DBQuest, JSON and GZIPP, EBS, Content Management, Eclipse, Humor

Incredibally Useful Waste of Time Department: DB Quest

Eddite Awad came across DBQuest, a game to test your general database knowledge (not Oracle specific, that I can determine). I clarified two things running through it: 1) I forgot a lot from the days I was an active DBA and reading more database books than business books 2) I stink at games, even simple ones like this with a little guy running around a maze. I only scored in the mid 20 K range. Not even close to the 'leader board'. Give it a whirl. It's fun and will help you remember that there's a big world of relational database theory and fundamental concepts out there that we sometimes forget in the day to day workings of keeping the applications up and the users happy.

. 

JSON

Ok, another Oracle-related acronym I've never heard  of: JSON. That's Java-Script Object Notation. Jim's PeopleSoft blog pointed out a blog I hadn't seen before, the Database Geek blog,  and a posting on JSON over there. Over at Jim's blog there's an excellent item on a technique he came up with for saving time/increasing performance when using GZIPPs.

EBS

This week from the Oracle E-Business Suite Technology blog:

Secure Enterprise Search 10.1.8.4 Certified with EBS 12

Running JInitiator on Vista Desktops

Reminder: Block MS IE8 Upgrades for EBS Users!

Premier Support for 10.2.0.3 Database Ended in February 2009

Please note the last one. If, for some reason, you need to continue using 10.2.0.3, please get in touch with your Support Delivery Manager or other key POC for Oracle Support to discuss your options.

Content Management

A recording of the latest quarterly customer webcast, along with links to a batch of useful resources, is available over at the Oracle ECM Alerts blog.

Eclipse

Using Eclipse with Oracle? There's a good link to interviews and other material from the recent EclopseCon. Here's the link at the OTN Tech blog: Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse 11g Released

Humor

Terminology is the key. On a customer concall the other day we jokingly brought up integrating a social networking app into their application. I followed up on it. The key to getting this past the executives is buzzwords and technology. Here's a justification I suggest:

"We are exploring implementing a new cloud-computing component of our enterprise application. It's a Web 2.0 component called Trans-World Inter-Terminal Teleconferencing Emergency Relay."

Don't mention Java. It's not on the current buzz word list.

Siebel CRM

Best Practices for Siebel
Do you want to start creating service-oriented architecture (SOA) with your Siebel applications today?
"Best Practices" are offered for how to service-enable Siebel CRM business services, workflows, and business components and then build integrations, business processes, and composite applications using Oracle Fusion Middleware technology such as BPEL, ESB, BAM, ADF, and WebCenter. Click here for more information

Contributions by Angela Golla

Scale to Fit
Most midsize companies don’t have big IT budgets, but they need efficient, scalable, and flexible IT infrastructures to compete on a global scale. Learn how Oracle can help midsize businesses with big service and cost-effective technology and applications solutions in this Oracle Magazine article.

Weekend Humor

Humor

It's been a long and worrisome weekend for one of my customers, but the storm is past, so I was able to enjoy this incredible squandering of time and effort by a group of English shepherds and their flocks in full YouTube glory, sent by a friend of mine.

Exadata, Business, ACM, Design, PeopleSoft, Scripts, Performance, Security

Exadata

Kevin Closson, Oracle storage guru extraordinaire, is giving a webcast next week on Exadata. Should be a very technical and splendid presentation.

Business Views: Ignore the Competition and Thrive

Some interesting views from Jeff Bezos of Amazon on business and competition by way of the Oracle AppsLab blog. I'm a long time Amazon customer and Kindle user, in fact I think they have a forklift they use just for my purchases at the warehouse, so I respect Bezos business advice.

ACM

There are several new postings over at the Oracle ECM Alerts blog, the latest is Fun with Site Studio 10gR4 Placeholders, Part 1

Design, the Heart of Performance

Over at the Structured Data blog we have a solidly technical approach to table and query design. SQL is, when you come down to it, a language to translate business needs so a computer can understand what you want and give it to you, gift-wrapped. The posting discusses some of the many factors involved in the process of design.

PeopleSoft

A link to the links. Some valuable resources on editing PeopleCode. at the PSST0101

blog.

