Jorgensen blogs at Typical Programmer the kind of joke interviews we all need to go through at some stage. Thanks to devizen for the original link.

Younger developers are better & faster? - apparently old people "learn dumber" at programming. Rey Bango asks should old programmers retire into management and let all the whipper-snappers take over the programming world? At 32 years my opinion is, um, ah, am I considered young or old? Dunno.

In the Mix - Oracle User Groups

It didn't take long for Oracle user groups and SIGs to be represented on Oracle's new site mix.oracle.com. The Mix proves to be a particular good fit for the user groups, because it allows non-technical discussions and posting of ideas for each group, unlike other technical forums hosted by Oracle or the user groups in particular.

If you're a registered user of the Mix, take the chance to dive in and start posting ideas and questions for your respected group. Given enough votes your ideas could persuade the group to take action.

User groups:

• Australian Oracle User Group - AUSOUG
• German Oracle Users Group - DOAG
• Higher Education User Group - HEUG
• Northwest Oracle Users Group (USA) - NWOUG
• Oracle Applications Users Group - OAUG
• Oracle Development Tools User Group - ODTUG
• Quest International Users Group
• San Diego Oracle Applications User Group - SDOAUG
• Standard Life Oracle User Group - SLUG
• Turkish Oracle Users - OracleTURK

Special Interest Groups (SIGs):

• Contracts SIG
• Quest Public Sector SIG
• UKOUG Development Engineering SIG

Miscellaneous:

• International Oracle User Council Product Development Committee - IOUC PDC
• OAUG Customer Support Council
• Second Life Oracle Users Groups

Apologies to any groups I missed out. Note I also haven't had the chance to check that these are all legitimate user groups, but you get the idea.

Posted by Chris Muir

New Aussie Oracle database blogger

Yah, my 100th blog post! You just can't shut me up.

Talking about people you can't shut up, with Marcel Kratchovil this year I had the chance to meet Richard Foote from the Australian Capital Territory (you know, where Canberra the capital of Australia is) at OOW this year. Richard is an ex-ACT Oracle User Group President, is full of great DBA stories and good opinions to boot, and I note he had a number of people rapped at his OOW Unconference session on indexes.

Richard has decided to finally dive in as an Aussie Oracle blogger, with his new blog Richard Foote's Oracle Blog. While I'm not going to give Richard any points for an inspiring blog name (sorry Richard, with a surname like "Foote" you had so many great puns you could have gone with), I wish him all the luck in his new blog endeavours.

+1 to the Aussie team. 0 for the rest of the World.