blogs.oracle.com an RSS aggregator
Justin just announced that he rolled out the final piece to blogs.oracle.com – an RSS aggregator. The only change I noticed was the addition of the “RECENT POSTS” side bar. Is this the RSS aggregator? There is no RSS feed for the aggregator, however, Justin said that they were looking into adding it.
Nevertheless, I was hoping to find a feed URL in the HTML source of blogs.oracle.com, so I right-clicked on the page and selected “view page source”. Browsing through the HTML code, I did not find a feed URL, instead, I found this link http://blogs.oracle.com/discuss/msgReader$1 which turned out to be some type of page hit counter. According to this page, as of this writing, there have been 25825 hits since 1/30/2006; 12:50:14 PM.
Going up one level to http://blogs.oracle.com/discuss/ there was a discussion group page. On that page there was one topic with the subject “It Worked!”. This reminded me when blogs.oracle.com was first announced. Clicking on the subject opened the message which contained instructions on how to create new posts and change preferences. It looks like blogs.oracle.com is hosted on a UserLand’s Manila website and weblog publishing system.
I wonder why Oracle did not create their own weblog publishing application. That’s what Macromedia (now Adobe) did. They created their own blog aggregator called the Macromedia XML news aggregator (aka MXNA). MXNA is the best aggregator I have seen so far. I just wish that blogs.oracle.com will someday have the same features as MXNA. Given that Oracle is fairly new to this blogging thing, compared to Macromedia, I still have hope. It certainly is a good start.
Filed in Oracle with 3 Comments | Tags: aggregator, blogThe Q-quote mechanism
In Oracle, you quote string literals in single quotes. If you have single quotes inside that string literal, you have to escape each single quote with another single quote. But, did you know that, in 10gR2, there is an alternative approach, called the “Q-quote mechanism”?. I only knew about it when Martin mentioned it on OraQA. (more…)
Filed in Oracle, Tips with 11 Comments | Tags: function, sqlWhy invest in Oracle
Oracle is a good investment. This is not my advice to you, but rather the gist of an article by Tim Beyers from the Motley Fool.
To explain why Oracle is a good investment, Tim debunks the three so-called threats to Oracle that have pervaded the market’s consciousness. To summarize:
Threat 1: Acquisition risk is too great
The conventional wisdom says that Oracle can’t possibly integrate all of these firms into a coherent whole. That could be true, but history says otherwise. The database king has bought untold numbers of software companies and successfully integrated them into its business.
Threat 2: Database sales are slowing
The truth is that Oracle’s database business is changing for the better. More and more firms are turning to open-source alternatives. Take the Innobase acquisition. Guess what that means? The minute you start looking at open-source options, Oracle is there waiting. Total dollar volume isn’t yet the proper measure of success. Customer count is. And with its recent acquisitions, Oracle has grown its customer count substantially.
Threat 3: Oracle has too many tough rivals
Oracle’s main rival is SAP. SAP is vulnerable. It has no database, and it has switched database partners more often than Colin Farrell at a celebrity speed-dating contest. Today, Oracle is the world record holder for pulling data from, and publishing to, SAP’s Business Information Warehouse. SAP is going to have a heck of a time extracting Oracle from its user base. Besides Microsoft, Oracle is the only firm on the planet that can offer a business every kind of software it needs to run a business.
OK, now I just need some extra cash in my brokerage account.
Filed in Oracle, Technology with 7 Comments | Tags: acquisition, investmentAre you experiencing the blogger burnout?
Today, Jeff Moss, an Oracle blogger has left the building. I have also noticed that there are other Oracle bloggers who have not updated their blogs for many months, an implicit indication that they too have gone on hiatus. Looks like “blogger burnout” has finally taken its toll.
I have gathered a couple of quick thoughts on the subject of blogger burnout:
Chris thinks:
blogging can be so rewarding, so engrossing, that we begin to forget there are other things that need to be done. For those of you with careers outside of our blogging, where blogging is a fun distraction, this can be quite threatening to the mortgage payments so be careful!
