JDeveloper REST Web Services presentation available

For those who attended the AUSOUG'10 Perth conference, my presentation JDeveloper 11g's REST web services is now available for download.

Thanks to all the members who voted for this session, I was well chuffed when it received 2nd best presentation at the conference.

AUSOUG'10 Perth conference - REST web services with JDev

It's that time of the year again when the Perth Australian Oracle User Group (AUSOUG) conference comes around. This conference is guaranteed to be only 0.005% as large as Oracle Open World, way more personable though, with better lunches, involves less walking & definitely is less tiring. Coffee is better too.

This year I'll be selling Oracle wares with the following double slot presentation:

A change is as good as a REST: JDeveloper 11g's REST web services

23rd November - "Studio 2" - 11am-12:45

Abstract: SOAP based web services can seem a hard slog to develop with their contract first design requirements, and over engineered specification that includes everything plus the kitchen sink. REST based web services provide light relief for quick web service development where the constraints of SOAP web services feel extreme for some short sharp development. Luckily Oracle's JDeveloper provides support for both styles, and in this presentation Chris Muir will demonstrate a short and sweet demonstration to getting REST web services up and running, using JDeveloper's JAX-RS support.


I look forward to seeing you there.

ODTUG down under – more ACEs than a pack of cards

Regular readers already know that ODTUG in conjunction with Oracle Technology Network has invited a number of Oracle ACEs and ACE Directors to present down under. ODTUG has teamed with AUSOUG to give these world recognized presenters (in fact in all cases world award winning speakers) full day slots at the conference that starts next week:

Tim Hall
Lucas Jellema
Peter Koletzke
Connor McDonald
Penny Cookson

Unusually for these presentations, rather than a 45m technical hit, these speakers will be running full day slots, meaning it's a mini training day increasing your value from the conference.

The Perth conference starts next week November 10th & llth, and the Melbourne conference follows 16th & 17th of November. You don't have much time to book so hit the AUSOUG website now for instructions on how to buy tickets.

In addition I'll be presenting my two presentations fresh from OOW09:

SOA Lite: A taste of SOA with a smidgen of Web Services

Oracle JDeveloper 11g JAX-WS Web Services: As easy as 1-2-3: XSD, WSDL, Generate!

...but given these other great speakers are in town, I expect me and my Mum in mine :-(

AUSOUG charges considerably under industry rates for the conference series per delegate, and there are rumours this will be the last year at such cheap rates, so make effort to grab tickets now.

Remember to support your user group like it supports you.

Tom Kyte and Richard Niemiec down-under

For any Australian readers who are members of the Australian Oracle User Group (AUSOUG), there's chances you've missed one exciting announcement for the AUSOUG 2008 conference buried in the recent eBulletins:

Tom Kyte, Senior Technical Architect in Oracle’s Server Technology Division has already agreed to present on the Gold Coast on 14 October from 1.00pm - 2.30pm. Rich Niemiec, President of TUSC, USA has also agreed to present at the Gold Coast Conference.

The Gold Coast might seem a long way away for most Australians, but obviously it's far closer than flying all the way to San Fran to check out these 2 well known Oracle personalities at Oracle OpenWorld.

I wonder what other exciting Oracle personalities will be there? Oh, yeah, me ;) I'll be running a JDeveloper Masterclass on the day after the conference for those who can't get enough of the Big-O.

Time to start nagging your boss to let you attend, if not to see Tom and Richard, to see me in action!

Disclaimer: possibly you've caught me on a not-so-shy-day.

Call for papers: Australian Oracle User Group conference

For those interested the Australian Oracle User Group (AUSOUG) has announced their call for papers for the 2008 conference series. This year the series will run in Perth 6th/7th October and Gold Coast (just south of Brisbane) 13th/14th October 2008.

Of course those who have read this blog enough will know that I think Perth is the jewel of the southern hemisphere, and I wouldn't recommend visiting the Gold Coast because it's full of mud! Take your pick ;)

The conference web page gives more details about the event, and the Speaker and Papers Submission page the details required to submit a paper.

Also can you do me a favour please? If you submit a presentation or end up registering to attend the event because of what you read on this blog, please leave a comment. I'm interested to know if advertising such events on this blog actually draws any additional speakers and attendees.

