2009 - In Review

Crazy year...but that seems to be the norm. Is crazy my normal? I wouldn't be suprised.

Numbers

• 289 - Number of posts this year.
  • 37 - September had the highest number of posts.
  • 18 - February - lowest
  • 24 - Average posts per month
  • 76 - Number of days not covered by a post. In reality though, there were numerous occasions where I posted 2 or more times.
• 439 - Number of posts it took to get to the magical $100 mark with Google AdSense. I don't even want to do the math on that. BTW, I reached the $100 mark on December 28, 2009. Here's to perseverance.
• 94,998 - Pageviews according to Google Analytics
• 66,313 - Visits according to Google Analytics
• 465,963 - Page Requests according to my web server (GoDaddy)
• 1,015,934 - Server Requests according to my web server

I'm not sure what the disparity is between the web server stats and Google Analytics. I tend to put more faith into Google Analytics though. (Of course seeing that 1 million is cool, even if it is only server requests).

Pretty Pictures
Here's a screenshot from my Google Analytics page...in July, I hit 5,000 Visits for the first time



I'm still not real clear what happened here



That was a 2,000 visit jump. I originally thought it had to do with my shameless pining to go to OOW 09...but that was late August, early September.

And to give you an idea of the progression since I started



The 2,000 hit jump is much more dramatic in that picture.

Guest Authors

Back in July (well, technically in May), I opened up the blog to guest authors. Mainly I wanted to give people of all experiences an opportunity to try out their writing skills...to see if they would like it. I didn't exclude established bloggers though. Of the 5 who participated, 4 already had blogs and 1 had been considering it.

• Ted Simpson - Ted was first, and now owns a ORACLENERD T-Shirt! His angle is more high-level; the decisions concerning IT implentations and how to do more with less (using Oracle of course). He's written 2 articles so far
  • Large-Scale Solutions for Small Enterprises: a Brief How (and Why) To
  • Intelligent Business Intelligence: 4 Keys to a Successful BI Approach
• Gary Myers - I owe Gary a T-Shirt...if he didn't live in Australia it wouldn't be so difficult, but it's like a million dollars to send it there (plus, I haven't had a steady paycheck in some time). He'll get one though...as soon as we get back on our feet.
  • How To Kill a Code Review
  • How Do You Normalize a Tweet
• Kellyn Pederson Kellyn was either contemplating or had just started her own blog, DBA Kevlar (she has the domain name too, just hasn't migrated over yet). She had a great response on the oracle-l mailing list and I asked if she'd like to write something up. I'm glad she did. She gave us UNDO Brain Damage. Yes, I owe her a shirt as well. Thankfully she's in the States and it won't cost 1 million dollars to send it.
• John Piwowar John has a T-Shirt already, but I suppose I could send him a black one. Though now that he resides in BFE, it probably costs 1 million dollars to send it there too. Not to disparage the other guest authors, but John has been killing me. Three posts in December...really 4, but I delayed that one until after the holidays. Let's not forget the 3 (4) companion pieces that he's written on his site. I consider this my own personal guide to installing the E-Business Suite, even if I haven't gotten it installed quite yet.
  • EBS Install Guide - Part 1
  • EBS Install Guide - Part 2
  • EBS Install Guide- Part 3
  He's also the proud father of The EBS Challenge (though he didn't know about the birth)


• Tiffany Morgan came with a writing piece, Top Ten Grammatical Errors That Make People Look Stup-Silly...., which shows up at number 22 for the year in terms of visits.

I know Ted's got one (almost) ready for posting and I'm trying to talk Jeff Haynes and Brad Tumy into doing guest spots as well.

Thanks to all of you who participated...I can't say that enough.

So I hope you enjoyed 2009 as much as I did. I'm not sure how long I can keep this up...it's a lot of work. I think it's worth it though.

My Love Waits There in San Francisco...

A tad dramatic? Yes.

Rough week "watching" everyone at OpenWorld. I gave it the old college try, but I didn't have the heart for it, it and it.

June
I submitted my registration to attend as a blogger.

July 27th
I received notification that I had landed one of those coveted prizes.

