Coopers Consulting Solutions Limited

A while ago now the UK mobile phone operator Orange announced that they would be starting to sell the iPhone (as soon as the UK exclusivity deal with Vodafone had ended).

As a business customer of Orange I registered my interest in having one. For the last 3 years I have been using a Blackberry 8800 on the Orange network. To be honest I have been very happy with it; it has been a useful tool to have with me on the road and out on client sites. So happy with it that I guess the only thing that would make me give up the BB is if I had chance to swap it for an iPhone.

Anyway a few weeks ago the telephone call came through from the Orange Business Customer Services team, and I duly jumped in and bagged a 32gig iPhone 3Gs. The upgrade deal being offered was exceptionally tempting (especially the all-inclusive data usage), and the 600 monthly minutes of inclusive talk time, and 200 texts, per month over an 18 month contract was no dearer than my current BB tariff.

And so a week later that magical white box arrived and thus started my journey into iPhone ownership.

I’ll admit that I was prepared for some degree of upheaval. The act of changing handsets is never easy, and switching from the BB to the iPhone did mean I was forced to re-evaluate my Contacts database before executing the synchronisation. This proved to be a bit of a cleansing moment, enabling me to break free from the many hundreds of accumulated numbers of people that I have not spoken to in years, of purging old saved numbers for people who have long since changed numbers.

However it would seem that that was the easy task….

Once I had my new phone updated with a (now) streamlined contacts database, the full reality of what I had done began to sink in.

First to hit home was the loss of my custom ring-tone.

I am happy to admit that I did not get into the big “ring tone download” scene that seemed to sweep the UK (and probably elsewhere) a few years ago. For a while (with my much older Nokia and Motorola Flip phones) I had simply hacked down an MP3 of a particular favourite Beastie Boys track and uploaded on the phone. It became my own ring tone (a sort of trade mark or signature tune) for my phone. And so I happily ported it between handsets, with it eventually ending up on the BB.

But now it was gone.

Second thing to hit home was getting to grips with the text-entry interface. I’m not sure who was ultimately responsible for the design, but I assume that they were a nimble-fingered person, whose digits were pointy and precise! I may be middle-aged, but my fingers have yet to descend into resembling some of Walls’ ™ finest! However I still found the entry of text to be painstaking! The margins between hitting the right “key” and the wrong one appear to be wafer thin.

The final home truth was the “single application running” (I’m sure there is a better turn of phrase for this).

Sure, its primary duty is a phone. And wow, the email facility does seem to run in the pseudo background. But the dawning reality of it all was, if I switched from my Twitter App to email or some other app, I would not get any further notification of new Tweets. Come on now Apple! Even my beloved BB was capable of supporting multiple processes running concurrently. The push email was superb, and the Twitter application would happily sit in the background and wink the little “red eye” when new tweets came in! Moving over to the iPhone was like moving from a polyphonic keyboard to a the Stylophone ™

Maybe they have all this technology and capability, but wish to drip feed it to the public, forcing regular upgrades, thus perpetuating the revenue streams….

Anyway, the deed is done. I have made my bed, jumped onto the iPhone bandwagon, and will have to lump-it-and-like it. I’m sure it will grow on me. But for now I will refrain from selling-on my old BB handset and hang onto it just in case of emergencies.

This weekend signals the end of Metalink.

Some will cheer “good riddance”, and welcome with open arms the new all-singing, all-dancing, “My Oracle Support”. Others, like me, may reflect on the demise of a stalwart of Oracle’s public-facing persona’s

With it’s configurable widgets, and shiny colours, the new Oracle Support site certainly conveys a sense of modernity that simply did not exist with Metalink. But then Metalink harks back to a bygone era of the Web, where functionality and form were the key attributes of a web site; where the phrase “user experience” was just a glint in the PR-man’s eye; where the key aim was to accept input, process and return results in a simple manner, with no thought to making the output pretty, or integrated, or encapsulated in Web 2.0 bubble wrap.

