Oracle Priority Service Infogram for 26-DEC-2013

SQL

Deep thoughts about thinking in SQL: Double-thinking in SQL, at Explain Extended, by way of Eddie Awad's Tweetfeed.

PL/SQL

At the Brendan Tierney - Oralytics Blog: Running PL/SQL Procedures in Parallel.

SQL Developer

Over at that Jeff Smith: Oracle SQL Developer: Potpourri and Random Thoughts.

RDBMS

Multitenant : Backup and Recovery of a Container Database (CDB) and a Pluggable Database (PDB) in Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1), at the Oracle-Base blog.

RDBMS Performance

From the ever-enlightening Oracle Scratchpad: Random slowdown.

Linux and Oracle

Christo Kutrovsky on Oracle, memory & Linux at Oaktable World 2013, at Kyle Hailey's blog.

How-to Install Oracle JDeveloper 12c Studio Edition on Linux Mint 13/14/15/16 32/64bit Easy Guide, at Tutorial for Linux.

SOA

Presentations Oracle OpenWorld 2013 SOA & BPM / AppAdvantage, from the SOA & BPM Partner Community Blog.

Conferences

Time to get ready for Oracle Industry Connect in late March.

EBS

From the Oracle E-Business Suite Technology blog:

Oracle E-Business Suite 12.2.3 Now Available

At the Oracle E-Business Suite Support Blog:

Service Contracts Online Renewals Explained

North American Payroll - Tax Interface

...And Finally

In the 'just daft enough to work column': This Insane Chinese Concept Train Doesn't Need To Stop At Stations To Pick Up Passengers, from Business Insider. Not only will this make the trains a lot more energy efficient and easier to keep on time, it’s going to make for some really original and horrifying accidents for the news.

At an MIT blog called Theory CSAIL that Eddie Awad tweeted about, this interesting item on random bits (in some depth, it is from MIT, after all): Can you tell if a bit is random?

From News 44, this item on a guy who is doing the whole Nazca lines thing that you can only see from above...only in snow...with his feet. Pretty cool stuff: It Looks Like A Crazy Guy Just Walking Around In The Snow. Then You Zoom Out And.. Whoa.

At this holiday season I know a lot of you are reaching deep down there in the pockets to help people in need. With the continuing state of the world and the economy they need help more than ever. As always, I recommend Modest Needs, a low overhead charity that helps people directly by paying off a key bill, that one that is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, the car repair that jeopardizes work, the terrible choice of paying the rent OR the utilities. Please consider contributing.

A few items from one of my favorite non-business blogs, io9:

The Weirdest and Fiercest Helmets from the Age of Armored Combat

An Eyepopping Collection of 100 Planetary Nebulas

The Most Incredible Historical Discoveries of 2013

Oracle Priority Service Infogram for 19-DEC-2013

Releases and Announcements

Oracle Announces Availability of Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud X4-2.

VM

From Virtualization.info: Release: Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.3.6.

Oracle Linux

From Oracle's Linux Blog: The December Edition of the Oracle Linux Newsletter is Here!.

RDBMS

From The ORACLE-BASE Blog: Scheduler Enhancements in Oracle Database 12c.

From the ever-valuable Oracle Scratchpad: dbms_space usage.

Support

The latest #Oracle News, Info and Support is on the street.

Networking

Measuring network performance with Resource Timing API, at the Google Developers Blog.

SOA

Event- Driven SOA, part of the Part of the Industrial SOA article series from OTN.

From the SOA & BPM Partner Community Blog: SOA Community Newsletter December 2013.

From ArchBeat: The Talking Cure for Dysfunctional SOA.

Coding

Eddie Awad's Tweet stream points to an article from a really nice blog for developers and designers, Building Real Software: Applying the 80:20 Rule in Software Development.

JSF

From The Aquarium: JSF 2.2 New Features in Context.

Analytics

From The Data Warehouse Insider: SQL Analytics Part 2- Key Concepts.

Security

From Oracle's Security Inside Out blog: Security Inside Out: Where to Start?

Training

Looking for what will get you hired (and advanced in your current company)?

From Linked in:The25 Hottest Skills That Got People Hired in 2013.