August 1st
I published How To: Oracle OpenWorld Free Passes which has become the 3rd most viewed article on my site.

While wrestling over silly things like:

• Travel
• Hotel
• Expenses (no vacation time in the bank)
• Mild fear of flying

I was still expecting to go.

August 24th
I came to terms with the fact that I wasn't going to be able to make it. This was spurred on by a visit to my parents to beg for money to pay our mortgage.

August 25th
I found this tweet from Justin Kestelyn, aka Mr. OTN:



That linked to his post here, Jake followed suit a short time later here.

I decided, again, to give it the old college try.

August 27th
I thanked everyone for their support.

September 1st
And 4 days later, I bowed out again.

September 28th
Someone bought 100 oraclenerd T-Shirts!

September 30th
Posted a blurb with links and everything to all that I could find concerning OpenWorld.

October 9th
Word starts to trickle out of the Oracle ACE Directors meeting...in their schwag bag is the official oraclenerd T-Shirt!

October 11th
OpenWorld officially begins.

October 14th
The Blogger meet-up.

Looks to me that it was a complete success. Alex Gorbachev organized the event. Doug Burns has a nice wrap-up here.

I kept trying to get people to send me pictures of them wearing their super cool oraclenerdT-Shirt, but I only got 3 action shots. I'd say Alex won that battle as well. ;)

Backtrack: October 9th 12:16 A.M. EST
I received this email:

Anyway, I also asked redacted if he knew of any bloggers who were interested being sponsored to go to OOW. My client is redacted and they asked us to reach out to some bloggers to sponsor in order to attend the show. At present we have two bloggers who have agreed to be sponsored. One is primarily shooting video and the other guy is a general tech/business blogger. redacted mentioned that you might be interested in a sponsorship? You are certainly well versed with Oracle and ERP, so your participation would be a nice addition. In return we would hope you would spend a little time getting to know redacted and perhaps covering some of the activities the company is doing during the show.

Please let me know ASAP if you are interested and if there is any more information you would like from me. We would make your travel arrangements. (emphasis mine)

Obviously I turned it down...just not enough time for me to make the appropriate arrangements (work/family). Oh well.

But...I am starting to save up now for OOW10! Spreadshirt is offering free shipping if you buy 2 or more oraclenerd T-Shirts. The deal is good until October 26th so hurry up if you want to take advantage. For US buyers, use the code TREAT9, for Canadians, use CADTREAT9.

OOW 09: Day 3 Wrap Up

Today was the big keynote from Mr. Larry Ellison himself.

Ian Abramson, President of the IOUG, calls it LarryDay.

Larry was joined by the governor of California, also known as the Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The Blogger meet-up seemed to be a resounding success, Doug Burns does a brief wrap-up here. I'm going out on a limb here, but Doug might have a few...problems.

Alex Gorbachev organized this years meet-up, but he doesn't have a post up about it yet. However, he does have some interesting pictures here. He's got a few Pythian OOW Diary videos on YouTube as well.

Wednesday
Steward Bryson from Rittman Mead starts off the day with this post. As does George Trujillo.

Debra Lilley, released some screenshots of some Fusion apps here (I still have no idea what Fusion is, do you?). You may know Debra from her travels with Stanley.

Todd Sheetz (one of the best last names ever), aka the Cheesehead DBA, talks about his Wednesday here.

Richard Foote wraps up Day 3 here (I think I'm a day behind...or ahead...whatever).

Oracle Closed World
Moans Nogood seems to have started the Unconference's unconference, aka, Oracle Closed World. Read about it here and here. Something else I'll have to keep in mind for next year...how to gain entry into this exclusive club.

That's pretty much all I've got. Fusion seemed to be the big announcement today, but like I said, I don't really know WTF it is yet...other than some vague notion of middle-ware. Not much this year on database related announcements, all those came prior to OOW.

Tonight is the big party at Treasure Island with Aerosmith, Roger Daltry, The Wailers and some others. I'm sure it will be a fun time.

