Feed aggregator

Yesterday an interesting question regarding tabular forms, collections and instant updates was asked in the Oracle APEX Forum. This example in my Demo Application shows how you can create a tabular form based on a collection and update this collection instantly. The whole example consists of three main parts:

1. save changes instantly
2. add rows and
3. delete rows

The whole code and the steps required to get it working are explained in the Code section.

Enjoy.

Offloading slow batch tasks to an external process is a common method of improving website responsiveness. One great way to initiate such background tasks in PHP is to use Oracle Streams Advanced Queuing in a producer-consumer message passing fashion. Oracle AQ is highly configurable. Messages can queued by multiple producers. Different consumers can filter messages. From PHP, the PL/SQL interface to AQ is used. There are also Java, C and HTTPS interfaces, allowing wide architectural freedom.

The following example simulates an application user registration system where the PHP application queues each new user's street address. An external system monitoring the queue can then fetch and process that address. In real life the external system might initiate a snail-mail welcome letter, or do further, slower automated validation on the address.

The following SQL*Plus script qcreate.sql creates a new Oracle user demoqueue with permission to create and use queues. A payload type for the address is created and a queue is set up for this payload.

-- qcreate.sql

connect / as sysdba
drop user demoqueue cascade;

create user demoqueue identified by welcome;
grant connect, resource to demoqueue;
grant aq_administrator_role, aq_user_role to demoqueue;
grant execute on dbms_aq to demoqueue;
grant create type to demoqueue;

connect demoqueue/welcome@localhost/orcl

-- The data we want to queue
create or replace type user_address_type as object (
  name        varchar2(10),
  address     varchar2(50)
);
/

-- Create and start the queue
begin
 dbms_aqadm.create_queue_table(
   queue_table        =>  'demoqueue.addr_queue_tab',
   queue_payload_type =>  'demoqueue.user_address_type');
end;
/

begin
 dbms_aqadm.create_queue(
   queue_name         =>  'demoqueue.addr_queue',
   queue_table        =>  'demoqueue.addr_queue_tab');
end;
/

begin
 dbms_aqadm.start_queue(
   queue_name         => 'demoqueue.addr_queue',
   enqueue            => true);
end;
/

The script qhelper.sql creates two useful helper functions to enqueue and dequeue messages:

-- qhelper.sql
-- Helpful address enqueue/dequeue procedures

connect demoqueue/welcome@localhost/orcl

-- Put an address in the queue
create or replace procedure my_enq(name_p in varchar2, address_p in varchar2) as
  user_address       user_address_type;
  enqueue_options    dbms_aq.enqueue_options_t;
  message_properties dbms_aq.message_properties_t;
  enq_id             raw(16);
begin
  user_address := user_address_type(name_p, address_p);
  dbms_aq.enqueue(queue_name         => 'demoqueue.addr_queue',
                  enqueue_options    => enqueue_options,
                  message_properties => message_properties,
                  payload            => user_address,
                  msgid              => enq_id);
  commit;
end;
/
show errors

-- Get an address from the queue
create or replace procedure my_deq(name_p out varchar2, address_p out varchar2) as
  dequeue_options    dbms_aq.dequeue_options_t;
  message_properties dbms_aq.message_properties_t;
  user_address       user_address_type;
  enq_id             raw(16);
begin
  dbms_aq.dequeue(queue_name         => 'demoqueue.addr_queue',
                  dequeue_options    => dequeue_options,
                  message_properties => message_properties,
                  payload            => user_address,
                  msgid              => enq_id);
  name_p    := user_address.name;
  address_p := user_address.address;
  commit;
end;
/
show errors

The script newuser.php is the part of the PHP application that handles site registration for a new user. It queues a message containing their address and continues executing:

<?php
// newuser.php

$c = oci_connect("demoqueue", "welcome", "localhost/orcl");

// The new user details
$username = 'Fred';
$address  = '500 Oracle Parkway';

// Enqueue the address for later offline handling
$s = oci_parse($c, "begin my_enq(:username, :address); end;");
oci_bind_by_name($s, ":username", $username, 10);
oci_bind_by_name($s, ":address",  $address,  50);
$r = oci_execute($s);

