2011-07-26

Oracle Database 11g Security and Compliance Solutions Free Webseminar

28 of July 2011 - Free Webseminar "Oracle Database 11g Security and Compliance Solutions" by Tom Kyte
As the amount of digital data within organizations continues to grow at unprecedented rates, so does the value of that data and the challenges of safeguarding that data. Two thirds of sensitive and regulated data resides in databases, yet most IT Security programs fail to address database security and the primary sources of threats that databases face today: insecure applications and privileged users.

Register here

2011-07-23

O ícone de gravar

Eu não tinha ainda pensado nisto: o ícone para "gravar" ("salvar" em português do Brasil) é na grande maioria das aplicações um desenho de uma diskete floppy e, um grande número de potenciais utilizadores dessas aplicações numa viram uma diskette (quanto mais usaram uma :-) ) pelo que, esse ícone não se torna "óbvio". Alterar para um CD ou DVD também não será uma boa opção :-).
Há uns meses atrás o meu amigo Vítor postou sobre a importância dos ícones e da escolha das suas cores. Os ícones devem ser suficientemente intuitivos (não crípticos) e distintos nas aplicações de grande acesso.
Já agora, lembrei-me do ícone usado muitas vezes para agenda...

2011-07-22

VirtualBox 4.1 released

Released on the 19th VirtualBox 4.1 has several new features like VM clones, enhanced wizard for creating new virtual disks, Windows Aero support, increased capability for very large hosts,...

For any developer interested in trying Oracle DB there are several appliances (pre-built images) available.
Also available are some other appliances for several free and/or open-source Operating Systems.

2011-07-19

QuestTV

Quest Software site has recently make available a new section in its website called QuestTV with several videos about its services and products. Some of these videos are also available in Quest Software Channel in YouTube.

Most interesting videos for PL/SQL developers:

Using Toad for Oracle with Oracle Instant Client (this series is helpful even for people that do not use TOAD but want to install and configure Oracle Instant Client.
  • Using SQL Tracker available with TOAD or SQL Navigator
Steven Feuerstein (renowned PL/SQL expert :-)) videos:
About Spotlight on Oracle (a tool normally used by DBA's but also by some Developers :-) )

2011-07-18

Firefox: (...)unsupported form of compression

Using Firefox 5.0 I noticed that in a webpage some javascript was not running.

Using Firebug I noticed that the call to related .js file was returning the following error:

"The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because it uses an invalid or unsupported form of compression"

Because the page (and javascript) was working in other browsers I tried the "force-refresh" ("do not use cache") and it fixed the problem! It looks like the cache was corrupted somehow.

Now I know!

BTW: I'm thinking in switching to chrome as my default browser. Any thoughts?

2011-07-17

TIOBE Programming Community Index for July 2011

PL/SQL is again in the 21st place TIOBE Index (July 2011).
It's was in 22nd last month.

"Prece" Translation

Como prometido no post anterior aqui vos deixo a minha tentativa de tradução da música "Prece" para inglês

As promise in the previous post here is my translation to english for the song "Prece" by Luís Represas.
(my son fell asleep yesterday listening to this song)

The reason behind the song by its author (Luís Represas) is to ask our children to forgive us for what we have been doing so far, and for us to give them strength to not make the same mistakes we made and that were, after all, the same mistakes made by our parents, grandparents and so on.

Prayer

Singer: Luis Represas

I see nobody on the roads
The fields deserts of people
At sea almost no water is visible
In the sky the air dies from warm

We let nothing come
From nothing we had in
We wanted to own everything
We closed the doors to the wind

And if no longer us,
Because time did not let,
To do, what if done,
Would unite us in love,
A prayer we leave here
In the breast of our children
Be much better than us
And please forgive


The hope fell from the mountain
Of lives long forgotten
Love burned at the fires
That burn in promised lands

We do not want to see the end of the road
To guess the end of life
We were born n exchange for nothing
We do not want to give it as defeated

Refrain *2

2011-07-16

Prece

Hoje o meu filho adormeceu a ouvir a canção Prece de Luis Represas.
Luís Represas disse sobre o significado/desejo desta música:

"Para que os nossos filhos nos perdoem o que temos vindo a fazer até hoje, e que nós lhes dê-mos forças para eles que não cometam os mesmos erros que nós cometemos e que, afinal de contas foram os mesmos erros que cometeram os nossos pais, osnossos avós e por ai fora"

Aqui vos deixo a letra e a música. Tenham uma boa noite.
Brevemente espero "postar" a minha tentativa de tradução da letra para inglês.

Prece

Luis Represas

Não vejo ninguém nas estradas
Os campos desertos de gente
No mar já quase não se vê água
No céu o ar morre de quente

Deixamos que o nada viesse
Do nada que tinhamos dentro
Quisemos ser donos de tudo
Fechamos as portas ao vento

E se já não formos nós,
Porque o tempo não deixou,
A fazer, o que a ser feito,
Nos unisse pelo amor,
Uma prece aqui deixamos
No peito dos nossos filhos
Sejam bem melhores que nós
E perdoem por favor


A esperança caiu da montanha
De vidas há muito esquecidas
O amor queimou-se nas fogueiras
Que ardem por terras prometidas

Não queremos ver o fim da estrada
Adivinhar o fim da vida
Nascemos a troco de nada
Não queremos dá-la por vencida

Refrão *2

2011-07-04

Para

Segundo o último acordo ortográfico para a língua Portuguesa o que quer dizer a seguinte frase:

"Uma pedra para o João."

Significa que uma pedra está reservada para o João ou que uma pedra consegue parar o João?

Missing features in PL/SQL

I love PL/SQL but there are some missing features that very annoying:

- Result cache is very nice but restrictions like authid CURRENT_USER (CLOB, BLOB) should only make the cache algorithm not to be applied but not issuing an compilation error (giving only a compilation pls warning) so the code could be prepared for future implementation of the result cache without those restrictions.
The use of VPDs should be 100% transparent with Result cache, i.e. using VPD should not imply a change in the code to work correctly!

- Conditional compilation is nice but cannot check if the oracle version is 11.2.0.2 (or above) only can check 11.2 and oracle implemented new features (like UTL_SMTP using TLS/SSL connection) in that new “patched” version. (here the problem is the missing global constant for anything “below” the minor number or maybe the numbering of that version)

- Automatic detection of "pure" user-defined PL/SQL functions for parallelism (in parallel queries) for functions in packages (like Oracle does for stand-alone (not in package) functions).


BTW: Editions look great but we encounter a bug that “corrupted” the catalog and so the DBAs are not confident to continue to use it for now.