Flashback Friday: Kscope 11 Interview with Jeff Erickson

Jeff Erickson is a Senior Editor with Oracle Publishing and he was kind enough to let us interview him at Kscope11.  Earlier in the week Jeff attended Community Service Day where he not only interviewed Edward Roske he chipped in and helped up organize and clean up the Boys and Girls Club of Long Beach.

Check out his interview with us

Here’s his article: Developing a Better Community

Mike’s Blogging About Cameron Lackpour’s Blog

My good friend, fellow ODTUG Board Member, and Oracle ACE Cameron Lackpour is quite prolific when it comes to writing (anyone who writes more than I do must be prolific, right?). Well, this week he is going slightly overboard, but for good reasons. Kscope12 is exactly ONE MONTH away today. Cameron has put a blog post up each and every day this week highlighting a session or a bunch of presentations that he thinks that you might be interested in. While Cameron talks mainly about the EPM space, he does have some highlights that go outside of the EPM space. I always try to catch up with Cameron’s posts, even though I’m not in the EPM space, because he is a great writer with a very unique sense of humor. He is also very thorough and informative!

So, here are the links to each day’s posts on Cameron’s blog:

Kscope12 session highlight No. 1

KScope12 session highlight No. 2

KScope12 session highlight No. 3

KScope12 session highlight No. 4

Extra credit and brownie points to the first reader of these posts that spots the other ODTUG Board Member’s presentation in these four postings of Cameron’s. Leave me a comment in my blog when you find it.

If you haven’t registered yet for Kscope12, click the link and click on the registration from the Kscope12 home page. You have until June 9 to save $300.00 off of our standard registration rate. Tell them that you heard about it on the ODTUG Blog!

Flashback Friday: #Kscope 11 Interview with Maria Colgan

Have you ever battled with the Oracle Optimizer?  If you answered yes to that question have no fear because Maria Colgan is there to help you along the way.  She is a principal product manager at Oracle Corporation and her core responsibilities are data warehouse best practices and the Oracle Optimizer.  She stopped by the Social Media Lounge at Kscope11 and was interviewed by ODTUG Board Member Barbara Morris.

You can meet Maria and learn some tips and tricks on using the Oracle Optimizer at Kscope 12!  She has two presentations:  SQL Tuning in a Data Warehouse Environment and Best Practices for Understand and Managing Optimizer Statistics.

Flashback Friday: Mike Riley Interviews Sue Harper

Last year, at the end of Kscope11, I had the privilege of talking with longtime ODTUG friend, Sue Harper, who at the time was the product manager for SQL Developer and SQL Developer Data Modeler. While Sue no longer works at Oracle, she remains active in the software development community, working for Microgen (http://www.microgen.com/uk-en/) in London in their Aptitude Solutions Division. Sue still maintains a blog here: http://sueharper.blogspot.com/.

One of my fondest memories of Sue dealt not with Oracle, but rather one night at a reception in one of the ODTUG rooms at a conference hotel (pardon my faulty memory for not remembering which one). Sue took the time to relate about one of her trips to work on a clinic in Delhi, India, and shared many of her experiences and photographs of this trip. It was a great way to spend part of my evening learning about Sue’s endeavors outside of Oracle. You can check out her Delhi blog here: http://delhiminimission.blogspot.com/.

Take a quick trip down memory lane as we talk about Kscope11 with Sue Harper.

Sue can be found on Twitter (@sueharps) here: http://twitter.com/#!/SueHarps.

Sue, your ODTUG family will miss you at Kscope12! Cheers!  http://www.kscope12.com.

Survey Says…

There are a couple of surveys that I’d like to make sure that you know about.

 

But prior to that…if you haven’t registered for KScope12 yet, you’d better hurry! If you register before June 9, you will save $300.00 off of the final onsite price for the conference registration. Here is where you can go to register – http://kscope12.com/registration. However, I’d suggest that you register as soon as possible. We have two hotels that we have contracted with. Our headquarters hotel, the JW Marriott in San Antonio, is practically full. In addition, we have a limited number of rooms available at the Marriott San Antonio Rivercenter. Downtown San Antonio is a wonderful location to stay, as you will be in the heart of the River Walk area, and the Alamo will be within walking distance.

 

Oracle Corporation, specifically its Global Customer Programs Team, is looking for your feedback and participation in a survey. They are looking for your honest opinion on various Oracle products and services. The survey should take less than 10 minutes to complete, and the ODTUG responses in previous surveys have been fantastic! This is one way where your association with ODTUG pays big dividends. The results demonstrate the collective input of those associated with ODTUG (member or not), and while Oracle takes individual opinions seriously, when the collective ODTUG opinion is voiced, Oracle does listen. To see more information about the survey, and to find the link to take the survey, visit http://www.odtug.com/apex/f?p=500:235:0::::P235_NEWS_ID:4042.

 

Another survey, again sponsored by Oracle Corporation, but this time for OTN (Oracle Technology Network), is a very brief survey, one that asks 5 questions about the Oracle Discussion Forums Upgrade Project. Fellow ODTUG Board Member Cameron Lackpour wrote about the survey over on his blog, and provides the link as well here – http://camerons-blog-for-essbase-hackers.blogspot.com/2012/05/oracle-wants-you-to-help-make-otn.html. While you are over on his site, take a look around. Cameron has a tremendous sense of humor, and absolutely provides a lot of valuable information out on his blog, certainly more focused on EPM topics. Check it out!