OOW 09: Day 2 Wrap Up

The sheer volume of information coming out of OpenWorld is astounding. There are thousands of tweets and maybe close to 100 blogs per day. For those of us not there, it's pretty easy to stay informed. So here's today's roundup:

Two from Rittman Mead:
Beginning Day 2 at OpenWorld by Stewart Bryson
Open World 2009 – Monday & Tuesday – BI Applications 7.9.6.1 Released by Venkatakrishnan J

Jonathan Lewis on Richard Foote's Unconference session (very few questions about David Bowie apparently).

To complete self-referential integrity, I give you Richard Foote's Oracle OpenWorld 2009 - Day 2 Highlights.

Chen (or is it Gwen?) Shapira, aka prodlife, tells us the Most Important Thing I've Learned at OOW09, which includes a reference to Jonathan Lewis. BTW, she asked me to create a shirt for her...and I still haven't heard back from her yet. If you see her, tell her it's here:



Arup Nanda, who doesn't blog nearly enough for my tastes (yes, I know he writes elsewhere), has OOW Day 2.

Here's another wrap-up from Monday by Dave at Experiences as a new Oracle Apps 'DBA'.

Dain Hansen talks about 1. Umbrella. 2. Espressos and the Innovation Across the Stack at the Data Integration and Management blog.

Alexander Kornbrust shares his thoughts on his SQL Injection Presentation.

Tim Hall talks about...Today's Oracle WaterWorld Sessions...

As far as Twitter goes, it was raining. Dan Norris was talking about Exadata. More rain. Michael Dell spoke today. Something about virtualization. The Blogger meet-up was relocated...due to rain.

Found this video via Mr. OTN, Ted Farrell the Chief Fusion Architect at Oracle

If you want to see the list of Oracle press releases during the event so far, check them out here.

And the (late) wrap up from Jake which is quite amusing. I think his style should catch on more...

One from Jared Still, a "Certifiable Perl Evangelist" or is it just certifiable?

Courtesy of fourquare, I was able to find some people I know as well:

OOW 09: Day 1 Wrap Up

I'm just going to list all of the "Day 1" articles I have found so far...there seem to be quite a few, more than I remember last year, but then again, I don't think I was as personally invested in it. I did geek out and watch Larry's live introduction of Exadata. I have been way too busy at work so I didn't have the opportunity to watch or listen to anything today. I guess I'll be slowly catching up over the next few days. So here's "my" Day 1 wrap up:

Fusion Technology Explorations by Espen Barroso-Gomez

Fuad Arshad's Blog by none other than Fuad Arshad

blogging about oracle applications by Peter Slager

Amis by Peter Ebell

jarneil by Jason Arneil (who must be a programmer because he calls it Day Zero

Cheesehead DBA by Todd Sheetz

...technology, lifehacks, and all that good stuff by Bex Huff

Doug's Oracle Blog by Doug Burns

Avrom's Java EE and Oracle ADF Blog by Avrom Roy-Faderman

The ORACLE-BASE Blog by Tim Hall

Day 1 at Open World by Mark Rittman (with some cool videos ).

Update: A couple added in comments by Bradd Piontek

It's wonderful, but will I survive? by Claudia Zeiler (Girlgeek's Oracle Blog)

Philosophy – 7 by Jonathan Lewis over at Oracle Scratchpad

Duke at Oracle Open World by George Trujillo (also mentioned in the ACE section below.

OpenWorld Manifest: Days 0 and 1 by Jake at the AppsLab.

Oracle ACE Directors Meeting
Tim Tow's Hyperion Blog, OOW 2009 Ace Directors Briefing by Tim Tow

The Arup Nanda Blog, ACE Directors Product Briefing '09 by Arup Nanda

The ORACLE-BASE Blog, Oracle ACE Director meeting and stuff... by Tim Hall

Dimitri Gielis Blog, Oracle HQ by Dimitri Gielis

ORCLVILLE, Pre-OOW - Drinking From a Firehose by Floyd Teter

An Oracle Blog facilitated by Trubix, Oracle Open World 2009 - Oracle ACEs dinner by George Trujillo (which even has a picture of the oraclenerd T-Shirt.