Here's to seeing you in Perth, and maybe brown-muddy Gold Coast in 2008 :)

Collab08: The Aussie DBAs are coming! Tony Jambu and Penny Cookson

Australians have a reputation for being down to earth, hard working sorts who don't ponce about, and I'm happy to advertise two of Australia's best Oracle DBA zero-poncers will be presenting at Collaborate 08 this year, Penny Cookson and Tony Jambu. I recommend you check out their presentations:

Penny Cookson: New Tuning Features in Oracle 11g: How to make managing your database free of stress

Penny was awarded the Oracle Educator of the Year 2004 by Oracle Magazine, Oracle ACE hood in 2008, and has won numerous best paper awards.

Abstract: One of the key problems that has haunted Oracle sites since the introduction of the cost based optimiser is the ability to provide a stable level of performance over time. The very responsiveness of the CBO to factors such as changes in statistics and initialisation parameters can lead to sudden changes in performance levels. Oracle 11g introduces a number of features that will assist the DBA in providing a stable environment for mission critical applications. Excitement is for out of work time, not for managing production databases. This presentation will discuss the best use of these new tuning features to reduce the stress levels of DBAs.

Tony Jambu: Understanding Oracle's Histograms

Tony was awarded Oracle ACE-hood in 2007, Oracle Magazine Consultant of the Year in 2003, and is a well known and popular presenter on the Oracle scene in Australia.

Abstract: Oracle’s histogram is one of the most misunderstood and least used feature. On top of that, there are a number of myths regarding its use. This presentation will look under the cover of Oracle’s histogram.

It will cover the basics e.g. from data distribution, density and cardinality to how to generate accurate histogram and tuning using histograms.

For the experienced DBAs, the presentation will dig into the Oracle dictionary as well as analysing CBO’s trace files.

Objectives:

• Understanding of what a histogram is and is not
• How to gather appropriate histogram data
• Tuning with proper appropriate histogram data

New Aussie Oracle blogger take 2

There must be something in the water down here (or maybe the lack of it) because all I seem to be doing recently is blogging about Aussies in Oracle-land (and I know I've another Aussie post coming).

I'm happy to have the scoop that Marcel Kratochvil, Oracle ACE, Oracle Magazine PL/SQL Programmer of the Year, and all round Oracle over achiever from Canberra Australia has started a blog on Oracle related content, his speciality being multimedia (and PL/SQL of course).

I'm sure there's some story behind why the blog's name is the Eternal Donut, but with Marcel, a lot of us learn "don't go there" ;)

Good luck to Marcel and his blogging adventures.

An open invite to present in Perth take 2

Last September I posted An open invite to present in Perth, inviting Oracle speakers to drop me an email if they were interested in presenting to the local AUSOUG Western Australian members.

The fruition of this post arrived last night with Chris Spierings from Oracle@Queensland presenting on "10046 Trace File Primer for Developers and DBAs". Thanks to Chris for making the trip all the way over here, though I'm a little suspicious he laid all performance problems of the database at the developers' feet.

I'd like to reopen my invitation to my readers to present in front of our local Oracle members. Unfortunately yes, Perth is a qwzillion miles from anywhere, but that's also its charm (besides the Margaret River region of course).

If you're interested I can be contacted at chrisdotmuiratsagecomputingdotcomdotau (replacing the "dot" and "at" with the appropriate symbols). We hope to hear from you soon.

Next month we're lucky enough to have Connor McDonald presenting again on 10g New Features for Developers.

Welcome new Oracle Aussie ACEs

I'm happy to have the scoop that a long time mentor Penny Cookson and a well known and dedicated Canberra Oracle personality Marcel Kratochvil have been recognized for their efforts by Oracle and have been awarded Oracle ACE status.

So what makes an Oracle ACE? These two show a staggering background:

Penny's Oracle history:

• 2004 Oracle Educator of the Year awarded by Oracle Magazine.
• President of the Western Australian branch of Australian Oracle User Group (AUSOUG) 2006, conference chair 2007, and still a standing and active committee member.
• Awarded AUSOUG life membership 2003
• Best user paper award at Western Australian and Victorian Oracle User Group Conference 2003 for her paper "Whose fault is it – A review of Application tuning problems"
• Best user paper award at the Western Australian Oracle User Group Conference 2002 for her paper "Oracle Forms and Reports 9i"
• Best user paper award at Queensland Oracle User Group Conference 1999 for her paper "Application Tuning in Oracle 8i"
• Best user paper award at Oracle Asia Pacific OpenWorld 1997 for her paper "Optimising SQL in the Oracle 8 Object / Relational Database"
• 2nd best user paper award at Oracle Asia Pacific OpenWorld 1996 for her paper "Minimum Ingredients for Generating and Application in Designer 2000"
• Best user paper award at Oracle Asia Pacific OpenWorld 1996 for her paper " 20 Application Tuning Tips"
• Best user paper at Oracle Asia Pacific OpenWorld 1995 for her paper "How to Perform a 20 point Health Check on your database"

