Scott Spendolini's Blog

The Oracle community lost a good friend & colleague this past weekend. Scott Spadafore was one of the most intelligent developers that I have ever met. I had the pleasure of working with him on the APEX team during my tenure at Oracle. His thoroughness and ability to see a problem from all angles was simply amazing. He also liked to help people. A lot. Scott had 16,582 posts on the OTN Forum. That's one post a day EVERY day for almost 45 1/2 years. I'll say it again: 1 post a day for almost 45 1/2 years. Simply amazing! I was often confused with Scott, only because the first 7 letters of our full names are the same. I'd always joke with him about how many e-mails that I'd have to forward to him, as someone thought that I was the one who helped them on the OTN Forums. He'd joke back that he never had to return the favor. Scott will be missed dearly, and my thoughts are with his friend & family during this difficult time. In an effort to consolidate ...

Recently, I sat down with ODTUG President Mike Riley and answered a few questions about the upcoming ODTUG Kaleidoscope Conference which will be held in Washington, DC this year.  (OK, we didn't actually sit down together, but I answered his questions nevertheless!) Have a look at my interview here .

As Dimitri mentioned , one way to get a Suite at this year's ODTUG is to mention his (or my) name when you register.  Now, there's another way:  just create a 3-minute video on " Why You Need to Attend ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2010 ". Here's the details via the folks at ODTUG: Make it funny…or Make it musical…or Make it informational…or Make it Rhyme…or…???. Use your imagination to create the catchiest video possible. Make sure to include the ODTUG Kaleidoscope logo. To submit your video for consideration, send an e-mail to ODTUG with your name and YouTube video link. Video Contest Guidelines: Video must be three minutes or less, contain no inappropriate content, and be posted publicly to YouTube by March 31, midnight   EST. All videos must remain in public domain until after July 1 st , 2010.  The winning video will be selected from among all the entries.  The judges’ decision will be final.  Judges may include members of the ODTUG Kaleidoscope...

Talk about a busy week ahead... I'm about to head to the airport and hop a flight to Denver, CO, where I will be presenting Troubleshooting Oracle APEX at the RMOUG 2010 Training Days . If you're in the Denver area, it's not too late to register, but you have to do it on-site at the Colorado Convention Center. Later this week on Friday, I will be presenting at MAOP 2010 , which will be held in the Oracle Reston office. There, I will be presenting a shorter version of Troubleshooting Oracle APEX as well as Extreme Makeover: APEX Edition . MAOP only has a few slots left, so be sure to register soon to reserve yours soon. Be sure to say hello if you're at either event.

Kris Rice just posted that the APEX Listener EA2 is available for download . Quoting Kris on the new features: New /listenerAdmin with real-time statistics Mechanism for logging DB Requests Capability to upload .xls files into an APEX Collection The last of these features interests me the most, as we get that request all of the time.  The de facto solution is to save your Excel data as CSV, then upload that.  Not very elegant. So before even completing my first cup of coffee this morning, I decided to try it out. Downloading the new listener was as snap, as was re-deploying the .war file.  Took no time at all, and I was up and running. Next, I created a quick little application that simply had a File Browse item on the page and a button whose request value is set to 'XLS2COLLECTION', as per Kris's instructions.  I ran the application, located an XLS file, and clicked "Go".  Upon checking the session state for collections, the results were a little...

Joel Kallman had an interesting post about a customer who broke all of the rules and modified some constraints in the APEX_030200 schema.  In this case, there was a happy ending, as Joel went the extra mile to craft a custom patch to remedy the issue.  However, things don't always end up this way. This reminds me of my early days with Oracle, when I used to work with the eBusiness Suite.  The first page of any documentation of the suite said something like this: "WARNING: Do not use SQL*Plus to modify any database object directly".  We used to laugh at this, as we used SQL*Plus & TOAD to modify these database objects several times a day, if not more frequently. However, this was done on internal systems used to build demos.  If we messed something up - and boy did we ever - we could easily refresh the instance with little effort. Fast-forward a few years to today:  FND & APPLSYS have been replaced by a single, much smaller schema called APEX_...