// Continue executing
echo "Welcome $username\n";

?>

It executes an anonymous PL/SQL block to create and enqueue the address message. The immediate script output is simply the echoed welcome message:

Welcome Fred

Once this PHP script is executed, any application can dequeue the new message at its leisure. For example, the following SQL*Plus commands call the helper my_deq() dequeue function and displays the user details:

-- getuser.sql

connect demoqueue/welcome@localhost/orcl

set serveroutput on
declare
  name varchar2(10);
  address varchar2(50);
begin
  my_deq(name, address);
  dbms_output.put_line('Name     : ' || name);
  dbms_output.put_line('Address  : ' || address);
end;
/

The output is:

Name     : Fred
Address  : 500 Oracle Parkway

If you instead want to check the queue from PHP, use getuser.php:

<?php
// getuser.php

$c = oci_connect("demoqueue", "welcome", "localhost/orcl");

// dequeue the message
$sql = "begin my_deq(:username, :address); end;";
$s = oci_parse($c, $sql);
oci_bind_by_name($s, ":username", $username, 10);
oci_bind_by_name($s, ":address", $address, 50);
$r = oci_execute($s);

echo "Name     : $username\n";
echo "Address  : $address\n";

?>

If the dequeue operation is called without anything in the queue, it will block waiting for a message until the queue wait time expires.

The PL/SQL API has much more functionality than shown in this overview. For example you can enqueue an array of messages, or listen to more than one queue. Queuing is highly configurable and scalable, providing a great way to distribute workload for a web application. Oracle Advanced Queuing is available in all editions of the database. More information about AQ is in the Oracle Streams Advanced Queuing User's Guide.

Bootnote: The basis for this blog post comes from the Underground PHP and Oracle Manual

So a nasty bug report came out the other day on linux, a serious exploit. Everyone scrambled to get a kernel built and (tested) and released and then there's of course the effort of bringing down applications, multi-tiered environments being way more complex in terms of orchestration of bringing down multiple systems, installing the updated kernel and rebooting and bringing everything back up in an orderly fashion.

Of course for all our customers that use ksplice and enjoy the cool zero downtime patching, theyt might not even have noticed if they ran *as many do* ksplice in automated mode or others just had to issue one single very simple command and they were done. No applications to bring down, no systems to reboot... and still safe, secure, patched, current.

some more specifics on the ksplice blog here.

There's also Time to release. The ksplice patch was available on Tuesday (5/14) while the RPM for the kernel was released on Thursday (5/16) by us and the other similar distributions. No hassle...

Oracle Linux
From the Oracle Linux blog: Configuring mrepo to mirror ULN package channels.
Siebel
OracleBI Apps 11.1.1.7.1 and Why Fusion is More than just Applications, from Siebel Essentials.
PeopleSoft
From the On The Peoplesoft Road blog: Oracle 11gR2 DataBase FileSystem (DBFS) and Peopletools 8.53.
Enterprise Computing
The benefits of an action plan when managing data infrastructure, from the Pythian blog...and please remember to cc your Oracle team when you do.
RDBMS Indexing
Richard Foote's Oracle Blog continues the discussion on the clustering factor: Important !! Clustering Factor Calculation Improvement (Fix You).
Fusion
Switching JDKs for JDeveloper/WLS Explained, from the Fusion Applications Developer Relations.
Data Integration
At Oracle's Data Integration blog: ODI - Integrating more social data.
Tuxedo
From Tuxedo Tidbits: The Realities of Rehosting – Four Customer Stories.
Oracle Retail
Looking for Oracle Retail webcasts? Here’s the archive: Archived Advisor Webcasts for Oracle Industry Solutions.
NetBeans
From Geerjan's Blog(Random NetBeans Stuff): Graphic/Touch Panel System Development on the NetBeans Platform.
…and Finally
Another great thing is on the way, traveling beyond light speed. The problem comes when you get there. The principle of the world remains the same: Wherever you go, there you are: Warp speed, Scotty: Faster than light drives a reality?  from Foxnews.What I really love about the idea is keeping the ship standing still and moving the universe around you. It reminds me of what someone told me once on a submarine when I asked how the inertial navigation system worked. He said, well, in layman’s terms, it doesn’t tell you where you are; it tells you all the places you aren’t.
Unfortunately as we reach 'warp capable civilization' status, we'll have to travel to the stars...to find work: Moshe Vardi: Robots Could Put Humans Out Of Work By 2045.
And at least we’ll have something to eat: Synthetic Hamburger Patty Grown in Test Tubes Only Cost $325,000 to Make.
I predict that within 10 years you will be able to buy a mix that allows you to print burgers in your home 3d printer. And yes, I am depressed to say, there will be buyers.

