The last day... the most difficult one for me. Meeting all the people at the conference and listening to all sessions in the previous days is very nice but also very demanding and intense. The tiredness, the jetlag and all those expressions you start to feel.
So giving a presentation on the last day is a challenge. From early in the morning Lucas and I were on stage for the APEX vs ADF shootout. Some people said there were 300 people in the room, but others counted around 150, so let's say we had a lot of people ;-)
I like to be on stage with Lucas, he's a very knowledgeable person and amazingly objective about the tools. Whereas I'm the very *pro* APEX one ;-) Some ADF people told me I need to balance more, which I might do in the future as there are also some nice features in ADF. Not that I'll use ADF in the future, but it's not bad to know more about it.
In the Netherlands we did the presentation a little bit different. We had more time so we had more time to do Q&A. This time I spent quiet a lot of time on Interactive Reports as I thought it's one of the nicest features and less time explaining how I build the complete application. After the session I got some questions how I did things in the Survey app. I'll try to blog about the survey application in the next weeks.
In the Netherlands I went first, but this time Lucas presented first. I changed my style a bit so I followed the same steps as Lucas. I started from scratch and at one time I thought to just build the whole application in 30 minutes, but then I got an error. I didn't use triggers in the app I created in December, but when I followed the wizards during the demo, I forgot about that and said to APEX to use a trigger. Of course the trigger didn't exist. After I created it, the first demo worked. Of course, my second demo didn't work anymore. I normally don't create a trigger and just use the sequence, but as I created the trigger in the first demo, I overwrote the value.
I got a bit nervous when I got the error as I didn't know what was happening (although the errors where clear and related to the data model). Of course I blamed Lucas for the error ;-)
I could fix it and the demo worked, but only in the evening I knew exactly why it went wrong. In the morning everything still worked, but because I changed the order of my demo's (first creation of app from scratch of showing the app I created in December) it didn't work from the first time. It's always a risk to do live demos, but I like it so much, so not doing it is not an option for me ;-) You find the application here (here my blog post after the shootout in December).
I felt better after my presentation in the Netherlands. I think I should have done it more like when I did it in December and do it a bit different, but it's always after the presentation you know it. I wonder what the people thought about it.
Literaly after the session the adrenaline went away and I started to feel the tiredness even more. I went with some friends to a nice restaurant next to the Mississipi river. There were some great pictures taken... I hope I'll see them on some other blogs! Afterwards we walked a bit around and went back to the hotel. In the evening I crashed and had a nice sleep.
The next morning I flew back to Belgium over Chicago. Coincidence, but Marcie, who's doing the OBE's of APEX on OTN was on the same flight!
Friday, June 20, 2008
ODTUG08 - Thursday
Thursday, June 19, 2008
ODTUG08 - Wednesday
In the morning I prepared for my presentation, downloaded Firefox 3 and did some tests with that. It seems to work fine with APEX, although sometimes there're some strange things going on. I'm not sure it's due to Firefox or it's just my connection with the internet in the hotel...
I missed the first session and a part of the second session about "Building Advanced Tabular Forms" by Marcie Young. A lot of people have problems with the tabular forms or want to see it extended, which I also believe is necessary. Marcie explained how you can create "better" tabular forms by bypassing the wizard and create it yourself. I believe the use of collections is the way to go, especially if you need to do validations as well.
Then it was my turn. I presented "Creating Advanced Charts in Oracle Application Express". I tried to make it as interactive as possible, which I think succeeded. I talked about how to create charts, how it works and how to get more out of it.
Next it was Patrick Wolf's turn for "Increasing Your Oracle APEX development productivity with Open Source Tools". Although I already use most of the software he mentioned, like Firebug, the Webdeveloper Toolbar and some of the tools he created: the Apex Builder Plugin, the Apexlib Framework and Apex Essentials. The software I didn't use yet are YSlow and Live HTTP Headers. I liked his presentation as I also believe people can definitely improve their productivity by using some more tools, especially Firefox and Firebug.
The whole Wednesday there were some excellent APEX sessions I looked forward too.
For ex. Anton Nielsen's "How to Hack an Oracle APEX application". I loved Anton's presentation. His style, his content, the topic... very good. I will probably also need to verify some of my applications, but one lesson you should know: go to APEX 3.1.1.
With Anton and Marcie on the picture.
The last session of the day was "Building the New Stuff: AJAX, JSON and APEX 3.1" by Carl Backstrom. This session was more an advanced one. Carl is "THE" guy about AJAX in APEX, so he could tell a lot of things about all of the above. He showed some new techniques to do things in APEX, basically what the backend is of Interactive Reports. You should check his examples site out for all the examples in an APEX 3.1 jacket.
In the evening we had a party with nice food, drinks and people. I didn't stay that long as I have to prepare for the next day...
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
ODTUG08 - Tuesday
The tireness is starting. Although I still get up early, I feel I'm getting tired. On Tuesday I started my day with blogging about Oracle Websheets.