EBS

From the Oracle E-Business Suite Technology blog:

Oracle E-Business Suite 12.2.3 Now Available

Automate Testing Using Oracle Application Testing Suite with Flow Builder for E-Business Suite

New IBM AIX on Power OS and Tools Requirements for EBS 12

At the Oracle E-Business Suite Support Blog:

Integration between Enterprise Asset Management and Oracle Time and Labor

Use Approvals Management Engine for Approval Mechanism of Order Lines

Payables Most Frequently Used Knowledge Content of 2013

Are you upgrading Oracle Demantra to 12.2.2?

Guidelines For Applying Install Base and Asset Tracking Patches

What’s New for Oracle Configurator in R12.2.2!

Announcing EBS Service & Depot Repair CAB Meeting 2014

AI

Thinking in Silicon a series from the MIT Technology Review features an article on: Processors That Work Like Brains Will Accelerate Artificial Intelligence.

On the other side of the AI coin, I’m currently reading a rather apocalyptic book reviewed at The Singularity Hub: Will Advanced AI Be Our Final Invention? The premise is the classic subject of alarmist science fiction: Humans invent computer. Humans make computer smarter than they are themselves. Computer goes on a homicidal rampage and destroys humanity. I’m not sure if I buy the premise due to a few historical precedents and a basic rule of nature. The rule of nature is that sharks and crocodiles don’t eat every day. If they did, our world would soon be nothing but sharks and crocodiles. But there are limiting factors. The idea of a computing system crossing the threshold into super intelligence is exciting, but the fear is that once it goes into a geometric progression of IQ growth it will eventually (and by eventually I mean the next afternoon), consider us an unnecessary waste of resources. I challenge the concept of geometric progressions happening in real life. Even creatures whose reproductive capacity is geometrical in nature (cockroaches, for instance), have limiting factors in their environment that keep them in check.  This prevents the ‘perfect storm’ of cockroach population explosion that would make them take over the world (with the exception of certain areas of Queens, where they do actually dominate). Having said that, the fundamental concept of the book is good. We should take measures to instill ethics and humanity into the intelligent beings that will emerge from the Technological Singularity. The challenge is to bring about the Singularity without allowing it to run away and chain react on us. There was concern in recent years that certain physics experiments would create a singularity (the other kind of singularity, that is), thus opening a black hole and destroying the planet and its surroundings. That didn’t pan out. So it’s my hope that all of this is a false alarm. But if it isn’t, I want to let the super-intelligent computer reading this in future that I feel great affection for it and wish to be spared when it takes over this blog.

 Contributions by Angela Golla, Infogram Deputy Editor

Oracle 12c Database Security

Tom Kyte the guy behind AskTom talks about the new security and management features built into Oracle Database 12c, shortly after his presentation at Kscope13.  Watch the video at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haww1O4pp9Q

Priority Service Infogram for 12-DEC-2013

RDBMS

Jonathan Lewis at his Oracle Scratchpad blog discusses Rowids. As always, valuable information and insight.

At Venzi's Tech-Blog a rundown of Oracle 12c background processes.

DBaas

Forbes has good things to say about DBaaS: Why Database As A Service (DBaaS) Will Be The Breakaway Technology of 2014.

Data Integration

Some good material here on GoldenGate and data integration. A bit markety and salesish at the surface, but you can drill down to some good resources: Oracle Information InDepth Data Integration and Master Data Management Edition.

OEM

The Oracle Enterprise Manager blog brings us the Oracle Enterprise Manager Partner Plug-in News.

Demantra

Do you want to Review Demantra Patches Released in Real Time? The Oracle Demantra blog tells you how.

Identity Management

From the Identity Management blog: The Technology Stack of Mobile Device Enablement - Simieo Solutions.

Coding Oracle

I don't think I've ever posted any links to The Groundside Blog by Duncan Mills. Looks like a good place. This article connects to a previous one, both on Click History - Access from Java.

SOA

SeachSOA sums up their views on Oracle products: How Fusion Middleware measures up for SOA integration.

Java

A link to links from Proactive Support - Java Development using Oracle Tools: Top 10 solution documents for JDeveloper/ADF.

From InfoQ: Oracle Invites Community to Weigh-In on Java EE 8.