OOW09: Cool Tricks

Alex Gorbachev of Pythian fame has posted a couple of videos already; one with Justin Kestelyn of Oracle Technology Network (check out the shirt he's wearing underneath) and Richard Foote. You can follow his YouTube channel here.

I also found a video with Tom Kyte from OracleJAPAC (Oracle Asia Pacific and Japan).

You can watch all the keynotes live at LiveStream.

For the old-fashioned, you can follow the #oow and #oow09 hash tags on twitter here. I've already set one up here where I also include any blog or news article related to Oracle OpenWorld.

OOW09: And So It Begins

Today is the official start of Oracle OpenWorld. Strangely, I could have been there. At midnight on Thusday (Friday morning actually), I received an offer to fly me out and put me up for the week. With a young family and still being new at the job, I had to turn it down with such short notice. Where was the offer a month ago?

Poor Jake received a rather curse ridden vent email from me about the timing of this particular ask. Mr. OTN and himself helped to spearhead the initial push to sell T-Shirts to help fund my trip.

Enough about the past though. I'll just have to wait until next year.

With the volume of information both via twitter and blogs, I don't know if I would even need to attend...no, that's dumb, I need to cash in those beer I.O.U.s. :)

All of us not attending, will at least be able to see many (all?) of the keynote speeches via Oracle OpenWorld Live. At 5:45 PST, Larry Ellison and Scott McNealy will be speaking on Oracle and Sun:

Sunday is also SUNday at the show. So what's the scoop with Sun? Find out tomorrow—straight from the source—during the opening keynote in Moscone North, Hall D at 5:45 p.m. Scott McNealy is hosting an onstage discussion with Larry Ellison on Sun and Oracle's future plans.

which you'll be able to watch on the LiveStream site. I'm getting headphones so I can listen at work this week. I'll still have coverage posted, just without the fun of getting to know everyone in real-life.

Oracle OpenWorld Live

Watch it here.

Oracle OpenWorld: 2009

Starts in a little more than 2 days...sucks I won't be there, but what can you do?

The OOW traffic has increased significantly over the last couple of days:
Twitter is abuzz (official hashtag is #oow09), the Oracle blogoshpere has (finally) picked up.

I'm not going to link up to everyone in the world again because I'm pretty sure all of you know what you're doing during this time...which leaves just 3 people to read along with me. (It feels like that anyway). This was my last post with all kinds of informative links.

OK, one link. George Woods seems to have come out of nowhere...he's now compiling a list of Tweeple/Tworgs (?) who will be attending. From what I can tell, there is no official meet-up for Oracle Tweeters, but George is trying very hard to get something going.

I'm definitely going to miss the opportunity to meet all these virtual friends. Next year for sure.

For the 3 of you who aren't going, don't forget OpenWorld Live, it's just like being there!

To everyone who is going; I hope you have a great time and get everything (and more) out of it you can. Drink a beer and take a swim for me.

Oracle OpenWorld

Eleven days out now...I'm still a bit bummed that I won't get to attend.

I have been...well, I can't help, but follow along.

What To Do?
There should be more than enough to do while there. A full week of learning, networking, schwag, boozing...I mean networking.

Wow, how could I forget...the Appreciation Event. Aerosmith, Three Dog Night, Roger Daltrey, Shooter Jennings and The Wailers (of Bob Marley fame). (Thanks Justin for reminding me).

Joe D'Alessandro, President and CEO of the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau located just steps from Moscone Center, lists the top 10 things to do around the Moscone Center. Part I is here, Part II is here.

Alex Gorbachev is organizing the Blogger Meet-up. Strangely, I have heard/read hardly a peep about bloggers that are going on the blogger pass. I'm pretty sure Fuad Arshad is going on the pass...but that's the only one I am aware of. I don't doubt there are others...just haven't seen any related posts or tweets to that effect.

Chris Muir is helping to organize the ADF Enterprise Methodology Group Meet-up. Chris informs me that Siman Haslam is doing much of the work.

Bob Rhubart has the enterprise architects, Enterprise Architecture Meet-Up

Update
Not sure how I missed the Apex meet-up...find information here. I'll definitely miss that one as I believe almost all of those guys and gals owe me beer.

