OraTransplant

CPU Jan2006 for Database 10.2.0.1 on Linux re-issued

Here we go again! Just got an email from Oracle that Critical Patch Update January 2006 for Database 10.2.0.1 running on Linux x86 was re-issued. I think they re-issued some part of each Critical Patch Update since they started with the things. Is it so hard to test all known vulnerabilities after applying the patch sets in the final stage of QA?

Will they ever get it right the first time?

Dear Oracle Customer,

You are receiving this email because our records indicated you downloaded
the Critical Patch Update January 2006 (CPUJan2006) patch for Oracle
Database 10.2.0.1 (Patch 4751931)for Linux x86 before it was re-uploaded on
January 20, 2006.

These patches were re-uploaded because some files did not include all of the
changes required to fix the security vulnerabilities being addressed in the
January 2006 Critical Patch Update. No functional problems will be
encountered by applying an earlier version of these patches, but some
security vulnerabilities will not be completely fixed. Even if you have
successfully applied an earlier version of these patches, you should still
re-download and re-apply the latest version of the patches, dated
20-JAN-2006.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience you may have experienced,
and we thank you for your patience and cooperation in securing your Oracle
server products.

Regards,
Oracle Global Product Security

P.S. Please use MetaLink, https://metalink.oracle.com, to submit a Service
Request If you require further assistance. Please do not reply to this
email.

WordPress plug in for Google Analytics

I managed to get a Google Analytics account. I added the tracker JavaScript to the footer of all my pages, as instructed by Google Analytics. This gave me some great statistics to start with, but I wanted more.

I also want to track outgoing links to other sites and links to downloads (e.g. PDF documents) on my own site. Google Analtytics can do this, but you have to add an onClick JavaScript to all these links. I didn’t like the idea of editing all my blog entries to add an onClick event to the links. So I ended up writing a WordPress plugin that does it for me. You can download the plugin for your own use.

If you have any questions, remarks or suggestions for this plugin, please leave a comment to this blog entry.

Update 24-jan-2006: I’ve opened comments on the original Ultimate Google Analytics page. If you have any support questions, please ask them at that page.

My computing history

A blog entry by Tom Kyte made me think back at my own computing history. A bit of googling even came up with the pictures:

It all started in about 1985 when I was 12 and got interested in computers. However, they were still very expensive so my parents weren’t too keen on going out and buying one. They first wanted to see if this was some two week fling or whether I was truly interested. Luckily the school of my brother just bought brand new Commodore 64’s. They were selling they’re old Sinclair ZX 80‘x. So we got one of those. Unfortunately the membrane keyboard on those computers all broke done due to heavy use in school. So the concierge made a little plastic box with 40 plain old push button switches and put all the electronics in there.
The thing did not have a disk drive or cassette player for storing your program. We also didn’t have a printer so there was no way of storing/archiving your information. I remember writing a small game in BASIC where you had to fly through a field of asteroids (*). I started programming in the morning and when I had to switch of the computer I had to write down all source code with a pen and paper. Next morning I had to begin with typing in all source code I already had on paper before continuing programming….

How cumbersome my first computing experience might have been, it did get me enthusiastic for computers. That made my parents by a new computer: The Atari 130 XE. I think it was ‘86 when they bought this one. I can’t remember too much about this one. I know I had some type of storage but I have no idea what it was. I’m sure it wasn’t a hard drive as that came first with my next computer. It must have been floppies or a cassette player.

I think it was about 1989 when my parents bought my next computer. It was an IBM PC XT 5160 with a 20 Megabyte hard drive. Now I was the man! Unlimited storage! I know my father booted it up for the first time, only to get in MS-DOS showing nothing but “C>” He already had one at work so he knew what he was doing. I was totally confused. Coming from a Basic background I immediately started typing GWBasic commands. The #%*^@# thing wouldn’t even understand ‘LIST’. All of a sudden you had to type ‘DIR’ to see your files. This took some time to get used to.
I know it had some kind of basic dot matrix printer. I was one of the few students making printed reports. This gave me some extra points on several occasions.