Here are a few updates that you should be aware of in case you haven't read your news within your MOS Dashboard.

New to My Oracle Support - See Service Request Updates in Email
Support implemented one of the most customer requested features, giving users the ability to receive Service Request (SR) update details within the body of the update notification email. Previously when you received a Service Request update email notification, you were required to log into My Oracle Support to view the update details entered by the support en gineer. Visit Article ID 1543136.1 to learn how to activate this new feature.

Changes to IP Address for transport.oracle.com may affect ASR Manager, Secure File Transport (SFT), Common Array Manager (CAM), Solaris 11, and VOP
If you have installed ASR Manager, Secure File Transport (SFT), Common Array Manager (CAM), Solaris 11, or VOP software, you may need to make a change in your network configuration to accommodate the IP address change for transport.oracle.com that was implemented on May 10, 2013. Please review Document ID 1338575.1 for details.

MOS Release 6.5 Feature - Chat NOT available
This feature within the release notes is NOT available at this time.  The chat feature enables Oracle Support engineers to contact you through chat about open service requests (SRs). Your chat status is shown in the top right of the My Oracle Support page header. You can change your status to Available or Not Available. If your status is Available, you are visible to Oracle Support engineers.
It will be available in a future release. Sorry to tease you.

YOU are my customer!  Have a wonderful week.

-Chris Warticki
Global Customer Management, Support Specialist & Edu-Train-er

We are pleased to announce the publication of our white paper on California’s bottleneck course issue. Many thanks to the paper’s sponsor, the 20 Million Minds Foundation, for giving us the support and freedom to write exactly what we believe. If there is anything that you find wrong or objectionable in the paper, then blame us.

The central idea in the paper is that California should adopt the principle that students have a right to educational access. There is a fundamental difference between saying that we should do whatever we can to give students access and saying that we have an obligation to enable students to exercise their right to access. And that change of frame is critical to solving the problem of bottleneck courses.

The current incarnation of SB 520, which we have written about here repeatedly, has been accused by its detractors as being a potential vehicle for gutting and privatizing California’s public higher education. We believe that concern is legitimate. However, in the context of a larger bill supporting the students’ right to access, it could be not only positive but essential as path of last resort. As part of supporting every citizen’s right to due process when accused of a crime, the government is required to provide access to a public defender. But few people who have financial means are likely to choose a public defender over a private attorney because private attorneys, by and large, have access to resources (including time for individual attention) that public defenders do not. Likewise, we believe that access to third-party online courses disconnected from a student’s home institution is a poor solution to the student’s access problem. The only worse solution is not to have one at all, which is the current situation. If Californians believe that students should have a right to access, then they must provide a means of last resort for students to exercise that right.

But the best solution would be to eliminate bottleneck courses altogether, which is why much of our proposal centers on providing mechanisms and funding to empower faculty members, campuses, and systems to solve these problems within the California public education system, where students have the benefit of the campus support network and expertise of local faculty. Even the main funding for the third-party course provisions, which we characterize as the “safety valve” of the plan, would go toward developing infrastructure that would be equally useful to support students taking courses from other campuses within the California systems. If the faculty and administrators will lead an effort to solve the bottleneck course problem organically, with appropriate support from the state, then the actual use of the safety valve option by students could become a rarity.