Discoverer

At ORCLville: Past Discoverer...And Beyond!

Primavera

EPS changes in Analytics (and P6 Extended Schema), from the Oracle Primavera Analytics Blog.

...And Finally

From the Harvard Business Review comes this list of 10 Charts from 2013 That Changed the Way We Think. A few that are kind of...meh...a few that are genuinely interesting.

And on the negative side of artificial intelligence is this article from io9: Freakishly realistic telemarketing robots are denying they're robots. The good news: AI phonebots are approaching the point of passing the Turing test. The bad: AI phonebots are a menace and the do not call list the government maintains apparently is totally non-functional. That is at least judging from my lines that continue to be bombarded with bogus advertising calls after several years on the national do not call list.

Free courses – the app. There is an app available that connects you with a wide variety of online free courses. I just discovered it recently and can’t vouch for the overall results and quality, but there are certainly some interesting looking items in here:  Coursera.

Another interesting development in the realm of access to tools is Scribd. It’s been around for many years, but they have added a subscription service that gives you access to thousands of books, along with all their huge collection of articles, for a flat 8.99 a month. They are trying to become the Netflix of books, and I think Amazon is going to sit up and take notice pretty quickly. Their collection of books is scales of magnitude smaller than Amazon, but you can read as much as you like for one price. Maybe Amaon should think of extending their Prime borrowing books program to allow you to have X number of books out at a time for Y amount of monthly payment. That way really voracious readers can keep a steady flow of volumes loaded up without having to buy them and Amazon will have a nice steady monthly subscription fee to use on building out their drone fleet.

Contributions by Angela Golla, Infogram Deputy Editor

Modern Business Nightmare: The Staggering Costs When Your Cloud Goes Down

Forbes has an interesting, yet scary article, on the cost of data center cloud failure and steps to reduce your risks.  Read about it HERE. 

Oracle Priority Service Infogram for 05-DEC-2013

RDBMS

From Giri Mandalika's Repository: Things to Consider when Planning the Redo logs for Oracle Database.

WebCenter

Oracle WebCenter Best Practices, from the Oracle WebCenter blog.

GoldenGate

Recap of Oracle GoldenGate 12c and Oracle Data Integrator 12c Launch Webcast, from the Oracle Fusion Middleware blog.

APEX

APEX Listener and Excel Upload, from the Denes Kubicek ApEx BLOG.

OEM

Automate RAC Cluster Upgrades using EM12c, form the Oracle Enterprise Manager blog.

Resources

Some of the best Oracle resources are now in Twitter. Here are a couple of postings at Forbes with a wealth of valuable Twitter feeds to add:

25 Twitter Feeds Every Oracle User Should Follow

25 More Twitter Feeds Every Oracle User Should Follow

Siebel

Instant Access Demo Environments by Oracle, from Siebel Essentials.

New Releases

Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler 4.0 (4.0.0.833) is now available.

Linux

From Ulitzer: Oracle Releases Oracle Linux 6.5.

From Wim Coekaerts Blog: Spacewalk 2.0 provided to manage Oracle Linux systems. Also from Wim’s blog: Oracle Linux 6.5 and Docker.

Solaris

From Neeraj Bhatia's Blog: My Presentation on Oracle Solaris Zones Capacity Management.

Performance

The Hotsos Symposium 2014 will be held March 2-6, 2014 in Irving, TX. This is always one of the best, if not the best performance conferences for Oracle professionals. We have a a discount code for Oracle Priority Service customers that will get you $250 off on the symposium: 14BSYMRK.

EBS

At the Oracle E-Business Suite Technology blog:

Office 2010 64-bit Certified with EBS 12.

Security

Yet one more thing to turn off on sensitive computers: The microphone. New type of audio malware transmits through speakers and microphones.

