Jeff Smith (@thatjeffsmith) just posted a great little piece about why you can’t afford to miss this year’s ODTUG event in New Orleans: KScope13. As usually I will be speaking there as well and running my now annual Morning Chi Gung classes.
See you there.
Kent
Today I arrived in Denver to attend the annual Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group (RMOUG) Training Days conference. It is one of, if not the, most successful local Oracle user group events in the United States (and has been for many years). For the past few years it has been held at the Denver Convention Center (which is guarded by a big blue bear).
Big Blue Bear
It has a been a few years since I have been able to attend and I am glad to be back. I am attending and presenting (as I posted last week).
Today, I was mostly in attendee mode and got to attend a lab session hosted by a few of my friends from Oracle product management (Jeff Smith, Kris Rice, and David Peake). They did an end-to-end, soup-to-nuts session taking the attendees through using SQL Developer Data Modeler to design a database, then SQL Developer to build the tables, then Oracle Application Express (APEX) to build a web based interface to add and view data in that database.
OTN Developer Lab
And all this was done using an Oracle virtual machine downloadable from OTN.
Unfortunately it would not load on my machine (figures) so I paired up with my long-time friend Jon Arnold and did the labs together.
David Peake Teaches APEX
I learned quite few interesting things and got re-introduced to APEX (which s a very cool tool). I need to look some more at the Interactive Reporting feature for sure.
The coolest thing was that APEX can be used to build applications that run on mobile devices. All point and click development to do it too. APEX has been used to build some pretty big apps for some pretty big companies (including Oracle).
APEX Mobile
Another cool thing I learned was that the default install of APEX (a no-cost option with every Oracle database) comes with a bunch of packaged application that are ready to use and a bunch of sample apps for oyu to start with to try out different APEX features. You really need to check this tool out.
Tomorrow will be busy.
I was officially added to the agenda at 7 AM to teach my morning Chi Gung class.
Then I have two presentations to do and a networking lunch session.
Then dinner with some friends and soe good Colorado Mexican food (and adult beverages).
Stay tuned…
Kent
I spend a lot of time reverse engineering client databases to see what kind of design they are working with or to simply create a data model diagram for them (so they know what they have).
Along the way I often need to actually look at the data as well to do some analysis and profiling.
Often this means looking at data and models in SQL Server as well as Oracle.
What’s an Oracle Data Warrior to do?
Hook up my FREE handy dandy Oracle SQL Developer to the SQL Server database.
How do you do that?
First you need to get the right driver. You can find it here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/jtds/files/jtds/1.2.5/jtds-1.2.5-dist.zip/download
NOTE: For SQL Developer 4.0EA3 and SQL Developer Data Modeler 4.0 (production) you now need jtds-1.3.1. Get it here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/jtds/files/
Then follow these steps:
SQL Developer Preferences
With this in place, you can now connect to SQL Server without having to load any other software.
Pretty useful.
Happy Querying!
Kent
P.S. You can connect to other non-Oracle dbs as well. Check out this post by Jeff Smith for even more details.
Lots of folks, including me, have had issues getting the native Windows SSO connection to SQL Server to work. Based on answers on the OTN Forum and this post (http://www.oracle-base.com/blog/2013/10/01/sql-developer-4-ea2-connecting-to-sql-server/) I finally got my new 4.x versions to work.
For SQL Developer 4.0EA3, I did as suggested in the article: http://www.oracle-base.com/blog/2013/10/01/sql-developer-4-ea2-connecting-to-sql-server/. I put the ntlmauth.dll where my JDK 1.7 was installed: C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_40\jre\bin
For Data Modeler 4.0.13 (production), based on a suggestion from Jeff Smith, I put the dll file here: C:\SQLDeveloper\SQLDeveloper4.0.13\sqldeveloper\sqldeveloper\bin
If I was better at setting windows paths, I am sure there is a better way to do this.
Another one for the books…
As before you can see a bunch of my activities on twitter (@kentgraziano and #oow). I posted a few pictures throughout the day.
For the first time I got to watch two keynotes live without being in the cavern of a hall for four hours. Actually sat outside in the shade in Yerba Buena Gardens and watched it all on a really big screen.
Lots of “cloud” talk from Oracle and its partners. CEO Larry E did a cool presentation or real-time analytics on 4.9 billion tweets gathered for the 5 days following the summer Olympic games. It was quite interesting to see the analysis of structured and unstructured data together in a drillable dashboard environment.
And it was…you guessed it…all in the cloud.
Big Data meets Big Iron
Pretty good slogan…guess for doing big data analysis you will need some pretty hefty hardware too…
Also attended two of Jeff Smith’s (@thatJeffSmith) presentations. One on collaborative model development with SQL Developer Data Modeler (my personal favorite) and one on SQL Developer Tips and Tricks (mostly tips).
Source control in SDDM
I also got in the tail end of a session on Pluggable Databases (PDB). Got some really nice summary slides (be sure to click on them and zoom so you can read them). Lots of great details on how PDB works and what it can and cannot do.
All about pluggable database
The details on PDB
After the second keynote it was over to the OTN Lounge for the first ever Tweet Meet. It was designed to let people meet the person behind the twitter handle. I think it was a good success with a great turn out. We even got one of the OTN guys to create his own twitter account so he could follow the Oracle Aces and Ace Directors more easily.
Finally dinner in North Beach with some friends at the Stinking Rose. This has become an annual tradition.
After dinner I did manage to catch the last set from Joss Stone performing in Union Square. That pretty much rocked. Glad I went.
Tomorrow night the BIG appreciation event: Pearl Jam (if I remember to pick up my wristband to get in).
Kent
Happy Friday!
Yes Oracle has finally relased the schedule of artists and DJ who will grace tha attendees at OOW 2012 with their talent.
Suffice it to say – WOW!
You get all the details over at the OOW site – here.
And I have finally put together my tentative schedule of events, sessions, meetups, and concerts. I plan to focus on data warehousing, BI, and SQL Developer (no surprise there). Looking forward to learning about some new tools (Endeca), and more about Exalytics.
Also looking forward to seeing and networking with longtime friends and colleagues.
And of course, hearing some GREAT music (followed by early morning Chi Gung to keep healthy and energized).
You can see my schedule by clicking the link below (PDF).
I added a bit of color to differentiate the fun stuff from the work stuff…
There are few other dinners, etc on my agenda too (Stinking Rose anyone?), but some things you all do not really need to know <wink>.
Have a great weekend.
See you in SFO.
Kent
Kent - The Data Warrior
Alumni
Now in paperback!
Kindle format on Amazon
Click to buy on Amazon
Learn Oracle Data Modeler from The Data Warrior
The Data Warrior 
You must be logged in to post a comment.