We acknowledge that technology is not the only possible solution to the bottleneck course problem; nor do we assume that the underlying budget challenges should be accepted at face value. We have written about technology as one avenue to solve the problem because educational technology is what we know about and what we were asked to write about. None of what we suggest precludes discussions about allocation of funding in college budgets, levels of state funding support, allocation of faculty time to lower-division courses, or other relevant questions.

We believe strongly that students should have a right to educational access and that technology can be one useful tool in enabling them to exercise that right. We also believe that the educators in California’s public college and university system are still critical enablers of that right and have a central role to play in making that ideal a reality. And we think there is real value in bringing together educators across the state to focus on sensible application of technology to solve a real educational problem. The culture and collaboration, knowledge and infrastructure that could be created to solve the access problem could also be applied to problems such as improving completion rates, improving course quality, and lowering tuition costs.

You can read the white paper here.

The post California and the Right to Educational Access appeared first on e-Literate.

Continuing my previous post, second book that I was working for PacktPub as technical reviewer was "Elasticsearch Server".
A very good book for this development based on the library Lucene, with many examples and concepts in order to exploit the full potential of free text searches using ElasticSearch.
As with the book described in the previous post (Apache Solr 4 Cookbook) this book is a perfect resource used during the development of "Scotas's Push Connector" because it allows me to integrate and exploit their full potential.
Overview

• Learn the basics of ElasticSearch like data indexing, analysis, and dynamic mapping
• Query and filter ElasticSearch for more accurate and precise search results
• Learn how to monitor and manage ElasticSearch clusters and troubleshoot any problems that arise

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1: Getting Started with ElasticSearch Cluster
• Chapter 2: Searching Your Data
• Chapter 3: Extending Your Structure and Search
• Chapter 4: Make Your Search Better
• Chapter 5: Combining Indexing, Analysis, and Search
• Chapter 6: Beyond Searching
• Chapter 7: Administrating Your Cluster
• Chapter 8: Dealing with Problems

Authors
Rafał KućRafał Kuć is a born team leader and software developer. Currently working as a Consultant and a Software Engineer at Sematext Inc, where he concentrates on open source technologies such as Apache Lucene and Solr, ElasticSearch, and Hadoop stack. He has more than 10 years of experience in various software branches, from banking software to e-commerce products. He is mainly focused on Java, but open to every tool and programming language that will make the achievement of his goal easier and faster. Rafał is also one of the founders of the solr.pl site, where he tries to share his knowledge and help people with their problems with Solr and Lucene. He is also a speaker for various conferences around the world such as Lucene Eurocon, Berlin Buzzwords, and ApacheCon. Rafał began his journey with Lucene in 2002 and it wasn't love at first sight. When he came back to Lucene later in 2003, he revised his thoughts about the framework and saw the potential in search technologies. Then Solr came and that was it. From then on, Rafał has concentrated on search technologies and data analysis. Right now Lucene, Solr, and ElasticSearch are his main points of interest. Rafał is also the author of Apache Solr 3.1 Cookbook and the update to it—Apache Solr 4 Cookbook—published by Packt Publishing.
Marek RogozińskiMarek Rogoziński is a software architect and consultant with more than 10 years of experience. His specialization concerns solutions based on open source projects such as Solr and ElasticSearch. He is also the co-funder of the solr.pl site, publishing information and tutorials about the Solr and Lucene library. He currently holds the position of Chief Technology Officer in Smartupz, the vendor of the Discourse™ social collaboration software.
Conclusion
Many developers know Lucene, but do not know the product ElasticSearch, to know or want to know this book is going to enter in the product and the potential of this.