+ the following presentations:

(For your reference most of these presentations are available from the Sage website)

• Quality Assurance of Data Models - Oracle User Group Conference (WA) - 1994
• Oracle Forms Standards - Oracle User Group Conference (WA) - 1994
• Using Oracle Case for easily Maintained Applications - Oracle User Group Conference (WA) - 1995
• How to Perform a 20 point Health Check on your database - Oracle Asia Pacific Openworld - 1996 - Oracle User Group Conference (VIC, WA, QLD, ACT) - 1995+1996
• Using Oracle Reports in a Financials Data Warehouse - Oracle Asia Pacific Openworld - 1996
• 20 Application Tuning Tips - Oracle Asia Pacific Openworld - 1997 - Oracle User Group Conference (VIC, ACT) - 1996 + 1997 - Singapore OUG Conference - 1998 - Malaysia OUG Conference - 1998
• Minimum Ingredients for Generating and Application in Designer 2000 - Oracle Asia Pacific Openworld - 1997 - Oracle User Group Conference (WA) - 1997
• Designing Applications for Performance and Ease of Maintenance - Oracle User Group Conference (ACT, QLD) - 1997 - Oracle Asia Pacific Openworld - 1997 - Singapore OUG Conference - 1998 - Malaysia OUG Conference - 1998 - Oracle Asia Pacific Conference (Sing) - 1999 - Oracle N.Z. Conference - 1999
• Optimising SQL in the Oracle 8 Object / Relational Database - Oracle Asia Pacific Openworld - 1997 - Oracle User Group Conference (WA) - 1998
• Oracle Forms 5 New Features - Oracle User Group Conference (WA) - 1998
• Developing Form Builder applications for a - Oracle User Group Conference (QLD) - 1998
• Web and Client Server environment - Oracle Asia Pacific Conference (Sing) - 1999 - Oracle N.Z. Conference - 1999 - Oracle User Group Conference (WA) - 1999
• Oracle Forms 6 New Features - Oracle User Group Conference (WA) - 1999 - Oracle User Group Conference (ACT) - 1999
• Creating Libraries and Templates for 100% Definition in Designer 2.1 - Oracle User Group Conference (WA) - 1999 - Oracle Asia Pacific Conference (Sing) - 1999 - Oracle User Group Conference (ACT) - 1999
• Application Tuning in Oracle 8i - Oracle User Group Conference (QLD) - 1999 - European Oracle User Conference (Madrid) - 2000 - Oracle N.Z. Conference - 2001
• WebDB Mini Lesson - Oracle User Group Conference (WA) - 2000 - New Zealand conference - 2000
• Managing the Cost Base Optimiser in Oracle 8i (Full Day Tutorial) - Eurpoean Oracle User Group Conference (Madrid) - 2000
• Oracle Portal Components - Oracle User Group Conference (WA) - 2001
• Materialized Views for Summary Management - Oracle User Group Conference (WA) - 2001 - Brisbane Oracle Masters conference - 2001
• Indexing Strategies in Oracle 8i - New Zealand conference - 2001
• Converting to Oracle Web Forms - New Zealand conference - 2001 - Brisbane Oracle Masters conference - 2000
• Whats in Oracle 9iAS - Oracle User Group Seminar (WA) - 2001
• Understanding the Oracle Portal API - Oracle User Group Conference (WA) - 2002
• Oracle Forms and Reports 9i - Oracle User Group Conference (WA) - 2002
• Whose fault it it – A review of Application tuning problems - Oracle User Group Conference (WA) - 2003 - Oracle User Group Conference (VIC) - 2003
• Content management with Oracle Portal - Oracle User Group Conference (VIC) - 2003
• Oracle 9i Features for developers - Oracle User Group Conference (WA, VIC, SA) - 2003
• Oracle 10g New features - Oracle User Group Conference (WA, VIC, QLD) - 2004
• Oracle Portal Case Studies - Oracle Openworld Melbourne - 2004
• HTMLDB mini lesson - User Group Conference (VIC, QLD) - 2004
• Masterclass – Database and application tuning - Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Hobart, Perth - 2005
• Development techniques for HTMLDB - User Group Conference (WA) - 2005
• Lost Without a Trace - User Group Conference (WA) - 2005
• Whose fault it it – A review of Application tuning problems - Oracle Openworld (USA) - 2005
• Masterclass – Database and application tuning - Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch NZ - 2006
• Oracle Application Express (mini lesson) - Oracle User Group Conference (WA, VIC) - 2006
• How can I tune it if I can't change the code - Oracle User Group Conference (WA, VIC) - 2006
• Oracle Application Express (mini lesson) - NZOUG Conference - 2007
• How can I tune it if I can't change the code - NZOUG Conference - 2007