The first session I went to was "You can't do THAT in a browser! Extending Oracle APEX with 3rd party components" by Scott Spendolini. This was version 2 of his presentation. Last year he spook about Ajax select list, Ajax memory tree, plpdf and the fck editor. He did a quick recap of that and included following new things: MS Outlook integration, dhtmlXTree and Fusion Gadgets & Fusion Maps. It was a nice presentation to show how to get "more" in an APEX application.
My second presentation was one of Joel Kallman about "Go Global with Oracle Application Express". I did that presentation also on our European APEX Training Days and when we looked at the feedback forms, it seemed the topic wasn't that popular. I don't really understand why people don't find it important? So also in Joel's session there weren't that many people. But at the same time there was another APEX presentation, which maybe explains the number of people also a bit. I liked his presentation a lot. APEX is very good in going global and he explained the different options in APEX.
In the afternoon I was in the APEX Experts Panel together with Patrick Wolf, John Scott, Karen Cannell, David Peake and Scott Spendolini. The people in the audience asked us questions. The typical questions where there: is APEX scalable? how to compare it with Portal? what about Fusion? etc.
My last two presentations of the day where "Writing a customized Authentication Scheme for APEX" by Raj Mattamal and "Explore and Benefit the APEX repository" by Michiel Jonkers.
Raj showed in his presentation how to create your own little Single Sign On solution in APEX. Having a login application, which links further to other applications, even in different workspaces and databases. Using the cookie was one of his techniques and a bunch of PLSQL code to get it all working. Raj is a very energetic boy, I like his presentation.
Michiel talked about the APEX Repository and how he dealed with that. He went on a journey to figure out what the APEX repository was providing and how to get something out of it. Michiel used some jokes in his presentation which was nice, especially at the end of the day, so it was easier to follow (and stay awake). I must say his presentation was finished before I knew.
He showed the build in screens to show the dictionary views, the views and tables in the database itself and by using the export file you can get more information how APEX does certain things.
I also want to thank the girls of the registration desk. They are such nice people: they need to start very early to make everything ready for the participants, they are always laughing, say hello to me every day... Rich learned me an English word; apparently they are my "groupies". I hope it's not a bad word!
As I blog about the highlights of the day, they let me smile and they let me feel welcome... Here are the nicest girls at ODTUG: Veronica, Lauren and Crystal. Thanks and keep up the good work!
In the evening we had the APEX Meetup. We went with 15 people to a bar to have some drinks and food and watch how the LA Lakers were losing against Boston... Carl wasn't happy with that, but he survived ;-) It was a fun evening with other APEX lovers. Here's the picture
After the food we went back to the hotel and watched the remaining of the game and had some more drinks. When the guys decided to go further, I had to pass as I need to present on Wednesday and Thursday and I'm already tired. I'm curious if I'll see them in my session, they were going to drink some "Grenades", which is even worse than the "Huricane" I had the other day, I was told!
Sunday, June 15, 2008
ODTUG08 - Sunday: APEX Symposium and APEX Websheets!
Sunday, the weather was not that good, there was some lightning and rain falling down, but it didn't really matter to me, as ODTUG Kaleidoscope kicked off with the Symposiums. Of course I went for the APEX Symposium...
Scott Spendolini, the moderator of the APEX Symposium, held a great keynote speech. He went through 431 slides in 30 minutes! It was great, he started from the year 1996 when he graduated and talked about that time and how the IT industry looked like way then. He build things up, so we saw the history of his life combined with the APEX releases and where it came from.
The second slide we needed to keep in mind: "Less is More" which I'm also an advocate of.
Mike Hichwa, the "father" of Oracle Application Express talked about how to position APEX, a quick overview of the architecture and the future of APEX. The future looks bright, the people who doubted about it, wait till you see Websheets! You liked the Interactive Reports, which is a new feature of APEX 3.1? You ain't seen nothing yet! The community asked for some time now, the ability to have better (more advanced) tabular forms... But Websheets is much more than a tabular form, it's a tool (or even application) in it's own! It's just phenomenal!
I hope to upload some screenshots tomorrow.
But that's not all, in the next release of APEX (probably 2009) we'll get a lot more: custom item types, declarative AJAX features, new 3rd party components, improved error handling and much more!
Another new tool Mike announced for the first time in public: "Data Modeling".
A lot of us need to go to another tool to model the database design (tables, pk/fk etc), but the above tool will solve that. I'm not sure you can use that tool as a standalone product or it will only be available through SQL Developer. But it means that APEX developers will get all the tools they need in SQL Developer and APEX. If the SQL Developer team also optimizes the team coding and subversion implementation it would be awesome and all my requests are full filled!
Remember: Oracle doesn't promise anything... I don't have the big disclaimer they always show, but it's subject to change.
After Mike's presentation it was time to show APEX in the real world with different use cases.
Bharadwaz Pappu & Brian Duffy talked about "Managing the Army's Enterprise Real Property Planning with Oracle APEX". They talked about their experience in APEX, I believe they used a name for APEX, "Force Multiplier". They also showed their application and the integration of DHTMLX Tree.