Unconference, which seems to have become quite popular since it's inception in 2007.

Sessions
Application Express, my how that has grown since I began using it in 2005. WIN!

How about something on Solaris? Anything from Sun?

Coherence?

Some XMLDB from Marco Gralike?

BI Publisher

The CRM blog lists out all of their sessions by...ummm...everything:
Communications
Business Intelligence
Insurance
Financial Services
Sales Productivity
Public Sector
Education and Research

Exadata events can be found here (pdf).

Here is the OOW 09 page on the Oracle Wiki. Of course much of this information can be found via the official Oracle OpenWorld blog.

Finally, check out OpenWorld Live if, like me, you won't be attending. Looks like there are some pretty cool sessions to check out there as well.

Offset Costs to OOW?

I had an idea today (yeah, I know, scary).

What if I got someone to take ORACLENERD T-Shirts to Oracle OpenWorld and sold them there, on site? It would help me by getting the word (and the t-shirt) out, and it could help you as I would split any profit with you.

Not sure if it could be done or if anyone would be willing to do it...but hey, desperate times calls for desperate measures. If you are at all interested, let me know.

Random Things: Volume #6

News
Of course the big news of the week is the latest release of the Oracle database, 11gR2. Everyone and their mother wrote about it, including yours truly. Seemed like a fun game to get a post out as quickly as possible.

Eddie Awad has compiled a pretty nice list of links to the "What's New" documentation section for the past 6 releases.

Sun + Oracle is faster

Oracle and Sun together are hard to match. Just ask IBM. Its fastest server now runs an impressive 6 million TPC-C transactions, but on October 14 at Oracle OpenWorld, we'll reveal the benchmark numbers that prove that even IBM DB2 running on IBM's fastest hardware can't match the speed and performance of Oracle Database on Sun systems. Check back on October 14 as we demonstrate Oracle's commitment to Sun hardware and Sun SPARC.

EU Investigates Oracle Bid for Sun
Two weeks ago the Department of Justice approved the Oracle/Sun deal. Now the EU has set a January 10, 2010 deadline for it's response delaying the acquisition further. I know both Oracle and Sun are international/global companies, but they are based in the US. How exactly does the EU have authority? A monopoly you say? Bollocks I say. There are plenty of choices out there. Oh well.

Coding
What is the deal with mixed-case PL/SQL? I have a pretty strong aversion towards it. PL/SQL is not Java, Ruby, .NET or any other programming language. Pick a case, any case, just don't mix them.

DBMS_PROFILER
Back in July I had a nice conversation with Cary Millsap over email. I had asked him to explain the difference between logging, debugging and instrumentation. He suggested checking out DBMS_PROFILER. I've been able to try it out recently (details/examples coming soon) and it's pretty freaking cool...and scary. I got to see the (many) steps that are taken while performing a specific task.

OpenWorld
Last week I announced I wasn't going, recanted and then this week recanted the recant. Fun huh?

No OpenWorld For Me: Part II

To say it has been a crazy week or so would be a gross understatement.

Last week, I bowed out from the race to attend Oracle OpenWorld.

Two days later, Justin then Jake then Billy (and here) started a movement to get me there.

All of this in conjunction with 100+ tweets and re-tweets on Twitter. Bradd even got his shirt today. He was one of the first of 15 so far to make the purchase...ostensibly to get my fat ass (Bradd didn't say that) to San Francisco and OOW.

Here's some of the backstory, which Jake alluded to in his post.

The night after Part I, I went to my parents begging for money. Our mortgage was nearly a month late. When I got home that evening, I saw Justin's post and subsequent tweet...I easily separated the 2 events in my head. Borrow money from parents != Community supports my efforts to go to OOW.

Easy right?

Then it came down...How could you do that when you just borrowed money?

I think you know where this is headed.

Unless I win the lottery so that I can pay back all those I owe, I will not be attending OOW this year.

While I think my T-Shirts are really cool, I know many of you (all?) bought them to help me get there. I could not take that money in good faith.

I'd like to donate it to something or someone. It's not a lot, approximately $100 as of right now.