During my summer I had the chance to work for Packtpub as technical reviewer of two great books.
First "Apache Solr 4 Cookbook" is a very good book to entered into the world of free-text search integrated to any development or portal with real and practical examples using the latest version of the Apache Solr search.
Overview

• Learn how to make Apache Solr search faster, more complete, and comprehensively scalable
• Solve performance, setup, configuration, analysis, and query problems in no time
• Get to grips with, and master, the new exciting features of Apache Solr 4

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1: Apache Solr Configuration
• Chapter 2: Indexing Your Data
• Chapter 3: Analyzing Your Text Data
• Chapter 4: Querying Solr
• Chapter 5: Using the Faceting Mechanism
• Chapter 6: Improving Solr Performance
• Chapter 7: In the Cloud
• Chapter 8: Using Additional Solr Functionalities
• Chapter 9: Dealing with Problems
• Appendix: Real-life Situations

Author
Rafał Kuć is a born team leader and software developer. Currently working as a Consultant and a Software Engineer at Sematext Inc, where he concentrates on open source technologies such as Apache Lucene and Solr, ElasticSearch, and Hadoop stack. He has more than 10 years of experience in various software branches, from banking software to e-commerce products. He is mainly focused on Java, but open to every tool and programming language that will make the achievement of his goal easier and faster. Rafał is also one of the founders of the solr.pl site, where he tries to share his knowledge and help people with their problems with Solr and Lucene. He is also a speaker for various conferences around the world such as Lucene Eurocon, Berlin Buzzwords, and ApacheCon. Rafał began his journey with Lucene in 2002 and it wasn't love at first sight. When he came back to Lucene later in 2003, he revised his thoughts about the framework and saw the potential in search technologies. Then Solr came and that was it. From then on, Rafał has concentrated on search technologies and data analysis. Right now Lucene, Solr, and ElasticSearch are his main points of interest. Rafał is also the author of Apache Solr 3.1 Cookbook and the update to it—Apache Solr 4 Cookbook—published by Packt Publishing.


ConclusionIf you are about to start a development or entered into the world of free text this book is a very good investment in time and resources, practical examples really serve to acquire new concepts in a simple and practical with minimal effort.

The function ORA_ROWSCN returns an SCN from a row (or more commonly the block, unless ROWDEPENDENCIES has been used).
select distinct ora_rowscn from PLAN_TABLE;
But unless you're a database, that SCN doesn't mean much. You can put things in some sort of order, but not much more.
Much better is
select sys.scn_to_timestamp(ora_rowscn) from PLAN_TABLE;
unless it gives you
ORA-08181: specified number is not a valid system change number
which is database-speak for "I can't remember exactly".
That's when you might be able to fall back on this, plugging the SCN in place of the **** :
select * from   (select first_time, first_change# curr_change,           lag(first_change#) over (order by first_change#) prev_change,          lead(first_change#) over (order by first_change#) next_change  FROM v$log_history)where **** between curr_change and next_change
It won't be exact, and it doesn't stretch back forever. But it is better than nothing.
PS. This isn't a perfect way to find when a row was really inserted/updated. It is probably at the block level, and there's 'stuff' that can happen which doesn't actually change the row but might still reset the SCN. If you're looking for perfection, you at the wrong blog :)

As companies have come to realize that attracting and retaining customers depend on providing a personalized experience, more firms are looking to mine big data for enhanced analytic insight. By leveraging support from dba services, enterprises have the opportunity to understand consumers on a deeper level, develop more targeted strategies and thus, secure stronger and more loyal relationships.

CIO Magazine reported that Nationwide, a 90-year old insurance company with a multitude of databases and compliance requirements, has spent billions on big data initiatives for these purposes. Matt Jauchius, CMO of Nationwide, explained that these efforts are invaluable to his company.

"The ability to collect vast amounts of data on individual consumers – their consumption habits, their preferences, their interactions with the company – and then analyze those data sets for predictive behavior and proactively apply those insights … [that's] the basis of competitive advantage in the future for the CMO because you can provide a better experience," he told CIO.

Elana Anderson, vice president of IBM Enterprise Marketing Management, noted that big data projects have the potential to give marketers predictive capabilities that could result in more successful campaigns.

"Marketing has long been on a quest to get to the individual," she said, according to CIO. "Smart marketers…have been trying to get beyond the demographic for a long, long time. If you're able to address the individual at an individual level, if you're able to sense needs or meet needs before the customer is explicitly saying, 'I have a need,' that requires big data and analytics in order to get to that point. We're seeing tremendous value with uses cases around that."