Grid Control is one of my favorite Oracle products. The PeopleSoft DBA blog has a good tip today on using Grid to monitor PeopleSoft batch processes.

Script Library Moves

If you use Morgan's Library, a resource we've mentioned here before, it's moved. you can find its new home through this posting over at Eddie Awad's blog.

Performance

Did you buy book Christian Antonigni's book Troubleshooting Oracle Performance? Well he's announced a new set of scripts for the book are online, so if you've already downloaded, time to freshen up at his blog here.

Security Evaluations

It's traditional to kick the tires of a car when you buy it. Doesn't do a thing for you these days, since it was a test for some very ancient flavors of suspension system, but I'm a lover of tradition. Nowadays, though, you also need to check the tires for microphones, GPS tracking devices and perhaps hackers lurking in the wheel well. That's why this article on the process Oracle uses to evaluate security on the various products we've bought is interesting.

EBS, APEX, BI Publisher, AIA, Oracle Magazine, ECM

EBS

This week at the Oracle E-Business Suite Technology blog:

An important article on the Oracle support policy from Steven Chan this week. 

Other recent items at the blog:

IBM AIX Certified with Oracle Single Sign-On and Oracle Internet Directory 10g 10.1.4.3 and EBS 12

and 

Database 11gR1 Version 11.1.0.7 Certified with EBS 11i for Windows x64

APEX

The folks over at the Oracle AppsLab blog are trying out APEX on Amazon Web Services, a cloud computing effort that is cutting edge in about three different dimensions and might actually cost you some prototyping costs. Check out the article here.

BI Publisher

Over at the A BI Publisher developer's diary... blog there's a nice bit of code to experiment with for using 'bursting'. Check it out here.

AIA

Over at the official AIA blog, (cleverly concealed behind the title: The Official AIA Blog), there are several articles this week, including a very handy item on Custom Extensions to AIA Error Handling.

Oracle Magazine

The March/April issue of Oracle magazine is out (no, there's no centerfold with raw data). You can find it online here.

ECM Blog

Have you seen the new Oracle ECM Alerts blog? Well please do! It's here. And a sample posting (if you haven't already put it in your RSS feeds, is this: Site Studio 10gR4 viewlets and samples have been placed on OTN

Oracle Running Oracle BI

Mark Field Discusses Oracle's Pioneering BI Strategy

As vice president of enterprise reporting systems at Oracle, Mark Field leads the ongoing campaign to implement and optimize Oracle's own industry-leading business intelligence (BI) solutions.

Focus on Fundamentals is Key to Insurance Companies

To survive and grow in today's challenging economy, insurance companies will need to successfully employ strategies for "getting back to fundamentals," Oracle Insurance executive Chuck Johnston notes in a recent article in National Underwriter Property & Casualty magazine.

In a follow-up interview, the vice president of strategy and alliances for Oracle Insurance added that one of the keys to today’s return to fundamentals is finding additional ways to reduce operating expenses to improve operational efficiencies. And for many insurance firms, an essential first step comes with transforming traditional workflow processes using more sophisticated business process management (BPM) applications.

Significant Certification and Patch Enhancements for Oracle Financial Services Applications

The Oracle Financial Services Applications development team has completed several certifications and patch releases for the Oracle Financial Services 4.5.39 family of applications earlier this year.

The new certifications for Oracle Financial Data Manager (includes Administrator, Balance and Control, and Rate Manager), Oracle Risk Manager, Oracle Performance Analyzer, and Oracle Transfer Pricing applications include:
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS/ES 4
- Oracle 11g Database

New certifications for the Oracle Budgeting & Planning application include:
- Technology Stack Upgrade: Oracle Financial Analyzer 6.4.0
- Patch 8 and Oracle Web Agent 6.3.4 Patch 10
- Internet Explorer 7

Among the new patch releases announced for Oracle Financial Services 4.5.39 applications are:
- Patch #6147921: for Request Queue Errors in HP UNIX on Oracle 10g Database
- Patch #6966074: for Request Queue Errors in Sun Solaris SPARC on Oracle 10g Database
- Patch #7703405: (OFSA Patch 4.5.40) provides fixes for errors in Risk Manager and Performance Analyzer
- Patch #7243974: a patch only for Budgeting & Planning (Patch 4.5.39.4) for a new certificate date
- Patch #6449835: another patch only for Budgeting & Planning (Patch 4.5.39.5) for Russian language translation enablement.

