Most famous Belgian penguin springs back to life

After one year, Wim Coekaerts blogged again! He explains very well what he did in the last months and what the Oracle Linux program is all about.

The last weeks I also got a lot of questions about "Oracle linux" and if it was a distro or something else? In fact it's a support program from Oracle, so not a real "distro". The source is the same as Redhat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), but the trademarks are removed and replaced by Oracle ones. The complete package is free, you only pay for support!

This paragraph, copied from Wim's post, says it all:

We HAD to re-brand the RHEL setup because you just can't get free for download from anywhere. So we take out trademarks, copyrights and graphics and we replace it with, well, other names and definitely a cuter logo ! Between Red Hat, Novell and Oracle, we 're the only one with a penguin as a mascot ! duh. And that becomes our "distribution". Do we want to fork ? No, not at all, not one bit, do we do this for fun ? No. Do we do this to create more work ? No. We do it because that's the only way we can build a CD set based on an open source product from an open source company that we can make available for download for free.

Oracle Enterprise Linux 4 can be downloaded from http://edelivery.oracle.com/linux

The Unbreakable Linux Network can be found here. Did you know that this site is written in Apex? ;-) You see; Apex is all over the place!

The Apex name is confusing me

I'm preparing my white paper for Collaborate 07 about ApEx Shared Components, more in particular, today, I was searching for more information about the "Build Option" as I didn't use it that often in DG Tournament.

While I was googling "build option apex" I came on some unexpected sites. Of course when you put oracle with the other words, it should filter better.

I came across these links on the first page of my google search:
- an Apex bootloader
- an Apex developer framework - Salesforce.com’s Apex on SaaS Blogs
- and Apex SQL Tools

They have nothing to do with the Oracle Apex... or do they?
It was really confusing as SQL and development framework are really Oracle Apex related.

I knew Apex was a more known "name", due to the Google Fight I did some time ago. APC (Andrew Clarke) also made the comment on my blog, but today it was the first time it popped-up so hard to me... so I must agree with his statement, that HTMLDB was a better name to find immediately the right results!

I'm not the only one crazy ;-)

Just saw the below picture on Tom Kyte's Blog and I couldn't stop myself not to blog about it.
I just wonder why they didn't write MSFT (or M$)?!

Apparently SAP is a bigger competitor now? or it was somebody from the "Suites"-group and not from Technology. When I was still working for Oracle, you had the "Apps"-persons and the "Technology"-persons, don't know if it's still like that.
But, I hope they know that SAP is also one of the biggest partners of Oracle. ;-)

Next round of European Champions League + New Feature

For the people playing in DG Tournament, don't forget to bet on the next round of the Champions League. On Tuesday it's again football time!

For the APEX people, reading this... I added a new feature in DG Tournament. Thanks to Patrick Wolf's Framework, I made the "Your message" textarea resizeable.

To see it working:

• Login as guest/apexisit
• Go to Shoutbox
• It's now possible to enlarge (vertically) the textarea of "Your message" by dragging the right corner downwards

Patrick also made a new version available of the APEX Builder plugin.
This plugin enhances the Apex Builder development environment.
In the beginning it wasn't easy for me to get it configured, but now it works great!
Basically you need to download the Greasemonkey add-on for Firefox and do File - Open File and load Patrick's file. The latest download of the Apex Builder plugin has a terrific How To!
To see the plugin in action, here's a nice video.

Creating an APEX-team

As I already blogged at the end of last year, my goal for 2007 is to promote Oracle and ApEx even more. But honestly, I'm not sure that's possible, as during the day I only speak about Oracle and at night I dream of it!

I'm still searching for the right balance between my two passions... Yes, my family is one of them ;-)

In the past, I promoted ApEx through this blog, by making applications with it or by talking to customers about it.
In 2007 I want to go a step further! In the coming weeks you'll read more about it, but I can already announce that I'm currently building an ApEx-team (first in Belgium). I dream of guiding the people in the wonderful world of Oracle and ApEx and I hope to find a lot of ApEx-projects for this team. If you're interested to join this team, you may sent me your cv by mail.

APEX on Windows Vista

I just read the statement of direction for the Oracle Database on Windows Vista.

As Application Express runs completely in the database, this implies that ApEx will get fully supported at the same time.

Planned Support

Below are the current plans for Windows Vista support for Oracle Database software:

32 Bit Windows Vista (Vista Business, Ultimate and Enterprise Editions)

Oracle Software	Planned
32-bit Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (with latest patch set and patches available at the time of release)	1st Quarter CY 2007
32-bit Oracle Database 11g	CY 2007

64 Bit Windows Vista for x64-based systems (Vista Business, Ultimate and Enterprise Editions)

Oracle Software	Planned
64-bit Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (with latest patch set and patches available at the time of release)	2nd Half CY 2007
64-bit Oracle Database 11g	CY 2007

APEX in Las Vegas (on Collaborate 07) - update

Below an update of the Application Express sessions at Collaborate 07.
Apparently I forgot some sessions, so here's another try, in a more visible way...