Sure Metalink had its foibles. The fact no matter how many times you set-up and saved your preferences in the “My Metalink News” option, the new items never seemed to fully reflect them. Or the fact that the search facility required an eccentric and devious turn of phrase to construct a search criteria that would actually bring back the results you really wanted, rather than just 100 hits of pages with a loose affiliation to some of the key words.

Nevertheless, it was used by countless thousands of users, managers, developers, hackers, day-in day-out for what seems like a lifetime. A constant companion and resource in an ever-changing world of technology.

I know Oracle have been pushing us hard over the last few months to ‘upgrade’ to the “new experience”, however i cannot be the only one who persisted in  checking the “use classic interface” option whilst logging in?

I’m also sure i cannot be the only one, who in the last few months run-up to this weekend’s big switch-off, have extended their use of 3rd-party sites, forums, blogs and even Google, in a bid to seek enlightenment, rather than tangle with the new beast.

Perhaps this is the price we must pay for “progress”. I will miss the ‘old fella’

Farewell, and good bye, to Metalink. You have served me well.

As alluded to in an earlier post, I have received a copy of this book from those splendid people at Packt Publishing (www.PacktPub.com) to review.

Foreword

I have several technical books by Packt within my expanding library (all paid for I hasten to add – this is most definitely the first ‘freebee’ I’ve had). Without exception they have all been excellent reads / references, but none quite match the weighty tomb of the UPK 3.5 book that landed on the door mat. At just under 500 pages (excluding index) it is certainly a sizeable reference indeed.

I have written and presented technical training classes in my time, and quite often have to perform TOI sessions as part of my current engagement. However I have absolutely no exposure to UPK save for an excellent article I read in the Oracle Scene magazine last year. As it say’s on the rear cover, “this book has been written for new or intermediate training developers…” so I guess I should be an ideal test.

Oracle User Productivity Kit – The review

First impressions are that this book is well thought out for the beginner. It is structured such that it gently breaks-in the new user to the power of the product by taking you through a basic example, and then showing you how to amend and add to the content.

The topics are well thought out, with content topics grouped into logically related chapters. Thus the initial “Topic Editing” chapter sensibly touches on tasks that would be common to all users; namely adding Bubble Text and simple recording adjustments (such as adding in extra frames or re-capturing existing frames).

Once you are familiar with the basic steps of recording and editing your content, and are happy with how you organize and manage the content, the book then takes you through the process of publishing the content. UPK provides the ability to publish electronically, or via printed media (as in user manuals etc).

Electronic publishing is achieved via several methods; either using the dedicated UPK content player, via HTML web pages, or via an LMS package. As one who is familiar with the Oracle Learning Management module and who has done a lot of work with e-Learning, the LMS option was of particular interest.

The printed content publishing options were also extensive, and the ability to generate content that integrates with HP Quality Centre (or Mercury TestDirector as I knew it) is a nice touch that would go down well with larger organizations (including my present assignment I should add).

There is even the option to integrate your published content into the application itself – so the option to generate better context-specific help text and training into your production systems to enhance / supplant existing OEM help files is an option that would be beneficial to large application users. I’m thinking here that this product would have been a godsend on my current engagement, as the training of end-users has been a vast, expensive, and labour-intensive project in its own right.

One could argue that at this point in the book, the job is done. The reader has been given an overview of how to record, edit and publish the content. What more is there to know?

This is where this book starts to score (and effectively justify its price tag).

The topic of Version Management/Control is covered in enough detail relevant to UPK content. This is handy if you have (or plan to have) multiple developers generating and editing content as a collective collaborative project. Most development projects always benefit from some form of source control system, and I see no reason why this should not include the development of training materials.

