Oracle Technology Network Blog (aka TechBlog)

I have just run my report on the most popular tech articles/guides published by OTN in 2009, which you can see below:

1. Installing Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Rel 5 on Oracle Database 11g and Linux, by Mike Revitt

2. High-Performance Oracle JDBC Programming, by Yuli Vasiliev

3. Oracle RMAN Backups: Pushing the "Easy" Button, by Porus Homi Havewala (Oracle ACE Director)

4. Tom Kyte: On Dynamic Sampling (from Oracle Magazine)

5. Scripting Oracle RMAN Commands (from Oracle Magazine), by Arup Nanda (Oracle ACE Director)

6. Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control Architecture for Very Large Sites, by Porus Homi Havewala (Oracle ACE Director)

7. Taking an Oracle ADF Application from Design to Reality, by Chris Muir (Oracle ACE Director) and Penny Cookson (Oracle ACE)

8. Tom Kyte: On Constraints, Metadata, and Truth (from Oracle Magazine)

9. High Performance and Availability with Oracle RAC and PHP, by John Lim

10. Oracle ADF Development Essentials, by John Stegeman (Oracle ACE Director)

(The "all-time" list looks quite a bit different of course; the above is restricted to publication this year only.)

You may also be interested in the current state of the "Most Popular Downloads" list. This list excludes packaged applications and drivers/utilities:

1. Oracle Database
2. Oracle SQL Developer
3. Oracle JDeveloper
4. Oracle WebLogic Server
5. Oracle Enterprise Manager
6. Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler
7. Oracle Application Express Standalone
8. Oracle SOA Suite
9. Oracle JRockit
10. Oracle Application Server

Always instructive information when reviewing the past year. Somehow, I think these lists will look quuiiiiitte a bit different in 2010.

Wow, I am seeing some disturbing stats where this blog is concerned. Basically, it appears that either half as many of you are reading it, or that all of you are now reading it only half the time.

Believe me, I am not blaming the victim. This is almost certainly my fault: for one thing, the number of posts have gone down, in inverse relation to my Twitter activity. (Yes, I am one of those shallow people who think that Twitter is often a worthy substitute for blogging.) At the same time, my Twitter follower count has gone up like a rocket.

It's also true that for the most part, the most interesting subjects are off-limits for me at the moment. So, it's possible that a lot of people got tired of looking for juicy content here, and then not finding it. Frustrating.

Perhaps when the information floodgates can open, the crowds will return. In the meantime, if there are any "discussable" subjects of interest to you, feel free to leave me a comment. I'll redouble my efforts to minimize Twitter-induced blogging disruption.

We have just posted audio versions of my Oracle OpenWorld Live "TechCast" chats with Kris Rice (Database Tools), Mike Lehmann (Oracle WebLogic architecture), Bill Dettelback (WebLogic Server for PaaS), and Kuassi Mensah and Chris Jones (the Dynamic Languages Duo). The audio of my chat with James Gosling has been available for a while.

Of course, if you are a TechCast subscriber via iTunes, you will download these mp3s automatically.

As I have written previously, we are working on a complete TechCast overhaul, which may entail, among other things, live broadcasts. When I know, you'll know.

OK, it's a wrap!

This is a big fat thank you to everyone who attended Oracle OpenWorld 2009, and especially to the Oracle ACEs who dragged themselves, in many cases, across continents and oceans to be there. You truly are the life-blood of the community. (And thanks especially for all the birthday greetings.)

If you couldn't attend, and are too lazy to click somewhere else from here, I bring you photos:

You can also read attendee blogs and watch the tons-'o-video we captured there.

Now, for some things I learned:

• You all hate Schedule Builder. (Welcome to the party.) We desperately need to do something about it.
• You all love the unconference, but want to see it promoted much more widely to the average attendee. I'm with you there.
• Oracle OpenWorld Live was a huge hit, with a constant viewing audience in the hundreds. Agree, we need to do more of that next year. (Plus, it spiced up the OTN Lounge.)
• You seem to be split on Moscone/SF as a host city. Some believe the conference has outgrown it, others can't see OpenWorld anywhere else, even with the inconveniences.
• The Java technologist community is very nervous about OpenWorld serving as a substitute for JavaOne; the cultural and content differences are stark. The sooner we can communicate our plans there, the better. (Unfortunately, nothing can be said until deal close. And contrary to some of the rumors out there, no announcements have been made on this subject at all.)
• James Gosling and Tim Bray are really nice guys; I can say the same about pretty much every Sun employee I met this week.

That's a partial list. Please add to comments about anything you'd like me to know about your experience as either a physical or virtual attendee.

See ya next year!

Due to inclement weather the location of the OpenWorld Blogger Meetup has changed to:

LJ's Martini Club & Grill
101 4th St
San Francisco, CA 94103-3003
(415) 369-6114

(also in the Metreon Center but on the 2nd Floor). The date/time (Tue, Oct. 13, 6:00pm) are otherwise unchanged.

In my continual efforts to get your attention about developer, admin, and architect highlights at Oracle OpenWord, I almost forgot to remind you about OTN Night.