And for Marcel:

• 2007 New Scientist Sleek Geek Winner
• 2004 PL/SQL Developer of the year
• 2002 Australia Recognition Award for building Strang Shipping System
• 1999 Oracle Asia Pacific User Conference Paper (Joint paper: voted 2nd)
• 1993 Asia Pacific Oracle Conference – Best Paper

+ the following presentations & podcasts:

• How to Multimedia - Enable Your Applications with Oracle Multimedia - Oracle OpenWorld San Francisco - 2007
• Podcast: Best Practices using Mod PL/SQL - On the external - donut web site - 2007
• Podcast: Multimedia - On the external - donut web site - 2007
• Podcast: Being Locked In - On the external - donut web site - 2007
• Podcast: Question Everything - On the external - donut web site - 2007
• Podcast: Extreme DBA Programming - On the external - donut web site - 2007
• Preach and Teach: Configuring the Mod PL/SQL Gateway - Oracle User Conference – Melb / Perth - 2006
• Conditional Compilation and Ajax - Oracle User Conference – Melb / Perth - 2006
• Developing Multimedia Applications for the Internet - Edinburgh User Group May 2006 - 2006
• Who wants to be a DBA - ACT User Group - 2005
• Web Based Interfaces - Chicago PL/SQL Conference - 2005
• Multimedia and PL/SQL - Chicago PL/SQL Conference - 2005
• Internet Security - Chicago PL/SQL Conference - 2005
• Hierarchical Queries and XML - ACT Oracle User Group - 2005
• Enterprise Manager - ACT Oracle User Group - 2004
• RMAN - ACT Oracle User Group - 2004
• Building Web Services - ACT Oracle User Group - 2004
• Oracle XML Roadmap for Developers - ACT Oracle User Group - 2003
• Oracle Database Objects - ACT Oracle User Group - 2002
• New Features in 9i R2 for Developers - ACT Oracle User Group - 2002
• Donuts for DBAs - Australian SELECT Magazine - 2002
• Understanding Mime Types - ACT Oracle User Group - 2001
• Dynamic SQL in Oracle8i - ACT Oracle User Group - 2000
• Good DBA – Bad DBA - Australian Oracle Open World - 1999
• Top Ten Oracle 8i features for a Database Administrator - QLD Oracle User Group 1999 - 1999
• Rapid Application Development and Oracle - ACT and QLD Oracle User Group 1999 - 1999
• Understanding the Business Issues behind a Data Warehouse - A Business Perspective - Oracle Business Conference 1998 - 1998
• Using Oracle8 to Web Enable the Data Warehouse - OpenWorld 1997, QLD Oracle User Group 1997 - 1997
• An overview of the Oracle8 Database Server - Federal Dept of Social Security - 1997
• Using Oracle8 to address the Child File Design - Federal Dept of Social Security - 1997
• Issues in establishing a world wide web site for a business - Canberra local seminar - 1997
• A Review of the Development of Commercial Applications for the World Wide Web - OpenWorld ’96,
• Australian Computer Society ‘96 - 1996
• Tips and Techniques for designing and building an application using the Oracle WebServer product - OpenWorld ‘96 - 1996
• Oracle PL/SQL Course Notes - Over 20 training courses - 1996
• Moving to a Proactive Database Environment - ACT User Group 1995 - 1995
• Implementing Repeating Fields within the Relational Model using PL/SQL and Oracle7 Release 7.1. - ACT User Group 1995 - 1995
• Implementing Hyper Indexes using Oracle7 Technology - Submitted to Oracle Magazine Jan 1996 - 1995
• Advanced uses of Oracle7 Technology - OpenWorld ‘94 - 1994
• Advanced Uses of Oracle7 and Oracle Glue in the Desktop Environment - OpenWorld ‘94 - 1994
• The Centralised Database Model vs. The Distributed Database Model - Local Seminar - 1994
• Understanding the Rowid and Rownum Pseudo Columns - Never Presented - 1994
• Using Oracle7 and Forms 4 Technology to address the problem of poor performance in the Client/Server Environment - Federal Department of Health - 1994
• Managing the external Oracle environment - OpenWorld 1993 - 1993
• Query Optimisation and Database Fine Tuning - OpenWorld 1992,IOUG 1993,QLD Oracle User Group 1992
• Managing Client/Server Technology - OpenWorld 1993 - 1992
• The User Authorisation System - OpenWorld 1990 - 1990