Early this morning (and well before the iPad), we launched a new company called Sumneva . Sumneva (sum-NEE-va) is the collaborative effort between Sumner Technologies and APEX Evangelists. Since we were basically doing the same things in different parts of the world, we unanimously agreed that we would be able to cover more ground together. Thus, Sumneva was formed! We have a lot of exciting plans that we're going to be implementing - starting with the best kind - FREE! We're hosting APEX 4.0 preview web seminars, where we can show you what to expect in the much-anticipated APEX 4.0. We're also planning to have monthly " Ask the Experts " web seminars, where you'll get to interact with all four us of over a live conference call. In addition to the new services we're offering, we've also combined our training curriculum and have a number of new additions in our course catalog to offer both publicly and privately. Now that the iPad announcement is ...

ODTUG 2010 promises to be the best ever, with close to 40 APEX sessions - many of which will focus on APEX 4.0! There's also a lot of new & innovative ideas this year that have not been done in the past: APEX Sunday Symposium In the past, the Sunday Symposiums have been less technical and more business and case study focused.  Well, that all changes this year, as we have a lineup that can't be matched!  This year, we have invited some of the top names in the APEX community to team up and show you how to design, develop, deploy, tune, secure, beautify and translate an application - right before your eyes!  Also, for the first time, you can sign up just for the Sunday Session - which makes it nice if you're local to DC and can't get the full time off for the bulk of the conference. APEX Plugin Workshop Since APEX Plugins will dramatically change the way in which we build APEX Applications, we've decided to have a 1 1/2 hr session that focuses on this new a...

Well, not really.  But I just stumbled across a job posting from CERN that has Oracle APEX listed as one of its requirements. If you're in the market for a job, and don't mind flirting with the end of existence as we know it, you may want to check it out. :)

I just found out from a client that Tyler Muth, ex-APEX developer and current Oracle SC, has just released a new utility aptly called " Logger ".  Logger, well, does what you think it would: logs stuff. What strikes me as innovative about Logger is not what's there, but what's not there: complexity.  It's just plain easy to use.  Easier than creating table t (col1 varchar2(4000)) and throwing insert statements all around your code. You simply call it like this:   logger.log('something to log');  That's all you need to get it to work. Sure, there are a number of great features as you peel back the covers, such as a configurable auto-deletion of logs parameter, timings, and of course, my favorite:  APEX item name & value logging. You can download Logger here:  http://logger.samplecode.oracle.com   All you need is a free OTN account.

At Oracle Open World, I spoke with the APEX Development Team about a number of things, including a new pilot program to become APEX Certified.  The program is open to anyone with "at least 6 months of APEX development experience", according to Joel Kallman's post about it. I think that this is a good step on Oracle's part, as it shows more and more commitment to APEX as a platform.  It also creates a career milestone that APEX developers can strive for that is similar to what is available with other technologies. To sign up for the pilot, visit:  http://www.oracle.com/goto/apexpilot

I'll be presenting Many to One: Managing Multiple APEX Applications as One on Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 at 6:30 PM. The presentation is sponsored by the Greater Richmond Oracle Users Group (GROUG) and will be held at Markel, which is located in Glenn Allen, VA. There is no charge to attend! Details, directions & registration for the event can be found on GROUG's web site here: http://ioug.itconvergence.com/pls/apex/f?p=210:29 If you're in the Richmond area, I hope to see you Wednesday evening!

Mike Hichwa & Company's APEX 4.0 Presentation from ODTUG was recorded and can now be viewed here . Definitely worth the watch, even if you were there to see it live.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but it seems that blogging has taken a sharp nose dive in terms of frequency. I monitor a bunch of Oracle-related and other blogs, and the traffic is definitely down. There were also few blog re-caps of ODTUG - which is in stark contrast to years past, where the coverage has been extensive. The few blogs that were updated were brief and light on real content. So, the question must be asked: is blogging a thing of the past? First of all, maintaining a blog is not easy. You have to select a topic that you want to blog about, hoping that it is of interest to not just you but your readers. Then, you may have to do some research on that topic, maybe create an example if its a technical blog, and then find the time to actually compose your thoughts. Sounds too much like school to me! Using Twitter is easy. Many of the people that I follow "re-tweet" other people's Tweets that they find interesting. To translate for the non-Tweeters out th...