Conditional branching and alternative actions within recorded content is something that I had not come across (or even thought about) before. One assumed that pre-recorded training content forced the users to follow the prescribed path. However UPK provides the ability to add in alternative actions, and multiple end-points for the recorded material. Thus if you work with an application that allows some task or other to be achieve in multiple ways (say a ‘short route’ for the expert user, and a ‘long route’ for the novice) then you can record and build these routes and paths into the training content. Fantastic idea!

Another area where UPK scores is with its ability to incorporate sound (i.e. speech) into the content. Pre-recorded sound files can be attached to individual pieces of text within a frame, which could be beneficial for, say, partially sighted users requiring verbal hints or confirmation of actions. Alternatively you can attach a single sound file for an entire frame within your content. One thing I did not see (and could not determine) was whether there was anyway to provide proper synchronisation of the recorded sound with the user actions. My guess is that this is not possible; so the frame sound file would play regardless of how quickly the user was interacting with the frame actions.

The book ends with a couple of chapters squarely aimed at advanced users (or installations). There is extensive coverage on how to alter the configuration of UPK, including changing the existing templates, replacing default icons with your own graphics, even as far as defining your own output document formats. As a novice user I glossed over this section, although a glance through showed me that most of the configuration files seemed to be XML based, so should prove to be quite simple to grasp and modify for the experienced users.

The other ‘advanced user’ chapter covered the topic of localising the content in your own language.

And there you have it. UPK in a nutshell.

Gripes?

I guess my biggest gripe with this book is the screenshots. They are all black-and-white. There are references very early on in the book which talk of specific coloured borders on active windows, and green/red indicators on the recorder bar. This is all lost when all you see are monochrome images. I appreciate that using colour images would (probably) increase the production (and therefore selling) costs of this book, but its an irritation. One wonders whether the eBook version could provide the colour screenshots instead?

As a new-comer I found the frequent references back to product differences between the historic product versions marginally distracting. Whilst the expert user may have found such product difference explanations of value I just wondered whether these could have simply been tagged with a reference number for a fuller explanation within their own chapter / appendix at the back of the book. It certainly would have removed some of the ‘clutter’ in some sections.

One plus-point to note was that you only got introduced to configurable items (options) as and when it became necessary. This was useful as a way of breaking in the new user gently to the large number of configuration settings that UPK has to offer without overloading.

In summary

For me, the book does exactly what it sets out to do. I have been given an excellent introduction to UPK, what it can do, and (more importantly) how to do it. Whilst it does not make me an experience user of it, should the need arise on any future engagements, at least I will have sufficient knowledge to hit the ground running. The author clearly demonstrates his knowledge of the product, and more importantly, knows how to convey this knowledge across to the uninitiated.

Existing users of the product would also benefit from this book. Whilst this is a large book to carry around, it should prove its worth in the ‘desk real-estate’ that it takes up by providing a handy reference guide. It is well indexed, and the chapters are neatly and logically collected and laid out.

I feel even experienced users may get some value out of having a copy as an aide-memoir.

I’d like to thank Packt Publishing for giving me the opportunity to review this book. I’d like to think that perhaps I could review some other titles (Oracle or otherwise) in the future.

For the interested, here’s the link to the book http://www.packtpub.com/oracle-user-productivity-kit-upk-3-5?utm_source=coopersconsultingsolutions.com&utm_medium=bookrev&utm_content=blog&utm_campaign=mdb_001016

I know that it has been a while since my last blog posting here; pressures of tight deadlines with my current engagement have kept me surprisingly busy, coupled to a hectic time on the farm at home have meant that I’ve not had the spare time to write anything.

 However that said I do have some good news to whet ones appetite…

Packt Publishing (www.packtpub.com), who are responsible for an excellent (and growing) library of technical reference books on a wide variety of topics, have kindly asked if I would do a review on one of their new titles.

Due to be released soon, is the latest in their growing range of Oracle titles: “Oracle User Productivity Kit (UPK) 3.5”

As soon as I’ve received the review copy (and had a good read of it) I will post my review here.