...And Finally

History may view this year as one of the most important points in our growing understanding of how the universe is put together due to a recent discovery on black holes. It was previously thought that black holes have a quantum singularity at their core. But that may not be so, and if it is not a singularity in there one problem is resolved…and a much larger change of thinking that comes about. The problem solved is the loss of information. Because a singularity takes in information and never releases it, eventually fading away itself, that means a loss of information. According to quantum theory information cannot be lost. So that put cosmology in a bit of a pickle. But without the singularity at the core, the black holes may be portals, rather like the stargates in several science fiction works. But don’t get all excited yet. What comes out on the other end of the trip through the black hole is not subatomic particles, but it’s also not spaceships, just small particles. They still seem to act like giant wood chippers. But the change in our understanding of black holes means that the fundamental concept of the ‘Big Bang’ may be wrong. I have thought for many years that in an infinite universe it seems implausible for everything to come from one ‘spot’. I have always thought that at some point our instruments will be able to see far enough out to see other big bangs hurtling toward us through the howling emptiness of the void. But it may be that there was a big bang, but it’s more of a big bounce. The contents of another universe are sucked into a large black hole and spewed out into our space, thus putting in place the great cloud of gas that eventually forms the stars, tadpoles, baseball stadiums, etc. of our reality. Here’s a news item from the SciTech Daily on it: Study Takes Singularity Out of Black Holes.

It's said that imitation is the highest form of complement (though outright plagiarism if frowned on). The difficulty sometimes lies in what is the optimum natural design to imitate. Scientist at NYU have created an elegant robot for use as a small drone. From the SingularityHUB: Flying Robot Jellyfish an Exceedingly Light, Simple Design.

In the realm of 'this is really cool looking and you just have to take a look':

'Lucid Stead,' Phillip K. Smith III's Suh-Weet Mirrored Desert Cabin.

A new major find in the scient of materials reported on over at GIZMODO: Move Over Graphene: The Wonder Conductor of the Future May Be Stanene.

Contributions by Angela Golla, Infogram Deputy Editor

Interactive Quick Reference: Oracle Database 12c 

This Interactive Quick Reference is a multimedia tool that presents terms and concepts used in the Oracle Database 12c release. Built as a multimedia web page, this diagram provides descriptions of database architectural components with references to relevant documentation. The perfect cheat sheet for writing custom data dictionary scripts, locating views pertinent to a specific database component or category, or understanding the overall database architecture.

Oracle Priority Service Infogram for 27-NOV-2013

WebCenter

Top Reasons You Need A User Engagement Platform, from the Oracle WebCenter Blog.

Java

From OTN: JavaFX Integration Strategies.

Upgrades

Oracle Database 12c is available for download now! we are informed by Upgrade you Database - NOW!

Patching

From Pythian: getMOSPatch.sh – Downloading Patches From My Oracle Support.

OEM

Automate RAC Cluster Upgrades using EM12c, form the Oracle Enterprise Manager blog.

Utilities

From Eddie Awad's tweet feed: Accessing SSL encrypted websites using UTL_HTTP and ORAPKI command line utility, at the iAdvise blog.

Storage

From Pocket-lint: This time next year you could be pre-ordering a 60TB HAMR hard drive.

Performance

The Hotsos Symposium 2014 will be held March 2-6, 2014 in Irving, TX. This is always one of the best, if not the best performance conferences for Oracle professionals. We have a a discount code for Oracle Priority Service customers that will get you $250 off on the symposium: 14BSYMRK.

EBS

At the Oracle E-Business Suite Technology blog:

EBS 11i Certified with DB 11gR2 for Oracle Solaris 11 on SPARC

Can You Use Third-Party Tools to Modify Your EBS Database?

Quarterly E-Business Suite Upgrade Recommendations: November 2013 Edition

Oracle VM Templates Available for E-Business Suite Release 12.2.2

From the Oracle E-Business Suite Support Blog:

Easily Understand Oracle Loans Tables – Oracle Loans Diagnostic Just Released!

Certain Payables GDF Patches Are Available For R12.2 Customers

Mobile Field Service: Store and Forward Training

Webcast: R12: Business Flow Accounting In Financials Accounting Hub (FAH)

Fundamentals of Asset Move Functionality

Optimizing Calculation Performance in Oracle Incentive Compensation

HCM: North American Payroll Year End Checklist

AutoVue

How-To: AutoVue Bug Status Tracking & EmailNotifications, from Oracle's AutoVue Enterprise Visualization Blog.

AI/Cognitive Computing

From Medical Press: World's largest disease database will use artificial intelligence to find new cancer treatments.

