Top 10 signs your DBA might need to retire

The top 10 signs your DBA might need to retire:

1. Complains about these "new fangled stored procedures".
2. Rants about the good old days of Oracle PE (Punchcard Edition).
3. Thinks Thomas Kyte is a whipper-snapper (even with the beard).
   
4. Still demands all Oracle manuals in hardcopy.
5. Has a service request with Oracle Support to forward port the RBO to 11g.
6. Knows about Edgar's secret 13th rule.
7. Thinks Oracle Support went downhill when they moved the HQ to Redwood Shores in 1989.
8. Has larry@rsi.com in his address book.
9. Still replaces blank lines in PL/SQL with single line comments.
10. Has an open 10 year old Oracle Support "TAR" to fix a bug in version 7 which he/she wont close because of the "principal of the thing."
    

If you enjoyed this, you may also enjoy Top 10 signs your new Oracle DBA may not be all what he (or she) seems.

(Yep, still a slow week while I prepare for OOW and the AUSOUG conference, as well as teach a SQL course. I promise no more "DBA bashing" ;)

A little self promotion.....

This post is a little self promotion for SAGE Computing Services. If you're not interested in marketing, use the back button now! I promise I wont be doing this sort of post often.

To all the SAGE Computing Services fans out there (hi Mum!) we've had a chance to update our website. What made me particularly excited about the site is we've managed to include flashing text, JavaScript menus, Flash animations, and audio of the SAGE team singing "row, row, row your boat".

On a slightly more serious note, we've gathered the last 3 years of the 40 odd Oracle papers, presentations and masterclasses we've run in Australia and internationally, which you can now download. I must admit we've been a bit lazy in indexing this list, because marketing isn't really our thing.

To the various user group members out there, we're more than happy to support your group and present for you. Why? Well lets just say we're a bunch of Oracle geeks. So if you have a topic that you know we specialize in, particular Oracle development, Oracle RDBMS tuning, SQL, PL/SQL, Oracle Application Express (Apex), JDeveloper or Oracle Portal, drop us a line, and we'll work something out. As long as we get a free bottle of wine out of it, we're normally happy (no white wine please).

Hopefully the updated site will generate us slightly more revenue so we can take next Friday off, rather than sitting here posting about our updated site.

OOW Unconference - oh, me, me, me!

I've taken the chance to throw one of my presentations into the Oracle Open World Unconference ring and hopefully it'll be selected. You can check my session proposal on the Oracle Wiki:

Take a load off! Load testing your Oracle Apex or JDeveloper web applications

I note Andrejus Baranovskis has entered a JDeveloper paper too:

Oracle JDeveloper/ADF Real Life Story

....great to see a JDeveloper case study; more of these please Andrejus! I'm sure we're both very keen to meet our peers interested in JDeveloper too (assuming either of our sessions are selected of course ;) so please show your support if you can.

I think the Unconference is a great idea, giving lesser known mortals a chance to present something they're interested in at this mega-event. I must admit it's also an important learning opportunity on how to present in front of an American audience for myself; let's just say I need to learn to turn down some of my Australian colloquialisms ;)

I hope more attendees will take up this great opportunity, real users presenting real topics, it doesn't get much better than that.

Top 10 signs your new Oracle DBA may not be all what he seems

The top 10 signs your new Oracle DBA may not be all what he (or she) seems:

1. Arrives day 1 with "SQL For Dummies" in hand.
2. Searches for ORA-00600 errors on AskJeeves.
3. Is president of the local MS user group.
4. Resets the production database password to "manager" to make life easier.
5. Thinks utl_file is a package the developers wrote.
6. Is planning an organisation wide upgrade to Excel (but then shelves the plan as copy 'n paste from SQL*Plus to Excel proves too difficult).
7. Proclaims "A reboot a day keeps the Oracle demons at bay."
8. Uses ANSI SQL joins.
9. Looks blank at the mention of Thomas Kyte.
10. Proclaims that administration is impossible if SSMS isn't installed.

If you enjoyed this, you may also enjoy Top 10 signs your DBA might need to retire.

(This post courtesy of a slow blogging week while I prepare for OOW, and papers for the AUSOUG conference)

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.