And there is more..... Sheesh, over achievers or what?

Penny works for Sage Computing Services as the MD in Perth Australia and Marcel at Piction in Canberra Australia. I know Penny's presenting at Collaborate 08 this year, and I'm willing to bet you'll have the chance to see Marcel at OOW08.

New Aussie "Oracle" bloggers

The secretive, sinister, gloomy, doomy and sightly damp Oracle Australian halls maybe opening themselves to a bit of outward inspection ;) Oracle's Barry Matthews, Carl Terrantroy, Paul Ricketts, Saul Cunningham and Steve Williamson have started the GTMi Team Blog - Australia New Zealand (ANZ).

Now to be honest GTMi sounds suspiciously like a marketing **** term, but I know enough about these guys to give them the benefit of the doubt that they know the Aussie and Kiwi crowd will turn their nose to such dribble. Instead I hope they will aim at some very interesting down to earth local content rather than towing the Oracle corporate line (which mainly involves wearing suits and attempting to talk like an American I might add ;).

Good luck to the crew and hopefully we'll see more bloggers from the Aussie Oracle halls soon?

Advert: March Oracle Application Express (APEX) course in Perth

SAGE Computing Services and Penny Cookson will be running an Oracle Application Express (APEX) workshop in Perth Australia March 5th-7th.

As you may already know Penny is recognized as one of the best Oracle educators winning Oracle Educator of the Year by Oracle Magazine in 2004. Penny is also well known in the Australian Oracle community, awarded AUSOUG lifetime membership in 2003, and has won numerous conference best paper prizes. And to get the disclaimer out of the way, Penny is my boss ;)

If you're interested in all things Apex and want to pick up some down to earth training, check out the events page on our website which has more details including the agenda, location and price. We hope to see you there.

Advert: JDeveloper workshops in Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth ~2 weeks

It's less than 2 weeks until SAGE Computing Services in conjunction with the Australian Oracle User Group (AUSOUG) are giving you the chance to attend this whole day event on Oracle's latest JDeveloper 11g Technical Preview 3 version. The first leg of the series is due in Melbourne, Adelaide in Perth in 2 weeks time.

This 1 day workshop will introduce you to the simplicity of JDeveloper 11g's drag-n-drop facilities, wizard and editor IDE, as well as declarative programming model for quickly developing a web application using ADF Business Component and ADF Faces, without a single line of Java!

Check out the AUSOUG event web page for more information and how to register. We look forward to seeing you there.

Jonathan Lewis "down under"

To continue my down under series, this time I'm happy to report to my huge Australian reader base (hi Mum!) that Jonathan Lewis will be visiting Australia on an Eastern States roadshow during March.

I figure that most people know already from Jonathan's own blog. However while teaching JDeveloper today one of my students pointed out no other Australian Oracle bloggers post about Australian Oracle events, so it might as well be me. I can't find this event on Oracle's own events.oracle.com, so consider this a public service announcement ;)

In other Oracle Australian news, Oracle has discovered that they have in fact sold Oracle licenses to at least several organisations in Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide, and are considering sending the next speaker to anywhere besides Melbourne and Sydney in recognition that neither city are the center of the Universe.