Sunday - April 15
9:00 AM-5:00 PM	U10	Getting Started with Oracle Application Express (APEX - Formerly HTMLDB)	Corfman, Robert
Monday - April 16
9:15 AM-11:30 AM	404	Implement a Smart Reporting System Using APEX	Singh, Ashok
1:00 PM-2:00 PM	415	Lessons from the ApEx Trenches	Holtzman, Bill
Tuesday - April 17
9:45 AM-10:45 AM	Lag C	Integrate Oracle Application Express with the Oracle E-Business Suite	Bryant, Joshua
12:15 PM-12:45 PM	Q433	Search, Protect or Disclose with ApEx, JavaScript, LDAP etc	Persand, Indira
1:45 PM-2:45 PM	117	APEX: Delivering Pages in Three Seconds or Less (Because Users Don't Like Waiting!)	Scott, John
Wednesday - April 18
9:45 AM-10:45 AM	447	ApEx Cheat Sheet	Cannell, Karen
12:15 PM-12:45 PM	Q454	ApEx Cheat Sheet - Quick Tip	Cannell, Karen
3:15 PM-4:15 PM	461	Mastering Application Express e-mail	Jedlinski, Tony
Thursday - April 19
8:30 AM-9:30 AM	467	APEX by Example - Shared Components	Gielis, Dimitri

APEX in Las Vegas (on Collaborate 07)

I had another look at the Collaborate 07 site.
A lot of new info is available about this Oracle training and education event.

The APEX Collab'07 presentations I found:

• Session Number: Q101
  Presentation Title: Advanced Oracle Application Express Tips and Techniques
  Speaker: Bradley Brown, TUSC
• Session Number: 117
  Presentation Title: APEX - Delivering pages in 3 seconds or less (because users don't like waiting!)
  Speaker: John Scott, Shellprompt Hosting
• Session Number: 415
  Presentation Title: Lessons from the ApEx trenches
  Speaker: Bill Holtzman, National Air Traffic Controllers Association
• Session Number: 447
  Presentation Title: ApEx Cheat Sheet
  Speaker: Karen Cannell, Integra Technology Consulting
• Session Number: 461
  Presentation Title: Mastering Application Express E-mail
  Speaker: Tony Jedlinski, Roman Inc.

And ...

• Session Number: 467
  Presentation Title: APEX by Example - Shared Components
  Speaker: Dimitri Gielis, Ordina

We'll also do another APEX SIG round table (like we did on OOW)

Date: Tuesday, April 17th from 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
Title: APEX SIG Meeting/Round table
Abstract: Announcements and plans for the APEX SIG followed by an expert round table discussion of APEX issues, questions, and ideas
Presenters: Steve Howard with APEX experts Dimitri Gielis, Tony Jedlinski, John Scott

As already said before we're also organizing another APEX Meet up. You can register here.

APEX 3.0 first screenshots

Here're some screenshots after my first run through APEX 3.0.
(I'ld also like to thank John to help me with my first Apex 3.0 experience)

The first page is still the same, but when you go into an Application, you've now real icons.
The UI is more user friendly...

The drag and drop feature isn't easy to find... Go to the items sections and you'll see a little square icon. Click on that and you should see this new feature!

Pretty cool, isn't it?

The PDF printing part is nice too... although there is a little in the "Print Attributes" tab. You can only click on it by clicking on the Report link in the Page (you'll see what I mean if you try it). This is how PDF printing looks like:

That's it for now... more screenshots later.

APEX 3.0 sees the light!

You can now register for the early access release of Application Express 3.0. I already registered, but I'm waiting for my password ;-) In the next hours I'll post some screenshots about this new version.

What's new in APEX 3.0 (based on this text)

• PDF Printing
• Access Migration
• Flash Charts
• Drag and Drop Item Layout
• Improved Web Services
• New Item Types:
  - Shuttle
  - HTML Editor Minimal - available under Textarea
  - HTML Editor Standard - available under Textarea
  - Popup Color Picker - available under Popup List of Values
  - Date Picker (use format mask)
• Calendar Enhancement
• Supporting Objects Enhancement
• Page and Region Caching
• Item Finder Enhancements
• Application and Schema Comparison
• Friendly URL Syntax to Facilitate Bookmarks
• New Password and Account Controls
• Improved Workspace Management

Ooh boy, if I see all these nice features, I can't wait to get APEX 3.0 up and running!

Also: if you review APEX 3.0 don't forget to give some feedback in the feedback application.