Mac OSX Software I like

Sometimes I get the question which Mac OSX software I use. So here's a list of programs I've installed. Some I use often others less often. If you use other nice software, feel free to add!

Standard Mac Software:

• Address Book
• AppleScript
• Automator
• Calculator
• Dashboard
• Dictionary
• Expose
• Font Book
• Image Capture
• TextEdit
• Unison
• Utilities
• Spaces
• iCal
• iSync
• Stickies
• Server - because we also have Mac OSX Server

Office:

• iWork
• iLife

Internet Applications:

• Adium - chat
• iChat - chat
• Colloquy - irc (not used that much)
• Cyberduck - ftp client
• DynDNS Updater - link a hostname to an ip
• Dropbox - online storage
• Firefox with different plugins (YSlow, LiveHTTPHeaders, Firebug, ColorPicker, ...)
• Safari - standard browser on OSX
• GoToMeeting - to do remote support and meetings
• SSH Tunnel Manager - ssh
• Meerkat - ssh
• Cisco VPNClient - vpn
• Viscosity - vpn
• Skype
• Mail
• Twitterrific - twitter reader
• Reader Notifier - get rss updates
• Yuuguu - connect to others
• Transmission - download files

Graphical Software:

• Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional
• Adobe Dreamweaver CS3
• Adobe Flash CS3
• Adobe Illustrator CS3
• Adobe InDesign CS3
• Adobe Photoshop CS3
• PDFpenPro - edit pdf
• Paintbrush
• OmniGraffle Professional 5 - make schemes
• iWeb - make websites

Games:

• Chess
• Quinn - tetris like
• MasterMind - dashboard plugin
  

Entertainment:

• DVD Player
• DivX Converter
• DivX Player
• EyeTV - makes it able to watch tv on my mac
• Flip4Mac - be able to play wmv
• GarageBand - audio
• Front Row - menu to all entertainment
• iDVD
• iMovie
• iPhoto
• iTunes
• ScreenFlow - record video
• Photo Booth
• VLC - play video
• QuickTime Broadcaster
• QuickTime Player
• VisualHub - convert video (not updated anymore)
• Spotify - play any song (only works when I'm in the UK)
• BookSmart - online creation of you photo albums
• WorldRadio widget - listen to radio as dashboard app
  

Local/External storage:

• ExpanDrive - Mount drives even through ftp etc
• Macfusion - extend to other filesystems
• SuperDuper! - backup your Mac

Phone:

• Missing Sync for Windows Mobile - I've an HTC and not an iPhone, so need extra software to sync agenda, contacts etc
• TomTom HOME - on my phone I have also GPS and navigation software

Oracle related:

• Oracle SQL DataModeler - SQL Modeler
• Power*Architect - SQL Modeler
• SQLEditor - SQL Modeler
• SQLDeveloper - my day to day tool to talk to the Oracle database
• Versions - SubVersion client
• VMware Fusion - to get access to my remote machines

Project Management:

• Merlin - allows to estimate the work and breakdown in pieces
• Mindjet MindManager - read MindMaps
• OmniFocus - to do list which is able to sync as well

Text Editor:

• SubEthaEdit - allows to work on a text with more persons, real time editing
• TextMate - favorite text editor

OSX Tools:

• OmniDazzle - mouse focus and effects
• Quicksilver - lunch commands fast
• StuffIt Expander - zip like
• 1Password - store passwords in a secure way
• Wallet - store passwords in a secure way
• World Clock Deluxe - to keep an eye when my clients get awake
• iBank - trying that, MS Money type app
• Caffeine - let your Mac never go in sleep mode
• Time Machine - automated backups
• iStat Pro widget - shows a lot of information about your Mac (ip, temperature etc)
• AccuWeather widget
• SysTran translation widget
• Currency converter widget
  

For the people who want to work faster, here's a good list of shortcuts for OSX.

SQL Modeler for Mac OSX (Part 2)

Louis-Guillaume Carrier-Bédard commented on my previous post about SQL Modeler for Mac OSX, that I had to check out a tool called Power*Architect.