For further details about the certifications and for patch README files, go to My Oracle Support.

Oracle ECM Upcoming Events

Are You Going to AIIM?

March 30-April 2,Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

If you are planning to attend the AIIM International Exposition and Conference, e-mail us and we can arrange an executive one-on-one meeting to discuss your implementations and future product road maps. At the booth you can meet with our partners and watch a presentation in the mini-theater. Also be sure to watch the keynote speech on Tuesday at 8:45 a.m., where four Oracle customer executives will discuss how they communicated the value of ECM to their business. Register now for AIIM.

COLLABORATE 09 - IOUG Stellent SIG

May 3-7, Orlando, Florida

The IOUG Stellent SIG hosted four popular technical sessions at this year's Oracle OpenWorld conference on SIG Sunday. Similar sessions will be scheduled again at next year's conference, but you'll find even more technical sessions at the upcoming COLLABORATE 09 conference in May. Register for COLLABORATE 09 to get valuable insights to Stellent and Oracle Content Management products.

Contribution By Angela Golla

Oracle Application ExpressOracle Application Express (Oracle APEX) is a rapid web application development tool for the Oracle database. Using only a web browser and limited programming experience, you can develop and deploy professional applications that are both fast and secure.New built-in capabilities for Application Express 3.2 include Forms Conversion and additional security enhancements. Learn more about this new tool at:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/application_express/index.html

EBS, Alert Log, Bad Code, APEX, Windows, JDEV, BI Publisher

EBS

At the Oracle E-Business Suite Technology blog this week:

Certified Oracle RAC Scenarios for Oracle E-Business Suite Cloning

Alert Log

Global Oracle Contractors Network blog has a posting on programmatic 

probing of the alert log. Very handy functionality, though of course 

you can also get this using OEM, but the direct program access will let 

you dig for specifics you may be looking for as an event driver in your 

monitoring system.

Bad Code

The BexHuff blog has a postingo on historically bad ideas in software. 

The question there is what do you think? Some of the ideas mentioned 

are pretty well entrenched and have many advocates. Are you one of  

those advocates? Here's a chance for a dialog on this.

APEX

There's a new release of APEX out there. Take a look at the posting on 

it at the Inside Oracle APEX blog.

Windows

This is at a PeopleSoft blog, PSST0101, but it's about Windows, not 

PSoft. Ever have updates come in overnight and find your box has 

restarted in the night? Good for security, but something of a pain if 

you had a batch file that didn't run because of it or another long 

process that was cut off. So here is a way to prevent that.

JDEV

Here is a posting, refering to another, that will help you open the 

JDEV IDE faster for quick code changes: JDev IDE: defaulting to the 

source code editor for web pages at the one size doesn't fit all blog.

BI Publisher

Tim Dexter over at the Oracle BI Publisher blog points out a new blog, A BI Publisher's Diary... If Tim likes it, it's likely to be worthwhile.

Contributions By Angela Golla

Do you need more information about upgrading to E-Business Suite R12? Check out this useful Metalink note Note 567515.1 . It provides links to key documents and references concerning the upgrade process.

Oracle E-Business Suite News and Articles

Go Green with Oracle Content Management

Organizations are constantly looking for ways to cut costs, but don’t realize that
those cost cutting measures may also have positive environmental effects that can
increase goodwill and shareholder value. Oracle Fusion Middleware solutions
provide tremendous return on investment, but also make your organization more
environmentally conscious or “green” by cutting the consumption of electricity,
paper, fossil fuels, and the emission of greenhouse gases.

To quantify these efforts, Oracle has created the Oracle Document
Management Green Calculator. This online tool, and the accompanying
spreadsheet, will enable you to see how your organization can effect environmental
change by moving printed information online.

E-Business Suite Advisor Webcasts
(Requires Metalink login)
Schedule for upcoming Advisor Webcasts on Oracle E-Business Suite, Communications Apps and Database.