I would like your help in deciding.

I'll repeat myself, to say that I've been humbled by these events would be a gross understatement. Thank you so much for your support...

ORACLENERD T-Shirts

Thanks to Justin, Jake, Billy (twice) and everyone else who has taken up "my" cause.

If you don't know what the cause is, you've probably been on a boat or something for the past week.

So I've spent some time expanding the available T-Shirts this weekend. Much thanks to John for pointing me to Spreadshirt. Also thanks to Michael (future guest blogger) for help (well, he created it and sent it to me) with the white version of the logo.

Below you'll find some of the shirts I've made along with the "classic" black on white or white on black.

I'm kind of digging the black on yellow. All my IDEs (SQL Developer, JDeveloper and Notepad++) have a yellow background.

From Jake:

These shirts will be the must-have item at #oow09, so get yours now...I can’t wait to see action shots from the conference.

I love this idea. What would be awesome, besides the natural "In The Wild" shots, would be a group shot...perhaps at the Blogger Meet-Up?

Random Things: Volume 5

Oracle OpenWorld
Earlier this week I threw in the towel in my attempt to go to OpenWorld. I applied for and received the Oracle blogger pass, but nothing else had fallen into place (flight, hotel, expenses).

Then Justin stepped in. Then Jake. Then Billy.

I've been absolutely overwhelmed at the support:



I can't really say it enough, but thank you.

oraclenerd T-Shirts in the Wild



Get yours today. I've even heard you can order your own colors!

Data Modeling
I began following @datachick recently. She is the first person, I've seen, who tweets almost exclusively about the art of data modeling. I keep trying to get her to do a guest post, but I've been unsuccessful.

In the years that I've been reading blogs, I can't say I've found someone who writes consistently on the importance of design, specifically, data modeling. It's definitely an under appreciated skill.

Oracle In The News
Deadline for Early Bird registration ends today, so go get your Oracle OpenWorld pass now.

Larry Ellison is now making only $1 a year! I can't say I've ever had a problem with him making gobs of money, I like the gesture though. He's allowed me and many others to make a pretty good living and I'm certainly thankful for that.

Department of Justice greenlights the Oracle/Sun deal. Not real sure why they are involved, I suppose it has something to do with anti-trust.

A Very Humbling Thank You

I don't really know what to say...other than Thank You!

It started here:



Then here:



And then it continued...















How effin' awesome is that?!

We're not through yet though, Justin Kestelyn, aka @oracletechnet, also wrote up a nice little blurb on his blog.

As I just realized, Jake beat him to the punch.

After giving up on the effort just a couple of days ago...I'm working twice as hard to go now.

1. Oracle OpenWorld Blogger Pass? Check.
2. Time off from work? Check (finally).
3. Air-fare, hotel and expenses...in progress.

I don't know how to automagically update the count on the number of shirts sold...so it will be manual. The new site has a better margin of profit (plus lower-priced shirts), so pick one up and help a guy out. :)

I can't tell you enough how much this means to me. Thank you all so very much.

Blogging, FTW!

No OpenWorld For Me

Sadly, I will not be able to attend Oracle OpenWorld this year.

Among the various excuses I could come up with:

1. Lack of vacation time. I might be able to get the time off, but I would not be able to replace that paycheck.
2. Lack of a plane ticket. If not for #1, I think I could have eventually scored a ticket by begging or borrowing.
3. Lack of a place to say. Same as #2. I'm sure I could have found somewhere to crash. I could move around from friend to friend's hotel room so I would not wear out my welcome. I've never had a problem sleeping on the floor.
4. Lack of beer money. I actually don't believe this would have been much of a problem, if COLLABORATE 09 was any indication.

I was hoping to meet thousands upon thousands of people, but I'll have to wait until next year.

I'll still keep up the page with all the links that I find to the event.

Perhaps I'll have a Oracle OpenWorld unconference session at my house?

How To: Oracle OpenWorld Free Passes

Just wanted to list a couple of ways to get free passes to Oracle OpenWorld.

I received mine last week through the Blogger program. That's one way.