More profitable relationships
Forbes revealed that successful big data initiatives can even lessen customer churn rates. The source explained that understanding this rate is critical for identifying and addressing any ineffective tactics or weak relationships. By patching these faults, businesses can retain more clients and ultimately drive profit long-term. According to Forbes, recent research from a data visualization firm found that if a customer had made just one purchase from a specific store, there is a 27 percent chance that he or she will repeat business with that company. Further, after three purchases, the customer is twice as likely to return in the future.

By analyzing big data from an ever-increasing variety of channels, including mobile devices and social media, enterprises can gain a stronger grasp on customers' needs, desires and preferences. This can eventually strengthen client loyalty and as a result, boost revenue.

RDX's business intelligence and big data experts assist customers in leveraging data contained in large data stores. For more information, please visit our Business Intelligence and Predictive Analytics pages or contact us.

There was a question on ADF Masterclass Webinar (Video: ADF Master Class and ADF Blog Q&A, Andrejus Baranovskis (Part I)) about removing new row from ADF Form. I have a blog post about removing new row from ADF table - Immediately Removing New Row Without Validation in ADF, but one of the Webinar participants was saying the same doesn't work for ADF Form layout component. I promised to double check this and post sample application.

Here you can download sample application - NewRowRemoveApp_v2.zip. So, the main trick is additionally to setting Immediate=true for Delete button, add ADF resetActionListener operation to the same Delete button:


Make sure Immediate=true is set for Delete button, along with ADF resetActionListener:


Add new row, force validation errors by trying to navigate to the next row:


Press Delete button to remove new row, validation errors will be ignored and row will be removed:


For ADF Form component is not enough to set Immediate=true property only, ADF resetActionListener must be added to force form refresh.

Updated – just a quick reminder for next week; I’ll be doing a short webinar next Wednesday comparing the performance monitoring tools Oracle and SQL server provide.

I think I may have broken my record with 6 countries in 6 weeks – so I haven’t been very thorough at updating my blog recently. Just time, before I head off to Heathrow once again, to do a quick advert for the next redgate webinar that I’m doing with Grant Fritchey. This time comparing built-in performance monitoring tools. Details and Registrations at this URL.

I’ll see if I can catch up with a couple of answers while I’m in the airport lounge – but no promises, since the simple act of walking into an airport makes me  feel like falling asleep.

Reminder:

The webinars on “Smarter Statistics in 11g” are on tomorrow (Friday) at 2:00 pm and 6:00 pm. There’s a waiting list for the 6:00 pm event, so if you’ve signed up but can’t make it please delete your registration. (The event will be repeated on 10th June).  If you want to vote a better time for me to do short webinars there’s a poll at the end of the article.

 

 

I’m about to make a serious move into online webinars, and as a warm-up exercise I’ll be doing a couple of one-hour free events on Friday 17th May.

I’ll be talking through a Powerpoint presentation called “Smarter Statistics in 11g” twice, once at 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm BST, and again at 6:00 pm BST  (12:00 pm - 1:00 pm CDT) . Broadly speaking the first one is for the benefit people from the UK and eastwards, and the second is for the benefit of people from the US and westwards. This is just a trial run, of course, and if it works well I will be doing more of the same, perhaps three times per day to spread across more time zones.

John Goodhue (my O1 sponsor for the USA) is arranging all the mechanical details, and I’ll post links for registration when they become available – we’ll be using GoToWebinar as the supply mechanism, and we’ll be limiting access to 100 people (so if you do register and can’t attend, please remove yourself from the list; if you don’t manage to register for either event, you’ll get another chance later as I plan to repeat each event a few times.)

I’ll also be doing a full day paid event on 23rd May which will be my “Indexing Strategies” tutorial. This first full day event will be timed to suit the American audience – although anyone can register, of course – but we plan to have further events suited to other time zones. The URL for registration is now available – with an option to purchase a 30-day window to the recording of my “Oracle Mechanisms” presentation in Minneapolis.

Take Our Poll

It’s stupid o’clock in the morning and I’m waiting for my taxi to arrive. Considering how close Bulgaria is, it takes me a very long time to get there.