Apart from that, I also have sitting on my desk the complete media pack for Oracle EBS 12.1.1 – I’m hoping to get this installed onto one of my spare machines in the very near future so that I can have a play with some of the exciting new functionality I saw demo’d at OHUG this year.

This is a brief summary on a couple of items of interest to Payroll users that are out in the latest RUP4 for EBS 11i. This information was presented at this year’s OHUG in Las Vegas. I have also posted this (as my first post) on the Oracle Contractors Network Blog

Generate Run Balance and Retro-Notification Report Performance

The first item is on the performance of the “Generate Run Balance” and “Retro-notification Report” processes, both of which have had their fair share of bad press on the performance front, especially with large payroll customers. The change is quite subtle: There is the addition of range PERSON_ID functionality which is designed to improve the performance of the cursor that generates the assignment actions. By enabling filter-at-source there is a reduction in the processing overhead in downstream processing.

This option is only activated via a parameter in PAY_ACTION_PARAMETERS. The parameter is RANGE_PERSON_ID which needs to be set to Y to enable the option. This makes its implementation quite neat, as it allows users to experiment to see whether performance gains are made. It also allows customers with multiple payrolls, of varying sizes, to target only their larger payrolls by use of Action Parameter Groups.

Balance Feed Purge

A couple of enhancements to the “Balance Feed Purge” concurrent program have been made. Firstly the purging operation run through the concurrent program has been made multi-threaded.

Secondly, a new parameter has been added to the program. The parameter is “Assignment Batch Size” – The default value is 1000. It has been provided to allow customers to specify the batch deletion commit unit size.

Retro Notification Report

An additional parameter has been added to the “Retro Notifications Report (Enhanced) – PDF”. The parameter is “Generate Report”. It provides a ’switch’ to prevent generation of the actual report!

This has been introduced to improve overall performance of the retropay activity when only the processing of the retro elements is required and that there is no requirement to analyze or review the data to be processed (by the report).

 

I did say it was a brief summary

I would like to thank and Acknowledge Brian Bellamy, Senior Director EBS Payroll and Localizations in Oracle, for providing the information in the first instance

Shame on me for not getting around to this sooner! Thank you to those who took the trouble to comment on the first part of this ‘project’ – several of you have been asking for part 2 so hopefully your wait would not have been in vain…

So, as a recap. If you have gone through the steps featured in part one of this, you should have a machine with CentOS 5.3 installed, and with various settings configured ready for the Oracle install.

At the time of originally doing this install, the latest version of EBS was 12.0.4. I am aware that 12.0.6 and 12.1 are now out, however for the purposes of continuity I am proceeding with the 12.0.4 install. When I get around to doing it, I will document a 12.1 install.

Groups and Users

The following groups and users need to be created on the system. As these instructions assume a single-user/single-node installation of EBS we do not need an “applmgr” user. Execute the following commands as specified, from the “root” account…

groupadd oinstall
groupadd dba
groupadd oper
groupadd apache

Note that the apache group may already exist. Next we need to create the users and assign them to the groups…

useradd –g oinstall –G dba oracle
passwd oracle 
useradd –g oinstall –G apache apache
passwd apache

Again note that the apache user may already exist.

As can be seen, for my installation I have set the passwords to be the same as the usernames.

Create install directory

It is best practice to adhere to the Oracle Flexible Architecture (OFA) configuration for RDBMS / Applications installation directory structures irrespective of how your hardware may be configured. To this end you will need to issue the following commands (as the “root” account) which will create the top-level directory node into which the Oracle software will be installed…

mkdir –p /u01
chown –R oracle:oinstall /u01

Modify the Oracle user profile

Login as the oracle user and add the following to the end of the .bash_profile file. To modify this file ensure that your are in the default home directory of the oracle user…

cd

or

cd $HOME

Then issue…

vi .bash_profile

The chances are this file is empty or does not exist (so a new file will be created). These are the lines to add:

# Added for Oracle 10g
if [ $USER = “oracle” ]; then
  if [ $SHELL = “/bin/ksh” ]; then
    ulimit –p 16384
    ulimit –n 65536
  else
    ulimit –u 16384 –n 65536
  fi
fi

Create and set-up the stage area

Next step is to set up the installation stage area for the Oracle Applications software. For my install I executed the following steps as the “root” account, and then retro-applied directory permission changes afterwards to ensure that there would be no access issues later…

mkdir /StageR12
cd /StageR12

This is the start here directory

mkdir startCD

This is for APPL_TOP

mkdir oraApps

This is for RDBMS

mkdir oraDB

This is for Tools

mkdir oraAS

This is for databases

mkdir oraAppDB

Once this is done you then need to copy across the contents of the DVD’s / CD’s into the appropriate directories. The media is clearly labelled to assist. Note that this is a lengthy (and tedious) process. It should also be noted that there is (apparently) a PERL script that will do all of this for you. However I was unable to get this to execute correctly and so resorted to the manual methods above. Either way, you still need to be on hand to swap the media over as required. I would get a cup-of-tea and a good book to keep you company during this phase.

Once done you should end up with a stage directory structure that looks like this diagram:

 

Installing EBS

We’re now ready (at long last I hear you cry) to start the installation.

If you are not already in as oracle, log into your machine as the oracle user and open up a terminal session.

Start the Rapid Install Wizard by issuing the following commands:

cd /StageR12/startCD/Disk1/rapidwiz

chmod u+x rapidwiz

./rapidwiz

The following pages provide screenshots of typical rapidwiz install (although these are not the actual shots from my install – I was unable to screen-capture them!)

Welcome Screen

The rapidwiz executable will fire up a new GUI window. the first screen presented to you will be the welcome screen.

 

 

Select Wizard option

The next screen enables you to select the wizard operation. By default the screen looks like this:

 

 

However we wish to perform an Express Installation.

This sets up a fully configured single-user / single-machine system with a Vision Demo Database. By choosing to do an Express Installation the rapid install will use default values for many of the options. Check the “Use Express Install” checkbox and the click “Next”

Oracle Configuration Manager

Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM) is an optional component that is designed to facilitate support for your Oracle products. OCM provides continuous tracking of key Oracle and system statistics of the machine it is running on. The data collected by OCM is sent via secure HTTPS back to Oracle Support.

 

It is strongly recommended that you check the “Decline” checkbox. Remember that we are installing a trial / demo system for our own training purposes, and as such are not an officially licensed Oracle Applications Client! Click on the “Next” button.

Express Configuration Manager

The express configuration information screen prompts for minimal configuration values. Default values are provided for all fields.

 

In order for the install to proceed you will need to amend the Base Directory entry. Remember that earlier we created the top-node “/u01”? Click into the “Base Directory” entry box and replace the default “/d01” with “/u01”

The screen will automatically amend the entry in the Instance Directory field.

 

You can now click on the next button.

Validate System Configuration

Rapid install runs and displays a series of pre-install tests.

When the tests are complete then the pre-install check screen is displayed.

If there is an exclamation mark or X icon shown click on it to see the details stored during the checking process.

You may proceed with the installation if there are any exclamation marks or X icons shown, however the rapid install process will warn you with an alert screen. You are on your own if you do proceed however!

Assuming all is well with the pre-installation checks then you can click on the Next button to proceed with the installation.

Review and start the installation

You will be presented with the installation review screen…

Click on the next button

Click on the Yes button to proceed

Installation in progress

Whilst the installation is in progress you will see a progress screen similar to the one shown below…

You will be prompted at intervals to point rapid install at the filesystem location for the various install stage directories that we created earlier.

The installation on my machine took approximately 90 minutes to complete. This will vary depending on the machine resources and also whether you stage directories are on the PC or held on an external drive.

