APEX 2.2 installation

The installation of APEX 2.2 went smooth!


The steps I did:

- Desktop
1. Downloading the apex_2.2.zip file from OTN
2. Transferring the file from my desktop to my unix server

- Server (HP-UX, DB 9.2.0.6, APEX 2.0 installed)
3. Unzip apex_2.2.zip
4. Run sqlplus "sys/... as sysdba"
5. SQL> @apexins password apex_data apex_data temp /i/ none
6. After 36 minutes I got the screen as you can see on your right side
7. SQL> @$ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/utlrp
8. Backup image 2.0 directory
9. Copy new image (2.2) directory to previous location


10. Test in browser
11. It works perfectly, all my previous workspaces were migrated


What happened in the database?
- Creation of FLOWS_020200 schema
- Space utilization of around 100 MB extra

APEX 2.2 in production

As of yesterday, Oracle Application Express 2.2 is in production!

You can download it from the APEX OTN site here. You can see APEX 2.2 working here.

Although it's only an increase in release after the "." there're some great new features!

Although I like all the new features, this is my top 3:

1. Copy a Page from Another Application
You can now copy a page from one application into another. During the copy process, you can also copy referenced shared components or change the mappings to shared components in the target application.

2. Timestamp datatype support
In release 2.2, you can build forms and calendars on tables that have columns of type TIMESTAMP.

3. Component-level Export
You can now export shared components or components of a page. You can use this new feature to backup a component before editing or to create an export that functions as a patch to another Oracle Application Express instance.

APEX WC2006 app - Thanks

Well, it's over... Italy won the World Cup 2006!

The APEX WC2006 application was a great success. More than 420 people subscribed for the application and a lot of them kept betting till the final.

I found it a lot of fun! It was more special to look at the games, hoping the score would be like I predicted. If 1 minute before the final whistle the other team marked a goal, I don't need to tell you what words were said ;-) It even got an other dimension when I was staying in the States and I saw the other betters... I never imagined the application would have such an impact.

I would like to thank you all for the great feedback, the feature requests (which made the application better) and for playing with us.

Some special thanks:
- to my parents, for backing me up and filling in the scores right after the end of the game!
- to Kristel Geukens from G&G Design for helping me with the lay-out of the site and supporting me.
- to Jes (John Scott) from Shellprompt for the nice cooperation, the hosting and the excellent support! Jes posted also some feedback on his blog here.

What's next?
Well, a lot of people asked for something similar for Euro 2008 and the World Cup 2010. I suppose I can't reside on that demand ;-) Maybe you'll even see something earlier...

APEX 2.2 test and evaluation instance upgrade

Yesterday I posted that I didn't hear a lot of Oracle... my words weren't yet cold or I received a mail from the APEX Dev Team:

--
Last Friday, we upgraded our Oracle Application Express 2.2 test and evaluation instance. The code is now very close to production.

Thank you all for giving us feedback. We have read and responded to almost all comments. Many of your suggestions have been implemented in this release or are logged for consideration in 3.0. Please continue to comment and especially comment if you find a bug or what you think might be a bug.

Lastly, if you like something in Apex 2.2 would you consider providing a quote? You can comment on Apex in general or version 2.2 specifically. We need just a few quotes for our upcoming press release. If you really like Apex, this is your chance to tell the world. If you are interested, email your comment(s) along with you name, company name and contact information to htmldbstudio_us@oracle.com.

Thanks again -
The Oracle Application Express Development Team
--

These're the quotes I sent:
My quote 1: "“APEX, my true and only development environment!”"
My quote 2: "“APEX is FUN, this is proven by the big success of my World Cup application, completely written in APEX!”

I hope they select one of my quotes! ;-)

Oracle silence

I didn't see a lot of news about Oracle and APEX in the last days.

The Oracle stocks are doing fine (see picture - evolution of last 6 months).

On the APEX site, the evaluation version 2.2 is still available. The APEX VP of Oracle said that after handling all feedback, the 2.2 release would be available to the public, first on http://apex.oracle.com afterwards as a download.

On Tuesday, I gave an overview of the presentations I followed at ODTUG to my team. They found it interesting topics and asked if the presentations were available as download. You can download the ODTUG presentations till the first of August on the ODTUG site.

Yesterday I went to a bbq of Edison, a publicity company in Leuven, BE. A few times a year they do an event with the employees, freelances and clients. My girl friend works as freelance for them and I could join her. It had nothing to do with Oracle, but it was interesting to see and hear how they see the market. They knew Oracle, but only from the logo and how they make publicity! I had an interesting conversation with Philip Maes, a known guy in the publicity world, about the different ways to make publicity. Doing pub on the radio is very different than doing pub on tv or in magazines. Although I didn't learn anything technical, it was very interesting to be there! And it was FUN!