I am a mix of excited and nervous. This is my first conference this year, so all the usual insecurities are in full effect, from fear of flying to the constant nagging thoughts that perhaps I don’t know anything about Oracle and maybe I shouldn’t be on stage acting like I do.

I’m sure it will go OK and it will be nice to meet up with the gang again.

Cheers

Tim…

BGOUG Spring 2013 : Day -1 was first posted on May 16, 2013 at 4:55 am.
©2012 "The ORACLE-BASE Blog". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement.

Today, Thursday May 16th at 1pm Eastern, 10am Pacific, we will be broadcasting a new webcast featuring a WebCenter customer, Mortenson Construction.  I hope you can take the time to join us, either live or later on by viewing it on-demand.  Many of know the benefits of enterprise content management (ECM) but they have taken it to another level by making sure that every person involved in a construction project has immediate access to the info they need.

OK, so some of you may be saying, isn't that what ECM is all about?  Immediate access to the right content in order to make the right business decisions.  Well, yes, ideally but I suspect we all know scenarios where that is not necessarily the case.  For businesses that do not take the time to incorporate a centralized approach to content management and dissemination, ECM can become a great place to hide information, not use it effectively.

Mortenson Construction has done a great job of making sure that project owners, managers, designers, architects, trade partners and finance teams all have secure access into the project information they need.  And best of all, they can do it from anywhere, on mobile devices, even on the job site itself.  Most of us are not in the construction industry but we have seen projects underway.  

You've probably seen the trailers that are placed on the job site so that managers, foreman and various craft workers can meet and discuss the latest design specifications and resolve problems as they arise. But what about the work team on the 16th floor of the high-rise being built?  Do they have to take an extended break every time there is an issue to resolve and make their way back to the trailer to discuss it? Not if they work at Mortenson!  They have a portable "Field Box" that is effectively a small office in a steel container. It can be moved anywhere by crane and be immediately online with access to every bit of project information.

Mortenson calls this "Project Connect" and it is a great example of how a company can take the power of content that must be securely managed within an ECM system to meet information governance and compliance requirements and get it to every one that needs it... anywhere!

We hope you will join the webcast tomorrow and hear directly from the team at Mortenson Construction about the benefits that they are realizing by using WebCenter Content as their ECM system.  Maybe you can realize some of those benefits too!

Click this link to join us and register to watch this informative webcast. 

This pithy interview gives you a glimpse into our visionary UX team. The interviewee is Jeremy Ashley (left), vice president of Applications User Experience. His answers are crisp and informative. The interviewer, ACE Director Debra Lilley (right), is knowledgeable and keeps the conversation snappy.

If that isn’t enough to make you want to click to the interview, here’s the elevator pitch. Ashley level sets where we are with FUSE, which is the new look and feel of Oracle applications. His team is looking closely at changes in technology, as well as how society is changing in regard to its reaction to technology. In recent years, cell phones, smaller display screens, and the iPad required his team to design even more efficient user experiences.

Now we are in another major transition phase. Products come out very quickly. Technology has become more personal. The challenge is to discover how users can integrate with their environment. He says, “It’s not really about mobile meaning a mobile device. It’s more about us being on the go and how the environment can assist and react accordingly.”

Ashley’s team is pushing the envelope, collaborating, and bringing colleagues and customers along with them. They provide common guidelines for standards. They also create usable, consistent components and flows (meta-components called design patterns) so internal developers and customers can build good usable experiences for their products.

The interview is entitled User Experience and How it Makes Applications Easier to Use. It appeared in Oracle Scene published by the Oracle User Group in the United Kingdom.

“Take Java to the Edge”

You know Java, now really know Java. Learn about the latest technical improvements in Java from the source. Watch informative tutorials (that you can repeat at your own pace) to improve your Java programming expertise and engage in live chat sessions with the preeminent Java experts.

Register NOW!

Join this FREE virtual event where you will learn about:

• Improved developer productivity and HTML5 applications
• Language improvements in Java SE to accelerate application development
• Features in Java that help you begin programming on a wide range of embedded devices
• Don't miss this opportunity. Register NOW!