Post-install and finish rapidwiz

Assuming all the post install checks are successful you will see the following screen:

If any issues occur during the installation then you will see one or more X icons against the areas of concern. All being well you can click on the next button.

Click the finish button to exit the Rapid Install Wizard.

Post-installation tasks

There are a surprising number of post installation tasks that need to be carried out before you can really start to use the system.

I am not entirely sure of the correct sequence that these tasks need to be completed, so I have documented them in the order I executed them in. Apart from the Java/JRE issues that I encountered (see later) most other things seemed to go smoothly.

Modify the oracle shell profile

You need to modify the shell profile for the oracle user to ensure that all of the environment settings are correctly initialized upon login.

You would also need to perform this step if you plan to create and user other accounts on your machine (such as a named user account for development tasks).

Edit the .bash_profile file under the oracle user’s home directory. Open a terminal session.

cd $HOME
vi .bash_profile

You will need to add in the following extra lines at the end of the script.

# Additional items to set path for EBS
DB_HOME=/u01/oracle/VIS/db/tech_st/10.2.0; export DB_HOME
APPL_TOP=/u01/oracle/VIS/apps/apps_st/appl; export APPL_TOP
COMMON_TOP=/u01/oracle/VIS/inst/apps/VIS_localhost; export COMMON_TOP
# Now set environment
. $APPL_TOP/APPSVIS_localhost.env 

Create start-up and shut-down scripts

Obviously there are supplied scripts to start-up and shut-down the various services, however the following scripts make it a lot easier to shut down and start up the environment. I created 2 scripts, located in the home directory of the oracle user.

The ‘start_VIS.sh’ script looks like this…

# commands to start EBS
cd $DB_HOME
. ./VIS_localhost.env
cd $DB_HOME/appsutil/scripts/VIS_localhost
# start the listener
./addlnctl.sh start VIS
# start the database tier
./addbctl.sh start
cd $INST_TOP/admin/scripts
# start EBS services (apps tier)
./adstrtal.sh apps/apps
# start the internal conc manager
./adcmctl.sh start apps/apps

 and the ‘stop_VIS.sh’ script looks like this…

 # commands to shutdown instance
cd $INST_TOP/admin/scripts
# stop all EBS services (apps tier)
./adstpall.sh apps/apps
cd $DB_HOME
. ./VIS_localhost.env
cd $DB_HOME/appsutil/scripts/VIS_localhost
# stop the listener
./addlnctl.sh stop VIS
# stop the database
./addbctl.sh stop immediate

Make sure that you make these scripts executable by issuing the following commands:

chmod u+x start_VIS.sh
chmod u+x stop_VIS.sh

To run either, simply type

./start_VIS.sh

etc

Verify the OAM portal page

Once the installation is complete, the Oracle Applications manager portal page (formerly known as the rapid installation portal) can be accessed using the following information:

URL: http://localhost.localdomain:8000/OA_HTML/AppsLogin

Username is SYSADMIN and the password is SYSADMIN

The front screen of the portal looks something like this…

Apply latest JDK update

I came across several on-line references that suggested that I should apply the latest JDK/JRE versions to the apps tier and also install JRE on the database tier to ensure that the apps tier and DB tier match.

The Metalink note 384249.1 provides excellent details on how to upgrade the JDK on the apps tier, so I’ll not repeat them here, however it is an important post-install step.

Personally, I chose not to go with JDK 6.0 but stuck with JDK 5.0. I used JDK 5 update 13 (15013) simply because I already had the downloaded files to hand. All current and historic versions of JDK are downloadable from Sun. Whichever version you decide to go with you will need to use the FND_TOP program txkSetPlugin.sh to ensure that the correct JRE version is then updated into the various apps scripts.