So I thought to give it a go. The steps to get it running:

• Go to the SQL Power website and download Power*Architect
• As most OSX applications you install by dragging the application in your Applications folder
• So now I wanted to get an ERD of some tables, so you run Power*Architect and select from which Data Source you want to capture.
• I had to download the Oracle 10g JDBC driver first (apparently 11g is not yet foreseen in Power*Architect)
• In the User Preferences you can tell where the driver can be found
• Next I dragged-dropped from the interface the tables I wanted to the right hand side, but the tables where not nicely ordered
• Luckily there is a button "Automatic Layout" which I pushed and that gave me the below result

As far as I've tested Power*Architect, it looks very promising. It's definitely a tool I will try a bit more in the future.

SQL Modeler for Mac OSX

On the first of July Oracle's SQL Developer Data Modeler got a production release. You have the choice between a full version and a Viewer only version.

I installed the full version on my Mac to see how it is like. These are the steps I followed to get it working on my MacBook Pro:

1. Download the zip file from OTN
2. Unzip the file in my Applications folder
3. You'll see a folder called "datamodeler"
4. I ran a Terminal session to call this command: sh datamodeler.sh
5. The first time SQL Developer Data Modeler asks you to enter the full pathname of a J2SE installation. For me the path is:
   /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6/Home
6. Next SQL Developer Data Modeler opens and you are good to go
7. I tried to generate a relational and logical datamodel and it worked great (see below screenshot of the DG Tournament schema
   
   
   

As expected Oracle didn't make the tool for free. I hoped differently, but apparently Larry decided against it. The latest Oracle pricelist shows under the Tools section the price of SQL Developer Data Modeler. The first year you pay USD 3,000 + USD 660 (support and upgrade), from the second year onwards it's 660, but that gives you the right to install all updates. I definitely think the product can justify the price, but maybe not for everybody or in every project as you might not want to use all the features.

One of the most important parts for me is viewing the ERD in a graphical way. I tend to use the ERD to explain clients how we see the application. Or if we come in when the application already exist, to quickly know what is going on behind the scenes. Till now I used SQLEditor of MalcolmHardie Solutions. It allows me to connect to a database and get the ERD for a schema or certain tables. It can do a lot more like adding tables, columns etc and you can see the sql statements in different formats. Below is a screenshot of the same schema as the picture before.


Most of the time I have to rearrange the tables so it's more logic and more understandable. Personally I think Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler looks a bit better and it has more features and I had to not rearrange that much as with SQLEditor. But then I guess that explains the difference in price ;-) SQLEditor costs $79.

I still have a lot to learn of the functionalities of Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler, but what I saw at the conferences and what I could do so far, I definitely think it's worth for you to give it a try.

Thank you for the award

Next to the two APEX surprises yesterday I got a personal surprise from the ODTUG front today. It made me happy, proud, smile ...

I got the "Best Speaker Award" for content and topic.

I knew I was nominated and somewhere in the top 5, but I didn't dream of winning it! Of course I would like to thank the whole APEX community, ODTUG and all the people at the conference.


The twitter stream at the ODTUG conference is going well. I'm now following two APEX presentations at the same time as people in both rooms twitter ;-) I really wish I could see Scott Spadafore do his security presentation. "He's the man", as Carl would have said.

Two APEX surprises at ODTUG

Although I'm not phisycally at ODTUG, I'm following it closely with the blogs, the twitter feeds and my friends who keep me up-to-date.

As said earlier, ODTUG will host the biggest number of APEX sessions at a conference so far. But it looks like the numbers of attendees in the APEX sessions will also break a record (over 200 people).

On Sunday there was the APEX Symposium. Clients talked about their experience with APEX and showed some Case Studies. Last week in the Netherlands I saw Olivier Dupont's session about APEX at Brussels Airport. That was a good example how APEX can be used on "terminals" (pc's without mouse and where no software can be installed).
Martin Giffy D'Souza also talked about some applications they created and use at Cognera. We worked close with Cognera on an application they are providing to their clients (SaaS model). They did some nice things with APEX.

There were also two surprises, as David Peake announced on his blog.