Lanny thinks:
Part of the problem is simply that those who burn the candle brightest are likely not leading full rounded lives but instead getting so absorbed in the moment and the possibilities that may exist that they are inadvertently putting themselves on an emotional roller coaster with little reserve left over for dealing with the tough but pragmatic issues that emerge from “day job” part of their lives. Periodically, I’m in that boat.
I agree with both Chris and Lanny. Do you? So far, I have managed to balance the different aspects of my life, what about you?
Filed in Interesting Stuff with 11 Comments | Tags: blogI’m upgraded and updated
It is Sunday night and I’m sitting next to my wife Jasmine on the sofa in front of the TV. Jasmine is watching “Big Love” on HBO (a series about a guy who is married to three wives, poor guy!), and I have my laptop on my lap, trying to write some thoughts.
Well, I finally did it. I upgraded my blog to the latest WordPress version (currently at 2.0.2). And while I was at it, I also switched to a new WordPress theme. I hope you like it. I wanted to avoid changing the look of the blog, but the old theme was not compatible with WordPress 2.0. Moreover, I used a few new WordPress plugins, you can see all of them here.
Speaking of upgrades, take this simple example:
select nvl(nvl(nvl(null, null),null),4) from dual
What’s wrong with it? Well, having an “upgraded” database version, from 8i to 9i for example, gives you the option to write it like this:
select coalesce(null,null,null,4) from dual
Upgrades are good. But hey, upgrades are not as simple as they sound. Heck, I spent all Sunday afternoon and evening upgrading my simple and small blog. How long will it take to upgrade, not one, but multiple Oracle databases and make sure that nothing breaks in the process. Testing an upgrade is often the most time consuming part of the upgrade process.
Back to basics: outer joins
Continuing the series about joins, today I will review outer joins. An outer join extends the result of an inner join. An outer join returns all rows that satisfy the join condition and also returns some or all of those rows from one table for which no rows from the other satisfy the join condition.
The ANSI SQL syntax of an outer join is: (more…)
Filed in Joins, Oracle with 9 Comments | Tags: concepts, joinFree screen capture software
I often want to capture some part of my screen to an image file or the clipboard. Sure there are a lot of software that do that, but, today, I found a completely free and a very easy to use screen capture software called ScreenHunter 4.0 Free. I just thought that you might find it useful as well.
Filed in Interesting Stuff with 8 Comments | Tags: screen-capture, software, toolBack to basics: inner joins
Continuing the series about joins, today it’s about inner joins. An inner join (aka simple join) is a join of two or more tables that returns only those rows that satisfy the join condition. When you hear people talking about a “join”, usually they are referring to an “inner join”.
For example: (more…)
Filed in Joins, Oracle with 15 Comments | Tags: concepts, joinBack to basics: cross joins
Am I considered old school because I do not use Oracle’s SQL92 compliant join syntax? After all, it is recommended to follow the standards whenever possible.
Starting with Oracle database version 9i, you can use the SQL join syntax that is compliant with the ANSI/ISO SQL92 standard. You also have the option to continue using the “old” syntax – that I have been using for years and that I am so used to. But to me, one of the main advantages of using the “new” join syntax is that join conditions are separated from the other filter conditions in the WHERE clause, making the query self explanatory as far as join conditions are concerned.
I have decided to break my habit and start using the “new” syntax in all my queries (except when I’m working against Oracle 8i). To that end, I will be writing a series of posts about the different types of joins along with code examples both in the “old” and the corresponding “new” syntax. Nothing revolutionary, just simple, “back to basics” stuff.
Here are the different types of joins that I’m planning to review: (more…)
Filed in Joins, Oracle with 6 Comments | Tags: concepts, joinForgotten SQL Function: LEAST
At least I forgot all about LEAST, a very simple Oracle SQL function.
You want to select the smallest value from a list of expressions, you use LEAST:
LEAST(expr [, expr ]…)
Some examples: (more…)
Filed in Oracle with Comments Off | Tags: function, sql