When I started my study Computer Science in 1991 it was time for yet another new computer. It was some unknown clone with a 80286 processor. It was ok for the first couple of years and it had a Star NL-10 printer

After about two years of study the 80286 couldn’t cope anymore. So, in 1993 I upgrade some components of my 80286. The main difference was a new motherboard and a 80486DX2-66 CPU. That could last me until the end of my study Computer Science (in 1995).

Since 1995 I had several computers at home. They range from me starting out with a Pentium until my recent AMD Athlon.

See where all the Oracle bloggers are from

There’s an Oracle Bloggers group at Frappr! All bloggers at orablogs.com are allowed to add themselves to this group. It gives a great view of where all the bloggers live. Currently 19 bloggers have subscribed. From the satellite picture you can see quite a lot of them are European.

It’s just a shame that the map is zoomed at the US by default. You have to zoom out to see the bloggers in Europe and Australia.

Free Oracle Java Days in the Benelux?

I just noticed that Grant Ronald blogged about a couple of forthcoming FREE workshops in 2006 in several countries. They have also been running these workshops last year in a couple of countries. They run two different workshops. One is to introduce J2EE application development to Forms/Designer developers and the other one is on more advanced Java topics covering EJB 3.0 and JSF.

I’m just dying to attend these workshops. Unfortunately there are no scheduled dates for the Benelux/Netherlands. If you feel you would benefit from this training as well, please comment to this blog entry. If there is enough interest we can see if we can get Oracle to run something in the Benelux.

Last September I attended a free evening session at AMIS about JSF and the turnout was quite large. So, I’m guessing there must be a lot of interest in these subjects from the Benelux region. The Netherlands always had a large number of Forms/Designer users, so come on guys and girls and show you’re interest.

Update 6-jan-2006: Hans Bos from Oracle Tech Marketing Benelux has commented to this blog entry. I’ve also been in contact with him by email. It really looks like they’re going to run the Developer Days in the Benelux. Oracle Netherlands is currently talking to the guys from Oracle UK who give the workshops in other countries.
This is great news and I would like to thank Oracle Netherlands for taking this initiative. Let’s hope the turnout is as large as what I expect it to be. As soon as dates are announced I will write another blog entry about it.
Until then you can keep showing you’re interest by commenting to this entry. Also, keep your suggestions for the content coming in.

Here are the two descriptions from the Oracle UK site:

Mobile applications? Web services? Rich web clients? How can Oracle Forms and Designer users take advantage of these new technologies? This presentation gives Oracle Forms and Designer users a practical introduction to Oracle’s complete J2EE application infrastructure and Java development environment.

Taught by the Oracle product managers who brought their Forms expertise to design Oracle Application Development Framework–a product that abstracts much of the complexity of J2EE and enables rapid application development for J2EE–this presentation will introduce concepts familiar in Forms that also exist in ADF, including data blocks, canvases, triggers and record groups.

This Developer Day will show how 4GL RAD developers can quickly become productive with the use of a visual, declarative, framework-based approach to J2EE application development

This Java Day covers building applications the new set Java Enterprise technologies (EJB 3.0 and JSF).

The event consists of short talks, demonstrations and practical labs that will give the attendees a taste of Oracle’s state of the art Java development Tooling.
As Co Spec lead and provider of the reference implementation for EJB 3.0 Oracle is uniquely qualified to teach this significant new persistence technology.
JSF is set to become the face of server based Java applications in the future. As an active participant in the JSF specification (and contributor to MyFaces project) Oracle is the ideal source of JSF tooling.

By attending this event you will be at the leading edge of Java technology and will gain insight into how Oracle is contributing to the Java community

Working experience or good understanding of Java & J2EE is required for this Advanced Java Day event.