AUSOUG 2008 Conference Dates

I received my "speaker thank you" letter for my 2007 AUSOUG conference presentation last week. One tidbit of information in the letter that other speakers and delegates may be interested in is the 2008 AUSOUG Conference Dates. To quote the letter:

"The total number of people attending the conference series (Perth and Melbourne) exceeded our 2006 attendances making the 2007 series a most successful one to date. We have high expectations for the 2008 Conference Series that will be held at Sheraton Perth Hotel 6-7 October 2008 followed by Conrad Jupiters, Gold Coast from 13-14 October 2008."

This puts the AUSOUG conference series once again just after OOW which will be in September this year. I've also been trying to confirm one rumour I've heard that the NZOUG is planing a New Zealand conference just after the AUSOUG conference, which is a great plan to pick up any international speakers flying home from the East Coast of Australia.

Regards the Gold Coast conference, for those who don't know Australia, the Gold Coast is approx 1-2 hours drive south of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland on the (North) East Coast of Australia.

If (assuming I'm invited back) and when I receive the AUSOUG call for papers I'll publish that here too.

AUSOUG 2007 conference JDeveloper presentations

....logged under the "yes I'm an AUSOUG state committee member" department.

My first exclusive "you-heard-it-here-first" news post!

I'm happy to announce that Lynn Munsinger and Duncan Mills from Oracle will be presenting on JDeveloper at the Australian Oracle User Group (AUSOUG) conference in Melbourne and Perth respectively.

Last year Melbourne was very lucky to have Lynn present, and Lynn has decided to return again which is great news for everyone on the East Coast of Australia. For those who said to me they were impressed by what Lynn demoed last year, I'm pretty sure you haven't seen anything yet with the new JDev 11g release imminent, and these presentations straight from OOW.

For us West Coast Oracle developers, Perth is very privileged to have Duncan Mills, senior Principal Product Manager from Oracle, give us the low down on JDeveloper. Perth doesn't usually get to see such high caliber Oracle and Java speakers grace its fair shores. Do a little Google on Duncan Mills and you'll understand what I mean.

Given that I've seen zero JDeveloper presentations by local Aussie Oracle staff, this may be your only chance to see the latest for JDeveloper and ask the tough questions of very experienced Oracle staff. So make sure to sign up for this year's November conference in Perth or Melbourne, and I look forward to seeing you there.

Local Aussie Oracle related events

My family has made the big leap from Melbourne across this big brown country of ours to Perth. I had an excellent drive across the Nullarbor, one of the true beautiful desolate areas I've ever been. The Nullarbor is normally dry as a bone, but I crossed it during a long period of rain, with green everywhere (okay, it's still a brown-green), and fantastic sunrises and sunsets while dodging kangaroos and road-trains on the A1 highway. Oddly I even hit a snow storm in Victoria as I drove to South Australia, as well as huge amounts of rain from Coolgardie onwards in Western Australia.

Meanwhile the Oracle world moves on and there are a number of Oracle events happening in Australia that local readers may be interested in:

• Oracle Fusion Middleware Forum - Oracle is running a number of Fusion Middleware events during August in Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. Thomas Kurian will be one of the presenters in Sydney and Melbourne, and Roland Slee in Perth and Auckland. I'm not usually a fan of these Oracle events as they prove to be more marketing than technically useful, but if I was in Melbourne or Sydney I'd take the effort to see Thomas. I also note past and present AUSOUG presidents Dennis Remmer and Martin Power are also presenting. For those who want a no sales-fuss approach to presentations Dennis will meet your demands.
  

• In an effort to support the local Western Australian Oracle User Group (AUSOUG), they are running with "Common Stuff-Ups & How to Avoid Them" presented by Penny Cookson (Oracle Educator of the Year 2004). Perth for its small size is blessed by a number of local Oracle talents including Connor McDonald an Oracle ACE and well known presenter at the UKOUG. Both Penny and Connor are known for their down to earth presentations and are very popular at conferences (both have won numerous presentation awards). If you haven't before check out Penny this August Wednesday 1st. (Disclaimer: I work for Penny at SAGE Computing Services - but it's my blog, so I can post what I like ;).
  

In the "I'm not as good as them" vein, I'd like to thank the South Australian Oracle User Group for allowing me to present "All you (ever) needed to know about Java" (the ever so slightly abbreviated version) for Oracle professionals as I was passing through. It was great to see Oracle professionals looking outside the (dare I say PL/SQL ;) box with an interest in what other technologies have to provide.