For the uninitiated, OTN Night is a big party thrown by the Oracle Technology Network team, traditionally on the first night (Monday) of Oracle OpenWorld (with an "Arabian Nights" theme this year). For my money, it's the best party of the week: free food, free beverages, free dancing and entertainment (check out the belly dancers this year!), and for the true geeks, the "Oracle-on-Linux Experience" demo-fest running in parallel.

If you're the competitive type, you can volunteer for a round of "Oracle Jeopardy" in which the most impressive masters of mind-wracking Oracle and San Francisco trivia will get chances to win prizes, including Blackberry smartphones donated by our party sponsor, Research in Motion.

It gets better - Oct. 12 is my birthday, so why not help me celebrate? Meet you at OTN Night!

Monday Oct. 12, 7-10pm
Howard St. tent (no walking this year! Crawl over from Moscone if you'd like.)

Product manager David Peake has announced the winners of the Oracle Application Express (Apex) Developer Competition:

First Place: Eric Brandenburg, USA
Second Place: Oscar Gordillo, Colombia
Third Place: Matt Nolan, UK

....with 4th-through-12th place winners from Nigeria, Germany, India, and elsewhere around the world.

The premise of the competition, announced in June 2009, was to seek the "best" application (as determined by a panel of judges) of Oracle Application Express to a business problem. The guidelines were quite detailed.

Eric's app, IT Access, is designed to track the assignment of physical IT assets and/or application access to employees - with one of the main goals being to decommission those assignments when an employee leaves the company.

I'll be speaking with Eric in person during Oracle OpenWorld (to which he has won a free pass), as preparation for a write-up in Oracle Magazine about IT Access.

Congrats to Eric, and to all the other winners!

If you've been paying attention, you've noticed that we've futzed with the TechCast format lately.

We launched this program in 2005 as a purely audio podcast, and in fact Oracle was the first company to provide podcasts from a major conference floor (Oracle OpenWorld 2005) at the time. About a year ago, we went to video format, including both mp3s and m4vs in our feed. We've also bounced from full-scale corporate studio to small studio and experimented with different editing approaches.

The video decision has been limiting however due to the iPod form factor. For example, we have hesitated to include screen-casted demos in these recordings.

Soon after Oracle OpenWorld 2009, we'll be making some changes:

• First, we will no longer include video attachments in the RSS feed; it's just too limiting. The feed will become audio-only once again, and we'll be free to include demos when appropriate. If you want video, you'll have to watch it in hosted mode at OTN.


• Second, we'll be making new shows every other week, instead of the 1-to-2 month publishing periods of today. This is good stuff, we need more of it!


• Finally, our approach to editing will be even more informal. Until now, I've felt like Mike Wallace, when I'd rather just be chatting with my guest. This should make the content more conversational and fun.

These are good changes, man.

Finally, note that we'll be live-streaming TechCasts from the OTN Lounge @ Oracle OpenWorld this year, Mod-Weds at 10:30am, as well as the full "Heavy Hitters" schedule. You'll also be able to see all videos on-demand; the URL is oracle.com/openworldlive.

Update (9/30/2009): I have completed the interviewee list for TechCasts to be recorded (live) at OpenWorld:

Mon 10:30 - James Gosling, VP and Sun Fellow, Sun Microsystems
Mon 10:45 - Larry Cable, Architect (Topic: JEE 6 and OSGi in Serverside Apps)
Tues 10:30 - Chris Jones and Kuassi Mensah, the Dynamic Languages Duo (Topic: Oracle + PHP & Ruby)
Tues 10:45 - Bill Dettelback, Principal Product Manager (Topic: PaaS with WebLogic)
Weds 10:30 - Kris Rice, Director, Database Tools Research (Topic: Oracle SQL Developer & SQL Developer Modeler)
Weds 10:45 - Mike Lehmann, Senior Director of Product Management, Fusion Middleware (Topic: Application Grid)

Yes, you read this right: James Gosling will be my first guest. Awesome.

Alex Gorbachev has taken the organizer reigns of the traditional OpenWorld blogger meetup from Eddie Awad, who won't be traveling to SF this year. Keeping it in the Oracle ACE Director family I guess.

With help from the OTN team (once again, we've got the bar tab covered), Alex has announced the details:

When: Tue, Oct. 13, 6:00pm
Where: Jillian's, San Francisco (steps away from Moscone Center)

Plan to be there, or we'll talk about you behind your back.

Chet Justice, aka oraclenerd, is a fixture of the Oracle community. A practicing Oracle Database developer residing in Florida, oraclenerd nevertheless finds time in his world to convey pride in his craft far and wide - via oraclenerd.com and the @oraclenerd Twitterstream, chiefly.

You'd think that oraclenerd would be a fixture at Oracle OpenWorld, right? Wrong. Financial difficulties make a self-funded cross-country journey to San Francisco impossible this year. (Thankfully, oraclenerd is already fixed up with a Blogger Pass; one fewer thing to worry about.)

We're hoping to get oraclenerd there anyway, by encouraging you to purchase the official oraclenerd T (just $19.99):

Chet has advised me that his T-shirt take is less than optimal, so we'll have to sell a lot of these things. (Oracle ACEs, expect to find an extra piece of schwag in your goodie bag this year.)

C'mon, help a boy achieve his dream! Help send oraclenerd to Oracle OpenWorld!