Kathy Hunsicker talked about "Creating Dynamite Applications That Deliver". The experience of a bank who are using APEX and build up internal expertise. I believe I also saw that presentation at OOW, so I've probably blogged about it before.
After lunch it was our turn. Together with our client we did a presentation about "Power to the People". Rich Mutell did most of the talking and looking at the many questions he got, it seemed he touched a spot. I think he did a wonderful job. Thanks Rich!
Business users will become more powerful. Especially APEX is offering them a medium to get their business done in a fast, secure and scalable way. We also spoke about why they hired us, Apex Evangelists, to help them with the more difficult pieces in APEX, give them support and training or just take them to the next level.
Chris Ostrowski talked about "How IntelliReal used APEX to rapidly build their production environment". All presentations have a common share... everybody likes APEX, because it's RAD. These times everything needs to be delivered asap in less money and less time. Chris also talked about the integration of 3rd Party tools like Google Maps.
Dietmar Aust talked about "Mastering unreasonable deadlines with APEX at German Telecom Shops". What Dietmar had to do in such a short time frame was a challenge. The only way he could deliver was using APEX. He also used 3rd party tools to full fill all needs of the client, like PLFLOW, DHTMLX Tree, a map and geo tools and Graphvis.
Chris Veenstra talked about "How Iron Mountain has used APEX to improve operational abilities within the enterprise". Chris is a dba and used APEX to make his live easier in reporting, verify rman and capacity planning.
After the sessions there was also an APEX Round table with all speakers. The audience could ask questions to us.
At 6 PM there was the Keynote with Tom Kyte: How Do You Know What You Know... He showed a lot of examples from the history where people thought something couldn't be done, but after a few years it was the case. He also talked about being creative. His story about Craig was very nice :-)
After Tom I went to the Welcome Reception. There were a lot of drinks and food and a lot of people to talk to. It was great fun. During the reception people told me they really liked the session of Rich Mutell, our customer Case Study, which I think was great. He did a very good job and are happy to have him as a customer. Together with Rich I went for a walk in New Orleans and had my first hurricane drink. It tasted really good, but due to all the rum in it, you start feeling it very quick ;-)
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ODTUG08 - Saturday
I got up at 5 AM in the morning, due to the jetlag...
As I couldn't really do anything I created some more statistics for DG Tournament and answered some mails.
After a nice shower I went outside together with John Scott to have a breakfast. It wasn't that good, so next time I might try another place or just stay in the hotel. It was supposed to be a famous beignet place, but I didn't like it, too greasy.
Before noon we had to go shopping, because John lost his luggage (it was BA who lost it). John blogged about, so have a look at his blog if you want all details!
At 12.30 I was expected for the community service of ODTUG. We went to a school and painted about 8 or 9 classrooms. It was nice to help the children after hurricane Katrina.
When I got back I changed, did some more surfing on the internet and went to the Speaker Symposium welcome reception. The reception was on the 49th floor of the Sharaton hotel. Pretty impressive view! I forgot to take a picture...
After that we met some friends: Mark Rittman, Borkur Steingrimson, Wilfred van der Dijl, Aino Andriessen, John and myself. We went for some foods and drinks. I'm sure one of them will post a picture of us!
Our supporters:
Saturday, June 14, 2008
New Orleans is a crazy place
After a long flight (and a delay in Miami) I finally arrived in New Orleans.
At first sight I thought it was a bit like San Francisco... huge lanes on the motorway, big buildings and water when you fly in. I'm not sure the water is still from Huricane Katrina or it has always been like that.
I met two Americans who loved soccer (!) on the plane and in the shuttle from the airport to the hotel, I sat next to some people from the Netherlands, who were ofcourse delighted that Holland won at the Euro 2008. Unbelievable who you meet at a different continent of the world. Here's a picture of the hotel, a few blocks away.
The weather is excellent, although maybe a bit too warm. It's already night and it's still difficult to get air. But I like it, especially when you know this morning it was raining in Belgium.
After having spend a few hours walking outside, I must say New Orleans is completely different then any other city I've seen! They are crazy here, especially on Bourbon St. :-)
John will arrive shortly, so we'll probably go for a quick drink and then time to sleep. I've been awake for 24 hours now... and start to feel it.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
APEX Meetup at ODTUG08 - Tuesday 7.15 PM
It's becoming a tradition that on all major Oracle events we organize an APEX Meetup.
ODTUG Kaleidoscope is already in two weeks, so time to announce the next meetup!
As ODTUG planned to have a lot of fun, food, and networking events on all the days (which is great!), the only reasonable time would be Tuesday 7.15 PM. If you all agree we will meet in the lobby of the Sheraton hotel.
From there we'll leave to a nice bar in New Orleans. I don't know anything in New Orleans yet but if somebody has already a suggestion, feel free to put a comment on the blog. But I'm sure we'll have some people with us who have done some research the days before ;-)
Just to have an idea of people, can you please register your name on the APEX Meetup site.
Thanks... and see you very soon now!
Dimitri
