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First Day at the New Job

It’s Wednesday night, and I’m already ½ way through the first week of the new job. If I had $1 for each time I said “we” – meaning Oracle – I would be able to take the rest of the week off! I guess it will take some time before I can refer to Oracle as “them”.

Being on the outside is very different. No longer can I pop into MetaLink to look up a TAR or Bug. I can’t access any of the internal sites which I used to do on a daily, if not more frequent basis. Call it separation anxiety, but I guess daily habits take some time to break. It was especially weird not being at OpenWorld this week. From what I heard, it was going well with a ton of interest in HTML DB, as well as BPEL & Fusion.

Speaking of OpenWorld, I have also been reading about Oracle Raptor on Brian Duff & Wilfred’s blog. I’ve known about this project for some time, but obviously couldn’t comment until it was made public. I think that it’s about time that Oracle entered into this market. I remember back when I first started at Oracle, I was surprised that I had to rely on TOAD for basic schema maintenance & development.

Anyways, back to the new job. So far, so good. Aside from getting lost in the parking garage, which is more akin to medieval catacombs than a logically built parking structure, things have been going well. The new team has been quite busy, so aside from a couple of hours of orientation on Monday, I’ve been left alone to explore the application which I will be working on.

Once I proved that I knew how not to blow up a server, I was given all of the passwords to the development instance so that I could install HTML DB. I must say that it went quite fast on the 6-way HP machine. The only issue that I encountered was that some process had placed a lock on DBMS_LOCK, and the install couldn’t proceed. Thanks to Joel from the HTML DB team, I was able to resolve this as per a MetaLink Note.

After creating a new entry in the wdbsrv.app file, I ran into the same issue that someone on the Forums was having. Luckily, something sparked a distant memory of encountering this issue on another instance of the eBusiness Suite where I installed HTML DB, and I was able to recall how I solved it quickly.

Once HTML DB was installed, I integrated it with their Single Sign On server, so that we could use the same usernames from the eBusiness Suite. I then added a Responsibility and created an HTML DB Authorization Scheme based on it: If your user has this Responsibility, then you can access my HTML DB application.

Tomorrow, I’m going to create my first PL/SQL package to generate some sort of exception report. I’ve already been given the green light to do this in HTML DB, so I’m looking forward to that.

On another note, I watched jetBlue flight 292 land safely with a disabled nose gear at LAX live tonight. The pilots & crew of that flight should be commended, as it sounds like they treated this incident as nothing more than an “inconvenience”, all the while keeping the passengers informed and reassured every step along the way. As usual, the media made utter fools of themselves, asking the droves of aviation experts the most ridiculous questions via phone. My two favorites: 1) What role is the fire department playing? 2) Is it easier to land in clear weather than in, say a thunderstorm? Priceless.

Comments

Anonymous said…
"Being on the outside is very different. No longer can I pop into MetaLink to look up a TAR or Bug. I can’t access any of the internal sites which I used to do on a daily, if not more frequent basis."

Its a shame it is not more public. Given the level of career committment many of us make to using Oracle Product, just like Oracle Employees, its disappointing.

(Airline report, well, just the Mass Media looking for something to fill in air-time (pardon the pun) to avoid contraversial subjects, like the connection between Global Warming and frequent and fierce Hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico area...)
Scott said…
Ya, they have to make their money somewhere, and its not like they are the only company who does it... I know that SAIC (and most companies) has a CSI somewhere, I just have to ask the right people to get it.
Anonymous said…
Mars is experiencing a similar "global warming" as we are. The sun is getting hotter. Giant volcanic explosions expunge more C02 and other "green house gases" into the atmosphere than years worth of what we humans add via cars and the like.
Anonymous said…
Configured HTMLDB to use SSO..and custom authentication scheme in HTMLDB to use a responsibility in R11i.

These are interesting topics and will be much appreciated if explained in a white paper or a blog topic.

thanks.
Scott said…
Anonymous,

You can read my White Paper on Integrating Oracle HTML DB with Oracle Application Server 10g for an overview of how to integrate the two products. Also, check out the SSO How To on OTN.

As for the 11i stuff, yes, that would make a nice entry!

Thanks,

- Scott -
Robert said…
heheh the media people trip over each other all of the time it is indeed funny to watch and hear.


Scott, re Raptor being developed by the HTML DB team...that true ?
It is java app right ?
If so then I am surprised because everything about HTML DB is so NOT JAVA.
Can you explain how the HTML DB team find time and the skills to doa Java project.
Scott said…
Robert,

I clearly cannot speak for the HTML DB team's schedule anymore, as I am no longer a part of it. I can say that the team is made up of some incredbily talented people - some of whom are equally skilled in Java as they are in PL/SQL. Raptor is being developed by several development groups - HTML DB is just one of them lending a hand.

Thanks,

- Scott -
Anonymous said…
Hi Scott,

Is there a document somewhere which shows how to install HTMLDB on an Oracle Applications 11i installation? I have a 11.5.10 Vision installation on Linux and I want to implement HTMLDB on it as well.

Thanks for you help

Backscratcher
Scott said…
Backscratcher,

Have a look at my presentation on Integrating Oracle eBusiness Suite with Oracle ApEx.

Thanks,

- Scott -
Anonymous said…
Scott,

I have a question regarding your excellent presentation on Integrating Oracle eBusiness Suite with Oracle ApEx.

When integrating do you use a seperate install of Oracle Apache or are you configuring the Apache that 11i is already running.

Thanks,
Jason
Scott said…
When integrating do you use a seperate install of Oracle Apache or are you configuring the Apache that 11i is already running.

We used the HTTP server which was part of 11i. So as long as the version of the HTTP server is compatible with Apex, you should be able to piggy-back on to it.

Thanks,

- Scott -

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