Should I always use an Oracle sequence?

Posted on Jan 7, 2011 in Business Strategy, Industry Trends, Technical Tips | 0 comments

Oracle die-hard purists will generally swear up and down about using a sequence for assigning a unique identifier to an record/entity. However, are there situations when you might to consider avoiding this practice?

The below video explains that computer systems have been able to guess social security numbers for 8.5% of people born since 1989. That is alarming for a number of reasons. But it also got me thinking about situations I may have come across in the business world (and IT in general) that could suffer from a similar problem.

ColdFusion 9 Development on Windows (Standalone Server, ColdFusion Builder, and HelloWorld)

Posted on Dec 13, 2010 in Industry Trends, News and Updates, Technical Tips | 0 comments

This guide walks through an installation of:

• Standalone ColdFusion 9 Developer Edition (Server)
• Standalone ColdFusion Builder (IDE)

Upon installation of the above, this guide further walks through how to configure the ColdFusion Builder IDE and build simple “Hello World” application.

PS: I can’t remember the last Hello World that was this simple to develop with such few lines of code.

SharePoint Editions – Version Naming: WSS, Services, Foundation, Server, MOSS, 2003, 2007, 2010

Posted on Nov 21, 2010 in Technical Tips | 0 comments

I talk to many customers who have trouble understanding the Microsoft SharePoint versions that have existed since around 2003, so I have provided a very simple chart with the various naming conventions used in the industry.

Oracle Invests Over $1 Billion in Middleware 11g

Posted on Oct 13, 2010 in Industry Trends | 0 comments

Oracle’s 11g Middleware management has thrown out a stat that might make your head spin. If it doesn’t, it probably should a little.

For the Middleware 11g product line, they have spent over 16,000,000 (sixteen million) hours on quality assurance and testing. You can do some various forms of computation, but that gets me somewhere to a minimum cost near half-a-billion dollars on testing.

They claim something similar for development time (over 10,000 person years which — by my calculations — is even more than 16,000,000 hours). So, I think Oracle is telling us they have spent over $1 billion dollars on development and testing alone for 11g.

This doesn’t include what goes into the rest of the operations, including what I believe to be significant marketing investments specific to Middleware 11g.

Interesting data points indeed, and a number of conclusions one can begin to be drawn from this, which I will leave to our readers.

Flash – Adobe, Apple, Google

Posted on Sep 13, 2010 in Industry Trends | 1 comment

I read this as “We Wish Apple Was More Like Google”.

Okay, let me come right out and tell you that Apple has not been morally right about anything related to preventing Flash on their devices. They have simply played a good marketing game to protect profits and eliminate competition.

Amazingly, even after [halfway] eating crow about their previous decision to deny support for Flash by now supporting Flash-built Apps in the App Store, there are people saying Apple has been right to deny its users Flash on the web. Start with the premise that the only reason Apple is allowing Flash in the App Store is because they have now determined that it would be lucrative.

They need to allow Flash in the browser as well for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad to lift what I consider monopolistic activity. In the end, this will be lucrative in the long run for them as well, and they will realize it. As for the argument that Flash cannot perform or that it introduces security risks…Adobe, Apple, and Flash/web developers are smart people. Don’t try to argue what the possibilities/pitfalls are without giving them a chance.

If Apple was truly concerned with supporting the “open” web — even they will admit that is low on their list of priorities — they would allow Flash in the browser. It will come. Google will force Apple’s hand.

UPDATE:

To me, this is all about Apple needing to appear “open” as opposed to the merits of Flash anyways. Google has already been labeled the “more open” marketplace and platform than Apple, so Apple will have no choice but to counter this. We have already seen this now with Apple publishing their app approval process. The only way a technology wins is by embracing the developer community, including the new generation and the lower-income developers that can’t afford Macs — Google knows it, and Apple is learning it quickly.

Oracle OpenWorld OOW 2010 – Middleware

Posted on Sep 13, 2010 in News and Updates | 0 comments

As has become tradition, I will be attending Oracle OpenWorld again this year joined by a few other M&S team members focused on Oracle Fusion Middleware. Let us know if you will be around and want to meet up. The most solid agenda items I have are the authors’ seminar for a new WebCenter 11g book we are releasing (more on that to come), a few of the SOA, BPM, Governance, and Enterprise 2.0 events with Product Management teams, and, of course, the concert.

Virtualization – M&S Consulting

Posted on Apr 5, 2010 in Industry Trends, News and Updates | 1 comment

At M&S, we are going virtual all the way. We have delivered a number of virtualized environments for customers. Some have been for Oracle Middleware solutions, some for complete Microsoft domains. Some for open source system. And many for development instances.

We have tinkered with going totally virtual for own infrastructure over the years, but decided to avoid biting the bullet for a number of reasons: migration time/effort has typically been at the top of the list. But with the improvements in virtualization technology, advantages proven now over years, apparent “stickiness” of the leading players, our own maturity in this space, and general adoption by the community at large (more clearly read, “readily available support”), we are diving in.

Over the next few weeks and months, each component of the M&S infrastructure will be moved to virtual machines. Certain details of our infrastructure will not be posted on this blog for security reasons, but there are team members working on this who will try to keep the blog up-to-date. If you are interested in how things are going, feel free to contact us. We are excited about this ride.

Is your city doing enough? Taking Branding, Marketing, Promotion, Contest Strategy To New Levels

Posted on Apr 1, 2010 in Technical Tips | 0 comments

We all heard about Topeka’s unprecedented name change to Google. But ironically, to me, Google’s logo change to Topeka today is even more surprising. It’s up to you to top all of this.