Another way is to enter the Application Express Developer Competition. David Peake also wrote about it here.

The following prizes will be awarded for the APEX Developer Competition based on the judges rankings:

• First Place - An Unconference Session and One complimentary ticket to Oracle Openworld 2009* in San Francisco October 11 - 15.
• Second Place - One complimentary ticket to Oracle Openworld 2009* in San Francisco October 11 - 15.
• Third Place - One complimentary ticket to Oracle Openworld 2009* in San Francisco October 11 - 15.
• Fourth through Twelfth Place - One copy of the book Pro Oracle Application Express, Apress Publishing, written by John Scott & Scott Spendolini.

You have until August 24th to get your application complete and submitted. So hurry.

I tweeted or re-tweeted this one, but hadn't read it until now. The title of the post is The Show for a Song, which I had assumed meant you could create a video or sing a song for a ticket, but that's not the case. It's the Oracle OpenWorld Discover program, which I am not familiar with at all. It wasn't real clear, nor were any links provided, on the registration page. It's not free, but it only costs $50, which is a steal. Click through to find details.

Check out the registration page for other ways to get in.

You could also just annoy @oracleopenworld on twitter for a pass. I did the same thing to @OAUG back in February. The worst thing they can say is "No."

Update 08/10/2009
Found another one today courtesy of Todd Sheetz. Todd found it via the My Oracle Support blog here. All you need to do is take a survey and give your thoughts on the My Oracle Support Community, direct link to the survey is here.

Update 09/17/2009
Just found this on the Oracle OpenWorld blog:

Just make a 30-second video describing why you want to go to Oracle OpenWorld 2009.Use any camera you have close at hand—Webcam, cell phone, handheld. Give us your best, most creative, most innovative pitch, and post your video as a response to ours above on the Oracle Web Video YouTube channel before September 30.

The post is here. Good luck!

Who's Going to OOW 09?

I am!



Who says Twitter is useless?

You can find more details about Oracle Open World here. Truthfully, I didn't get this one through Twitter, I went through the official channels and registered as a blogger.

I did annoy the heck out of @oracleopenworld.









So I owe a few people beer? It's a modest trade-off to get to attend OOW. Plus, I tend to go to the free places and buy them beer there. Makes life easier.

Now all I need is airfare and hotel accomodations in San Francisco. Anyone want to sponsor oraclenerd.com for a few months? ;)

COLLABORATE 09: The Wrap Up

Finally...I'm actually tired of writing. Thank goodness it's over.

First off I would like to thank the OAUG staff for providing me with the opportunity to attend. I hope in some small way I was able to help them out. I'd also like to thank Jake for the encouragement he's provided over the last year or so...this would not have happened if he had not convinced me to give Twitter another go.

If you couldn't tell, I like conferences. I like the opportunity to learn new things and I especially like the chance to meet new people. I love what I do for a living, but I like the interactions with others even more. Conferences are a natural fit for me (minus ALL the writing).

I also love the idea of user generated content, which is what these events are about. Not all the presentations are given by the fore-most experts in their field. They are given by people who love what they do and want to share that knowledge. That's one reason I blog, to share.

I still need to figure out where I fit the best. I'm not really sure it's OAUG because it's not as technical as IOUG. Is IOUG for me? I'm not sure about that either. Maybe I fit better with Oracle Development Tools User Group (ODTUG). I know I can fit in with any of those groups because that's what I've done my whole life (always being the new kid). Oracle Open World (OOW) is a combination of all 3...so that's probably where I belong (Hey Oracle, where's my pass?).

To make things easy for people looking for COLLABORATE stuff, I'm including the complete list of articles I wrote about the event in this post.

Thanks again to everyone involved.

Posts
What's Your Schedule?
What's Your Latest Schedule?
Registration, Bearings, etc.
Anatomy of a Database Attack
Data Security Challenge
Convert Forms to ApEx
Other Stuff
Day 1 (Wrap-up)
SwingBench
OAUG - Jan Wagner
Day 2 (Wrap-up)
ECM and Rocking Out
It's a Roller Coaster
Day 3 (Wrap-up)
Other Blogs
RAC Attack!