It's truly amazing what is going on in Iran. In the span of a little less than a week, our public perception of the Iranians has done one huge 180. No longer do we think that they all hunkered down in some mosque planning the next attack on America or hacking into our computers trying to steal nuclear secrets of burning American flags and effigies of our leaders. All of a sudden, they look very different to us. We can relate to them better today that we could last week. They are simply standing up for themselves, trying to point out to the world that, "Hey, we're not all bad people - there's just a few at the top that are making things, well, difficult for us." And during this crisis, a seemingly unlikely ally has rushed to their side - the global digital community. Since their government has imposed a virtual media and Internet blackout, the only way to get news out is via the Internet, specifically social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. What w...

If you purchase a fair amount of office supplies, then make sure that you sign up for the Worklife Rewards program at Office Depot.  You get a quarterly gift card based on the amount that you spend, among other benefits - one of which I just found out about this weekend:  If you bring back a spent ink cartridge, you will get a $3 bonus reward added to your account.  Details are here:   http://www.myworkliferewards.com/loyalty/smartView.do?code=InkDepot Not only is it good for the environment - especially since HP stopped putting the free recycle envelopes in their packaging in favor of their useless promotions - but it can put some cash back in your pocket, which you'll likely just spend on more ink anyways...

The last few weeks have been quite hectic indeed! In addition to my day job, I've been busy working with Doug Gault - Sumner's newest member - in re-structuring a number of our services and training classes.  I'm also happy to announce a couple of new products that we will be launching soon. SumnerPrint is a PL/SQL-based solution that allows you to easily print APEX reports to PDF, HTML and XLS.  Built on top of PL/PDF, SumnerPrint easily integrates into any APEX application and allows your end users to print high fidelity reports with the click of the mouse.  Since it's built on PL/PDF, there is no middle tier to configure or extra servers to purchase.  You can be up and running with it in just a few minutes! SumnerFramework is a set of APEX applications and tables that allow you to manage who has access to which APEX application.  It also provides a single point of management, so that you can centralize your role management for easier access and better ...

Notice: June 2nd is the last day that you'll save $200 on the ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2009 registration. With over 50 APEX presentations and 2 full APEX tracks this year, there has never been a single conference that has encompassed so much APEX content! And since ODTUG is a fraction of the size of other conferences, you always get the opportunity to meet with the presenters later on to ask follow up questions or just to comment on their presentations. This is probably one of the largest benefits that ODTUG offers over other conferences, in my opinion. So if you're already signed up, I'll see you there. If you're still considering, make sure to book your trip before June 2nd to save an additional $200!

Lots of good insight in this short article: http://bokardo.com/archives/everyday-app/ It's interesting that across the world, the number of sites that we use on a daily basis is relatively small and consistent. I can attest to this, as I fit pretty much in the 7-8 range. Quite often when designing a site for use on the public Internet, we obsess over all of the little details that take up the majority of the development cycle. This evidence suggests that we should do otherwise. Think about the relationships we have with brick & mortar stores - we probably also have just a few that we frequent on a regular basis - grocery store, gas station, dry cleaners, bank, etc. All of these stores are designed with efficiency in mind. They want you - the customer - to get in, get what you need, and then get out as quickly as possible: grocery stores now have self checkouts; banks have drive-throughs and ATMs; gas stations let you pay at the pump, and so on. Stores that we only visit on...

I just ran into a situation where I needed to pass back a value from a pop-up page to a tabular form item in the calling page. While I've done this in the past ny manually writing all of the JavaScript, I thought that I'd take a look at the new documented APEX JavaScript APIs. I came across this function in the APEX 3.2 API Reference Guide (Part #E13369-01): $v_PopupReturn(pValue, pThat) Sets the value of the item in the parent window (pThat), with (pValue) and then closes the popup window. Return Value Not applicable. Parameters pValue (string) pThat (DOM node | string ID) Looks perfect!  In addition to passing the value back, it will also close the pop-up page, even though that is not documented. On the pop-up page, I created a link with an Optional Redirect to URL, and put the following in the link: javascript:$v_PopupReturn(#EMPNO#, '&P3_NODE.') P3_NODE is the DOM ID of the tabular form item that I wanted to return the value to.  You'll need to...