Flashback Friday: Fusion Middleware

At Kscope11 ODTUG Board Member Bambi Price interviewed Chris Muir about the Fusion Middleware sessions.  He’ll be presenting The Ultimate Sales Pitch for ADF – On Strategic Importance and Practical Value and In a Nutshell: The ADF UI Shell at Kscope12.

Part 1

Part 2: Thursday Thunder

Flashback Friday: Remembrances from ODTUG’s Past

Guest Blogger: Ron Backmann

As I look back at all the conferences that I have been to and been involved with, ODTUG’s Kscope is by far the most informative and least sales orientated. We have been attending ODTUG’s Kscope conference for the last five years and have made great friends. I am a consistent advocate for this conference and bestow its virtues to all in our organization that will listen. The content of the sessions is in-depth and includes best known practices of the users of the products. The conference points out the “gotchas” that exist within the software and allows the “users” to affect future development and deployment of the software.

Okay that is the business portion of this post.

This conference is the most fun anyone should be allowed to have. The planned events by the ODTUG team have always been fun and great networking opportunities. Though I am partial to the APEX track, I have met and enjoyed the company of others at the conference as well. I have used these opportunities to pick the brains of all people involved with ODTUG and several APEX luminaries such as:

•         New Orleans: speaking with the late Carl Backstrom watching his beloved Lakers

•         Texas Hold’em games in Washington, D.C., Monterey, and Long Beach with Joel Kallman, David Peake, Jason Straub, and our Canadian friends Francis Mignault, Patrick Bonneville, and Martin Giffy D’Souza

•         Going out in Long Beach with our friends from across the pond John Scott, Dimitri Gielis, and Baby AE

•         Learning all about Apex Lib from Patrick Wolf

•         Learning everything about collections from Dan McGhan

•         Winning a bet against Scott Spendolini when the Packers beat the Steelers

•         Meeting the very calming persons of Doug Gault and Raj Mattamal

•         Hanging out with Monty

Do you notice a theme here?

And all the others that I have missed in this post, I have learned a great deal from all of you in sessions and afterwards. I have benefited from your openness and willingness to share your vast knowledge and enthusiasm with a person who was tasked to replace a couple of spreadsheets. Which has now grown into an infrastructure of several Terabytes of data supported by an APEX front-end that gets 3M+ page views a month and supports 1,500 concurrent users across the United States.

I consider all of you my friends. Thank you ODTUG and the APEX community.

Application Express Plug-In Competition

ODTUG Board Member Martin D’Souza encourages you to enter the Application Express Plug-In Competition.  Watch the video for more information and check out the prizes listed below.

Plug-ins must be submitted by May 14, 2012

Prizes

• Grand Prize: Kscope13 pass + 1 year free ODTUG membership
  • Kscope13 pass + 1 year free ODTUG membership – Estimated value of $1500 (Non-transferable, non-refundable pass)
  • Plaque
  • 1 year ODTUG membership
  • Copy of Expert Oracle Application Express Plugins
• Runner up:
  • Jawbone Jambox
  • 1 year free ODTUG membership
  • Copy of Expert Oracle Application Express Plugins

• As previously mentioned, contestants that are known experts will be put into a special category. They are not eligible for any of the prizes listed above, but will be provided with a special prize of their own, as well as bragging rights for best Expert’s Plug-in!

Plug-ins must be submitted by May 14, 2012 – http://www.odtug.com/apex/f?p=500:450:0

One More Thing to Bring to Kscope12

#Kscope 11 BI/EPM Lunch and Learn

Guest Blogger: Martin D’Souza

Coming to the best Oracle Developer’s conference in the world this summer (i.e. Kscope 12)? If you are, and I certainly hope you are, you probably have a list of things to bring: clothes, toothbrush, clean underwear & socks (no exceptions :-), laptop, etc.

What you may not have on your packing list is a list of questions to bring and get answered by the world’s leading experts! On Tuesday, June 26, there will be a Lunch & Learn panel for each of the main content groups. The panels will be filled with Oracle ACE and ACE Directors who will gladly answer all of your questions.

On a personal note, I’ll be participating in the Oracle APEX panel, and I’m really excited to be sitting next to the best of the best in the APEX community.

You can see a complete list of the different Lunch & Learn sessions along with the moderators and panelists at: http://kscope12.com/content/lunch-a-learn.

Don’t forget to bring your questions to Kscope12!

– Martin

Flashback Friday: #Kscope Community Service Day

Community Service Day is and ODTUG/Kscope tradition of giving back to our host community.  Check out Serving Your Community by Mike Riley.

In 2008, our first Community Service Day was in New Orleans where we helped repair a school.  Lewis Cunningham wrote about it ODTUG Kaleidoscope: Day Of Service.

In 2009 we went to Monterey and helped the Big Sur Land Trust eradicate an invasive plant species.  Debra Lilly wrote about her experience: ODTUG Community Service Day.

In 2010 we coordinated with Greater DC Cares and helped improve a school.  Check out Tim Tow’s Kaleidoscope 2010 Community Service Day.

In 2011 we were in Long Beach and worked to improve the Boys and Girls Club. Developing a Better Community.

And this year we are working with the Boys and Girls Club of San Antonio!  We want you to be a part of this tradition.  When you register for Kscope12, be sure to indicate that you are interested in participating in the Community Service Day.  If you are unable to attend but still would like to help our efforts you can become a sponsor.  NO DONATION IS TOO SMALL!

For more information on Kscope12’s Community Service Day please visit our website http://kscope12.com/events/community-service-day.

Here is a video from Kscope11 Community Service Day