Collaborate 08 - Wednesday

The jet lag is getting worse. I didn't wake up at 5 AM anymore, but I felt so tired in the morning. After a shower it always get better...

After having a quick breakfast I went to the first session of the day "Creating Visual Impact with Custom APEX Templates and Themes" David Scott.
It was interesting to see this presentation as I also gave a Templates presentation at our European Apex Training Days. Same topic, but a totally different presentation, although a lot of content was in one or another form there. David also gave a lot of nice tips to get a good design (or how you can avoid a bad design). Although this session was a less technical one, I really enjoyed his presentation.

I took a break after David's session to do some work. John went to "Add Style to Your APEX Apps Using .css" by Tony Jedlinski and apparently the people liked the session.

After lunch I went to the extended version of Debra's presentation of Monday, "Apex, LDAP and Active Directory". On the APEX site of things I knew most of it. Creating an Authentication Scheme and hook it up with LDAP.

My next session was "APEX Under the Covers" by Karen Cannell.
Karen talked about how she learned APEX and discovered some jewels. It's a good tip to learn from APEX itself. Application Express is written in APEX, so whatever you see in the development tool, you can also do it in your project. Just look how the APEX Development team did it. Karen showed one of her applications and some features she implemented in it. She also discussed what you need to know to become a better APEX developer.

Right after that session it was my turn. This time I talked about "Creating advanced charts in Oracle Application Express". I could have renamed my title to "Understanding Flash charts in Application Express" or "How to get a raise" or ...
I was talking about:
- Why do charting
- How to create and customize a chart in APEX
- Insights into APEX charts
- Charting beyond APEX

I really like demos, so most of my time I spend on "showing" the people. Sometimes I think to go completely into the "no-slide-zone", but then I think it's useful to keep the minimal powerpoint (keynote) to show the structure of the presentation.
I presented in one of the bigger rooms (see picture, taken 10 minutes before my presentation), Ballroom 2A. That room gets recorded, so you might hear me presenting online soon. It's a pity they didn't tape the presentation as I guess it will be hard to follow the presentation when I'm demoing things, but you can't see it. I look forward to hear myself, although it will be scary to hear your own voice. I enjoyed doing this presentation and I got some nice questions out of the public. David Scott challenged me with his question: "Can you dynamically scale your chart based on the data?" I always say, don't believe me on my word, so most of the time I show them the proof. Oh and the answer to his question: Yes you can.

I'll probably do this presentation on our next APEX training days in the Netherlands, which we'll announce soon!