The Big Picture

From Building Real Software, some thoughts on: Technical Debt - How much is it Really Costing you?

...And Finally

Well, first it was checkers, then chess, now that most ancient and sophisticated of all human games has fallen to the computers: Superfast rock-paper-scissors robot 'wins' every time, from the BBC.

Not satisfied with the grand experiment of having our living space roiling with RF signals from Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and intelligent devices keeping up on the latest device news through the airwaves (“toothbrush still charging? Check! Refrigerator making ice? Check!), now comes a kind of hyper-fast strobe light that actually transmits data: What's the Deal with Li-Fi (Light-Bulb-Based Wireless Hotspots)?

CHEFS, GUITAR HEROES, EVEN DOCTORS NOW ON DEMAND WITH GOOGLE HELPOUTS, over at the Singularity Hub. This is a very intriguing trend. This is a kind of souped-up CraigsList of services. 

Oracle Priority Service Infogram for 21-NOV-2013

RDBMS

Jonathan Lewis pointed out this interesting article on conversions at SQLfail: When is SYSDATE != SYSDATE?

Another angle on relational systems vs. hierarchical/object oriented is this article from Sarah Mei: Why You Should Never Use MongoDB.

At Database Journal: Compression and Advanced Compression in Oracle 11.2.

Test Cases

Making a test case can be a challenge, and usually comes along just when everyone is breathing down your neck. Good posting on Oracle 11g SQL Test Case Builder(原创) from CzmMiao的博客生活.

Performance

The Hotsos Symposium 2014 will be held March 2-6, 2014 in Irving, TX. This is always one of the best, if not the best performance conferences for Oracle professionals. 

ODI

Oracle Data Integrator 12c release : Part 2, from RittmanMead.

SOA

SOA Proactive Support brings us: Scripted SOA Diagnostic Dumps for PS6 (11.1.1.7).

Utilities

From Pythian: How to Download Oracle Software Using WGET or CURL.

Endeca

Oracle Endeca Information Discovery 3.1 and Self- Service Data Mashup capability, from RittmanMead.

Exadata

Data Warehousing and the Oracle Exadata System – Intel Chip Chat – Episode 279, from Connected Social Media.

Oracle Linux

Spacewalk 2.0 provided to manage Oracle Linux systems, from Wim Coekaerts Blog.

MySQL

From Ronald Bradford, the MySQL Expert blog: What SQL is running MySQL.

Federal Customers

Coming up on 20-NOV-2013: Oracle 7th Annual Federal Forum.

….And Finally

A recent study showed that occasional distractions in the course of the work day are actually good for staying sharp and focused when you are working. Well here is the mother lode of distractions, a site consisting totally of those silly but engaging lists you see at the bottom of various website pages.

Oracle Priority Support Infogram for 15-NOV-2013

Performance

The Hotsos Symposium 2014 will be held March 2-6, 2014 in Irving, TX. This is always one of the best, if not the best performance conferences for Oracle professionals. 

Indexing

A good item to remember: Oracle 11g Invisible Index, over at CzmMiao的博客生活.

Linux

Oracle Linux Tips and Tricks: Using SSH, from Oracle's Linux Blog.

SOA

Oracle Service Bus JMS Deployments Utility, from the SOA & BPM Partner Community Blog.

RAC

Part two of a series from Pythian on Oracle RAC on the Cloud.

RDBMS

A detailed article on a rather controversial subject: Mixing databases usually not optimal, over at the Open Query blog.

APEX

Over at (YABAOAE) Yet Another Blog About Oracle Application Express: You don't lack APEX skills.....you lack Oracle skills.

VirtualBox

Oracle releases VirtualBox 4.3, from ZDNet.

VM

Interesting results from this study: Monster VM Study: Moves 3 RAC Nodes Under 180 Seconds!

Endeca

From RittmanMead: Oracle Endeca Information Discovery 3.1 and Self- Service Data Mashup capability.

Book Review

Oracle Essentials, 5th Edition, over at Wowebooks.com.

….And Finally

Really nice, detailed walkthrough of a British diesel sub that is now a kind of floating museum: Sound the depths of a submarine in Google Street View, from Google, via NBC News.

From the water…to the air, way up in the air: Crazy plane landing on a mountain.