OTN TechBlog

Much welcomed news from the Oracle Application Express (APEX) team: with the release of Oracle APEX 3.0.1, Oracle Database XE users can upgrade version 2.1 integrated with their install. As a result, they now have access to the hundreds of new development features included in versions 2.2 and 3.0, making XE even more of a database app development powerhouse than before.

Do note if upgrading that you will lose your ability to use the Oracle APEX interface to perform some database management functions. You'll have to use SQL*Plus or SQL Developer instead.

See this document for a full explanation of this release's impact on XE.

The AppsLab team strikes again: they've made a new search bar available for MetaLink searches. Any Oracle professional (with a support contract of course) will find this extremely useful.

As a bonus, late-release Oracle EBS users (11+) with FF 2.0 installed can send selected text strings directly to
the search box with a right-click. So, next time you get an unfamiliar error, just right-click it to fire off a MetaLink search, with no typing required. Nice!

Now that the "marketing" launch is complete, I want to draw your attention to a sneak preview of Arup Nanda's "Oracle Database 11g: Top New Features for DBAs and Developers" series. It will give you an idea of the breadth and depth of the new 11g feature set (and of the accompanying series). You can also explore 11g Technical Product Information (Tech WPs etc.) here.

Arup's enthusiasm for the new change assurance functionality in the Oracle Real Application Testing option (Database Replay + SQL Performance Analyzer) is infectious, and I am personally looking forward to his installment about transaction management features such as Flashback Data Archive, which is part of the new Oracle Total Recall option (which may be very attractive to companies with particularly sensitive compliance requirements). There are more than enough innovations out of the box as well, including a host of new partitioning options, a new LOB management infrastructure (Fast Files), and plenty more.

We plan to have at least 4 or 5 installments prepared by RTM, with the remainder to roll-out across the rest of the calendar year. Naturally, you can subscribe to the RSS for real-time notification as they publish.

Update: I just got around to watching the complete Webcast and noted Charles Phillips' supportive comments about OTN and its impact on the community. That was nice to hear.

Registration for Oracle OpenWorld 2007 is open, believe it or not.

My first official act after registering was to join Oracle OpenWorld Connect,
the social network app for OOW attendees (powered by Leverage
Software). And I immediately set up a discussion group for OTN members.

We're
just beginning to plan activities for this year's OTN Lounge, and would
really like to hear what you guys want to do there this year.

If even this blog is not sufficiently real-time for you, start following my twitter feed.

I promise not to spam you with info about what I ate for lunch.

Last week the Oracle Development Center team in Beijing held a successful PHP
Installfest event at the Beijing Institute of Technology. The sponsor was Prof. Chen
Shuoying, vice dean of the Department of Computer Science.

During this event the students were tasked to create a PHP application on Oracle Database XE; online materials can be found here for you Chinese speakers. Apparently these apps will also be judged by a panel of Oracle engineers in September, with the winner getting an invitation to tour Oracle's development center and hobnob with those same engineers.

Some pix:

The consolidation of Oracle's two formal evangelist programs, Oracle ACE and Oracle Fusion Middleware Regional Director (into a pumped-up, two-tiered Oracle ACE Program) was noted with astonishing speed in the blogosphere, notably by ACEs Tim Hall and Eddie Awad.

This is good news for a number of reasons, but most important, it allows anyone with a track record of Oracle technical community involvement/outreach to get formal support from Oracle for their activities. PHP developer working on Oracle Database XE? Check. Java developer evangelizing rich client interfaces built on ADF/JSF? Check. Database performance expert who eats database statistics for breakfast? Check. You can become an Oracle ACE or ACE Director, with all the attendant benefits.

When I say "formal support from Oracle," I mean that we will consider it our job to create a relationship between you and new audiences, whether via publishing, blogging, speaking/presenting, or teaching. In other words, we will provide the "bullhorn and soapbox" you need to be even more effective in community outreach/education than you already are, and to reach people you otherwise would never have met.

We are so proud of the fact that we have been able to bring people like Daniel Uehara, Jason Jones, and Harshad Oak to the attention of wider audiences, as well as that we can officially recognize longtime community advocates like Howard Rogers and Jonathan Lewis for their efforts.

Oh, and BTW, the Oracle Apex-based Oracle ACE directory is really cool. Thanks, Sharon Kennedy & team!

Good news for SoCal! As a former captive of Orange County (Laguna Beach HS, Class of '84) I'm happy to report the first-ever Southern California Oracle Users Conference (Tues., Aug 14, at the Westin in Long Beach) - a cooperative effort of the LA and OC Oracle Users Groups. And yeah, it's free.

Ken Jacobs and Tom Kyte will both be previewing Oracle Database 11g functionality  - Real Application Testing, Total Replay, etc. -- and Oracle ACE Director Bradley Brown will present on Oracle Apex tips & techniques as well as "Oracle Fusion" Web services. Content Management, BI, rich client development, and security & identity management are also covered. Nice lineup.

No online registration; call 800-820-5592
ext. 4609 instead.

Just published my podcast interview with Chris Mason, who heads up Oracle's Linux Kernel team, about his new Btrfs (pronounced "butter - eff - ess", I learned) filesystem. Nice guy. (This is a follow-up to an earlier conversation with him about Linux Kernel development at Oracle generally.)

As some in the community suspected, Btrfs truly is intended as a replacement for the creaky ext3. This may raise eyebrows in some segments of the community, but few can deny the need for an upgrade at this point.

This project is of course hosted at oss.oracle.com/projects/btrfs.

Yeah, you can do that. What a country.

The new Semantic Web-like Oracle Events application is out there. Call it a mashup of Google Maps, Siderean Seamark, and Oracle Secure Enterprise Search.

I, for one, think this is the coolest app ever to appear with an Oracle.com header on it - by far.

The "technology creep" intentionally initiated by OTN Semantic Web Beta continues, all according to plan. (Insert evil laughter here.)