AMERICAS/CANADA – June 19th, 2013

09:00 a.m. - 01:00 p.m. PDT
12:00 p.m. - 04:00 p.m. EDT
01:00 p.m. - 05:00 p.m. BRT

Register NOW!

Big data has become an increasingly critical focus for enterprises in every sector, but decision-makers are still struggling to make sense of these vast volumes of information. In order to extract value from these sources, enterprises need to seek reputable database experts to aid in capturing and analyzing both structured and unstructured data.

According to CMSWire, a major reason that big data projects fail is that departments often aren't on the same page in terms of defining the scope, objectives and technological needs of these initiatives. In order to effectively mine this information, the source asserted that business and IT groups need to be aligned on the goal of these efforts. By committing to a specific problem to solve or question to answer, firms are much better prepared to derive the right analytics. Another issue, the news source revealed, is that access to data is often too restricted, preventing certain team members from finding useful answers. This is mainly due to siloes that have been formed around sales, marketing, HR, financial and other data that has been strictly guarded and inhibits the gathering of real insight from big data. While some of these siloes are necessary for compliance, CMSWire explained, buy-in needs to come from top executives so that adequate information can be made available to those who need it.

Expertise and support
And even with emerging technologies for big data analysis, CMSWire pointed out that many of these solutions are so foreign that enterprises lack the ability to work with them to drive results. It is critical to have the right skills on board when executing these initiatives because these projects go beyond traditional analysis. CMSWire asserted that big data requires an understanding of machine learning and natural language processing, knowledge that many IT teams lack. Fortunately, firms can partner with database experts to fill this shortfall.

Lifehacker reported that Gartner Analyst Brian Burke recently emphasized the importance of acknowledging the big data skills shortage at the Gartner Enterprise Architecture Summit.

"Some of you are already wrestling with the issues of big data inside your organization," he said. "Some of you know that it's coming but aren't quite sure how to prepare for it. This challenge is about skills that aren't just about IT. They're clearly also about business… You must help your organization gain clarity so there are two sides of the house working together in unison."

By deploying third-party services for database management, monitoring and analysis, firms can start to fill that gap and drive big data success.

RDX's business intelligence and big data experts assist customers in leveraging data contained in large data stores. For more information, please visit our Business Intelligence and Predictive Analytics pages or contact us.

I’ve seen some very good information posted in this feed which combines blog postings from many different Oracle performance experts who are part of what is called the “Oak Table”

http://www.oaktable.net/feed/blog-rss.xml

I’ve been using Internet Explorer to keep track of new posts in its “Feeds” section of the Favorites.  Here is how to add the Oak Table blog feed to Internet Explorer:

Go to the URL listed above and click on “Subscribe to this feed”

Click on Subscribe button

Success!  Now click on Favorites and then Feeds

For any feed in your list if you see the feed name in a darker font it means there is a new post.  So, as I have time, I’ll go to my feeds and see which of the ones I’ve subscribed to have new posts.  If you are looking for performance tuning information I highly recommend the Oak Table feed.

- Bobby

We ran into Floyd (@fteter) last night. His cyborg transformation is complete.

Note the serious demeanor, with Glass power comes great responsibility, or something.

Backstory, Anthony (@anthonyslai) finally got his Explorer Series Glass unit on Sunday. Funny story, its display had a few dead pixels, three actually. He counted. Google replaced the unit, so all’s well.

Anyway, Anthony has generously been allowing people to test-drive his Glasses, and boy, do they get attention. People wherever we go are curious. Noel (@noelportugal) and I each took a turn, and despite the bare feature set, they’re pretty amazing.

Anthony says he’s been wearing them non-stop since Sunday, and that he can’t live without them. Pretty strong endorsement. I know he’s been using them heavily because texts from him have the latest in gadgety signatures appended “Sent through Glass.”

Look for a post from him on his adventures soon. He and Noel are attending Google I/O this week, and I’m sure there will be lots of Glass news.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Google Glass Details Emerge
• First 3 days as a Glass Explorer (Prologue)
• First 3 days as a Glass Explorer (Day -7)
• The Week in Google
• Mix President’s Day Release: JRuby 1.1RC2 and a bunch of other stuff!