References

Since this was quite a learning curve for me I did make extensive use of a variety of online resources to aide in the performing this install (and the post install steps). The ones from memory are as follows (and are in no particular order or importance, unless indicated)…

• Oracle Applications: Installation Guide using Rapid Install – Release 12 part number B31295-07
• Oracle Applications Installation and Upgrade Notes Release 12 for Linux (32-bit) – metalink note 402310.1
• Oracle Applications Release Notes Release 12 – metalink note 405293.1
• Using Latest update of JDK 5.0 with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 – metalink note 384249.1
• Overview of using Java with Oracle EBS Release 12 – metalink note 418664.1
• R12 Rapidwiz post install step HTTP, Login page, Virtual directory, JSP, Help page fails – metalink note 414414.1
• Installation notes – JDK 5.0 Linux (32-bit) – http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/install-linux.html
• Manual Installation and Registration of Java Plug-in – linux – http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/manual_install_linux.html

The following OTN forum posts were read and whilst may not have been directly relevant did help to steer me down the correct paths to investigate various issues, especially with JRE and the apps forms. In particular, the first reference was very useful. Without it I would have not known about the txkSetPlugin command…

• Forum Home >> E-Business Suite >> Technology – EBS on Linux
  Thread: EBS Client Running on Linux, posted by Glen Palmer on 27^th May 2008
• Forum Home >> E-Business Suite >> EBS General Discussion
  Thread: EBS forms not opening in Linux client machine

This harps back to an earlier blog about being spoilt for choice regarding which laptop i was going to take with me on my jaunt to Vegas (ostensibly to attend the Oracle HCM User Group).

Anyway, through various methods of deduction, i had opted to take my Dell Vostro – a behemoth of a machine running CentOS, loaded to the gills with development tools and a full install of Oracle EBS R12.

However…I have been thinking about this during the week. I think i will not get as many opportunities to do some development work as i thought i would, principally because the OHUG agenda is chock-full of interesting sessions to attend.

So, i have had a late change of mind. How late? Well its 21:15pm the night before i fly.

I have decided to bin the heavyweight development box and instead travel with one of my Acer Aspire One’s. I shall take the HDD one (which has 2 flavours of unix) rather than the SSD version. The main reason being the SSD version is not as sturdy (i’ve had the OS go AWOL on it a few times in recent months – each time has required a full restore).

Anyway. I’ll still be able to Blog, Tweet and email

Until next time.

I just had to post this – it’s so amusing to the code-monkeys out there.

Its a post (repost in fact) by Roedy Green, from Canadian Mind Products. I came by it by way of a Tweet from Eddie Awad. It’s essentially a tongue-in-cheek article on the best ways to not write code, or (if you would like a job for life) the best way to code to prevent anyone else from understanding it.

The sad thing is that i’ve been guilty in the past of producing code following many of these rules without even thinking about it.

Anyway, the article in full is here. Enjoy it…I have…

Oh the dilema of choice!

In just under 2 weeks time i am flying out to Las Vegas to attend this years Oracle HCM User Group conference (OHUG). I’m planning to take one of my many laptops with me so that i can do some of the following:

• Keep on-top of my email
• Keep an eye on the HRMS Aces forums (as an Admin)
• Keep my Blog up-to-date
• Download and view any photo’s that i happen to take with my camera
• Work!

The last point is the stickler. The conference runs for 4 days, plus a 5th-day invitee-only CAB day (to which i am invited). As i shall be out there for 7/8 days i am bound to have some downtime (ie non-attendance of conference sessions). I’m sure that some of this ’spare’ time will be taken up with activities such as:

• Sleeping
• Drinking Socializing with my fellow conference attendees
• Shopping – although probably not too much
• Sight-seeing – again probably only on my last full day
• Relaxing by the pool in the Hotel

Whilst i do not have any ‘client-funded’ work to do during this time, i do have significant amounts of ‘non-funded’ work to be done, some of which will hopefully lead to funding, and some of which will simply be to further my own corporate cause. It is therefore this point that causes the ‘travelling hardware’ dilema.