People in the room got the first ever Oracle Application Express t-shirts! John got also one for me, so I look forward to see them. Maybe the people at the APEX Meetup (Monday night) can all wear that t-shirt? And then take a picture... that would be awesome!

The other surprise was the announcement of Oracle Application Express Developer Competition 2009. You find more information on David Peake's blog and on OTN.
It will be nice to see what APEX applications people come up with... and you don't have to do it for free! You can win a trip to Oracle Open World. If you don't know what it is or never have been there, that is definitely something you want to see as it's the biggest Oracle conference of the world. Good luck with the competition!

Web development with Safari 4

I'm really a "Firefox with Firebug" fan if we are talking about Web development.

I wouldn't know what to do without Firebug as it allows me to investigate my page, run and debug my javascript code, change the styles on the fly, see which files are missing and much more.

But as you probably know, the biggest challenge in web development is being browser compliant. Typically I develop my APEX applications in Firefox, test it there and run another test in Safari (I'm developing on Mac). Having two browsers open is also handy to test session state and what is happening when multiple users are in the application.

I always dreamed of having Firebug also on Safari as sometimes something was working in Firefox but not in Safari. There is a Firebug lite, but I never liked it that much.
A few days ago I upgraded to Safari 4 and enabled the Develop toolbar (Preferences - Advanced).



You get a new Develop menu with a lot of options, just like in Firebug. I like it very much and the Web Inspector is also very impressive. I would definitely recommend to have a look at it, if you have a Mac and are doing web development.



In Safari 3 you could enable Web Inspector as well, but you had to run the following command in a Terminal window: "defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitDeveloperExtras -bool true"

If I test my applications in IE, I use the Web Developer toolbar.

Improve your charts in APEX without coding

I just added another video to the Anychart integration kit for APEX website which shows you in three and a half minutes how to get nicer charts in APEX without having to change a single line of code in your application.

In the previous video we extended the charts in APEX with the new charts so they can both be used, but this time we want that all existing and future charts are using the new charts from the integration kit.

The advantage:

• If you have a lot of charts already created in your APEX application they will get replaced by the new charts without having to change anything. All your charts will look new.
  
• Another advantage is that in the wizards of APEX the new version will be shown directly.

To do this, we take the files of the integration kit (Anychart 5.1) and will overwrite the existing Anychart 3.3 files in APEX. You can see exactly how it works in the below video.



If you prefer to download the video and play in your favorite media player (e.g. QuickTime) you can do that here.

ODTUG Sneak Preview and Meetup

As the tradition wants, AMIS is organizing another ODTUG Sneak Preview on June 15. Two weeks before the real ODTUG conference the Dutch and Belgian speakers try-out their presentation. It's not only nice for the speakers to get feedback, but also for the people who can't go to ODTUG they can see some presentations. Although I had to cancel my trip to the States, I'll still do one of my planned ODTUG presentation at AMIS. The event is free, but you have to register here (site in Dutch).

At ODTUG there is also another APEX Meetup. It's always great fun to meet others and have some beers together. This time John is organizing it. You find all details here. Enjoy!

ODTUG is also encouraging people to Twitter and Blog, which I think is great, so people who can't join can get a feeling of the conference.

APEX 5 on Google Wave?

I was watching the video of the announcement of Google Wave and thought by myself "this is really cool!".

HTML5 looks amazing no? You see changes on the fly and everything is integrated, which is incredible! And it seems to be fast as well and runs in a standard browser!

Adobe Flex and their Flex Data Services have something similar. I played a bit with Flex two years ago and it was pretty nice. I even integrated it with APEX, but the downside was you need a Flash player for it. Also at that time, the rumors were the Flex Data Services and the instant updates weren't always as fast as they should, especially with a lot of concurrent users. Anyway...

I would love to see more about Google Wave and try it myself. There are not that many details available yet, but as it will be an open platform, I'm sure we'll hear more about it soon.

If Google Wave takes really off, maybe we'll see in a later version of APEX (e.g. APEX 5?) the wizards allow you to create these HTML5 Google Wave apps. I really wonder how this would work, having an Oracle Database with your data on one server and on another server the Google Platform. It seems everything works with XML in Google Wave.

I guess we'll see what the future brings!