If it were simply the case of Blogging, photo-viewing, web-mail reading etc, i could probably get away with taking one of my Acer Aspire One netbooks; I have 2 of them – one has 1.5GB RAM and the 8GB SSD, still running the standard Linpus install but with XFCE as the desktop client. The other has 1GB RAM, 120GB HDD and is dual-booting (with either custom Linpus Lite or Ubuntu Netbook Remix). Both of these are capable of meeting most of my requirements.

However by throwing “work” into the mix, i am forced to consider a wider range of hardware options:

• Dell Inspiron c/w 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD
  This is my “Windows” workstation – its running XP SP3, and has a full install of Oracle EBS 11.5.10.2, plus Workflow builder and JDeveloper 10g. Plus the usual MS Office suite thrown in for good measure.
• Dell Vostro c/w 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD (dual 250GB drives)
  This is my main Linux machine – its running CentOS 5.3, has a full install of Oracle EBS 12.0.2 (as previously blogged here), plus is running OO3, Zend Studio Developer IDE, XAMP. Its also got JDeveloper 10g installed (but i’ve yet to get it to work). And just for good measure i also have Sun’s VBox VM software with a full Windows XP VM
• Finally i have the machine which i am currently sat at writing this Blog. Its my aging, but trust, HP Pavilion. This has 2GB RAM, 120GB HDD (which is fairly full i’m sorry to say)
  This is running XP SP3, Zend Studio IDE, JDeveloper 10g, plus a whole host of other net tools etc. It also houses my Photoshop CS2 install and my document reference library.

I can probably discount the HP Laptop for starters. It’s over 4 years old, so the battery does not run for much more than an hour before giving up the ghost. In addition, its my main corporate machine, so is packed to the gills with all my company paperwork, spreadsheets, invoices etc etc. Its also my main email archive machine, so have Outlook PST files with email data running back over 15 years (you never known when you might need that Oracle 8i tuning tips email). It’s like an old friend, and is safer staying at home.

So that just leaves me with the 2 Dells.

If i were after total compatibility and comfort, i’d probably plump for the XP Inspiron. Its a smaller machine physically (its not the 17″ widescreen Behemoth that the Vostro is), and is likely to fit in with any wired/wireless networks i’m likely to encounter whilst travelling. However, it does not contain half the web-development toolkit stuff that i have mainly because its essentially my Oracle EBS 11i development and demo system. The full install does not leave much room for much else.

So we are looking at the Vostro then. Its big, its shiny black with a humongous widescreen pannel. It does have most of what i need, but does have its foilbles…

• It’s much happier running wired network (it has a Gigabit Ethernet card) than wireless. The wireless drivers are a bit hit and miss – i often have problems at home with it.
• It runs very hot when in use – again this is because the OS does not fully support the Active Power Management hardware properly – and when i say hot i do mean hot hot hot.
• The trackpad is not to my liking (even though i’ve tweaked its setting to the best i can).
• The powerpack is a bit of a brick

So it does look like the Vostro edges it.

Thank you for listening, i’m glad i had the opportunity to talk this through with you.

Last night i came across this facinating article Twitter meets Oracle. I won’t warble on too much about it (it is well worth a read though).
In the article, the author Lewis Cunningham demonstrates how to get your Oracle DB to generate Tweets.

In the past i have done work involving setting up the system to generate email notifications, and even sending SMS messages, upon completion of tasks (mainly long-running batch processes). This article shows how you can take this a step further by embracing new technologies.

It’s certainly going to be interesting to experiement with this idea. Lewis demonstates the advantages from a DBA perspective, however i’d like to experiement from an applications user angle…Imagine getting your EBS install sending you a Tweet to say that your monthly payroll process has completed. Perhaps providing a summary of errors/warnings etc (probably totals, as you’d struggles with the 140 character limit).

Taking this idea on a bit – what about being able to Tweet back? Would there be a way of getting it to process a response and kicking off some other process?

The opportunities are endless