Posts from April 2007

Dust off that blogroll. Highlight your best technical posts. Update that photo in the About tab. Polish the colours on your theme. Prime the hit counter and prepare for an invasion from the Web 2.0 A listers.

Justin Kestelyn (Oracle Technical Network) sparked some an interesting and though provoking discussion when he puzzled over the relatively low profile of Oracle Corporation in the Web 2.0 community.

Robert Scoble picked up the thread (twice) and there are some interesting comments. Certainly, I'd love to see a Scoble podcast from Oracle Corporation.

I don't know enough about what Oracle's rivals (IBM, Sun, HP, SAP, ~~Siebel~~) are doing out there in the blogging community or how these companies are perceived by the Web 2.0 community to know whether Oracle is hard done by.

That said, a couple of points on Justin's original post

'Oracle's aggressive support of blogging'

As an Oracle employee, while Oracle encourages and supports the blogging efforts of both employees and non-employees I think 'aggressive' is probably overstating the case. For example, Oracle don't offer a hosted blogging platform for aspiring authors merely a listing in a (albeit high profile) directory.

' rather large blogging community'

For a company of 70,000 employees worldwide, does a blogroll containing 61 employee blogs, 10 executive blogs and 100 blogs from technical users truly constitute a 'large blogging community' ?

It would be interesting to know how the number (in percentage terms) of Microsoft and Google employees actively blogging compares with Oracle.

I am an Oracle employee and I have a neglected (internal eyes only) corporate blog only and this blog for my own personal outpourings. I have also occasionally toyed with the idea of applying for a corporate blog. However, to date, I have always resisted this temptation because although I am positive that a listing on blogs.oracle.com would drive a lot of traffic and boost my ego, maintaining a corporate blog carries a great deal of responsibility.

I am not referring to the Oracle guidelines governing content on a corporate sanctioned blog as these are common sense and perfectly reasonable. In fact, I am already obliged to abide by those guidelines here on this personal blog.

Authoring an 'official' Oracle blog would immediately create a wealth of (self-imposed) pressure on me to maintain that blog and keep adding technical, well researched, accurate, interesting and valuable content.

In my current role, I spend most of my working time working for customers. I simply do not have the spare time to spend maintaining a corporate blog.

'Or maybe I shouldn't even care !'

Justin's closing paragraph is interesting. I am an Oracle employee and I also hold Oracle stock. Consequently, I am more concerned with Oracle product development and the stock price than how many engineers are blogging this week and whether Oracle have been invited to participate or host the latest 'Lunch 2.0'.

The climax of the football season is currently dominating my life somewhat. However, I feel obliged to inform the world of my exciting plans for the next fortnight.

Following next week's UK Bank Holiday, the scheduling goddess informs me me that I will be doing a 'brown bag'. This means that next Tuesday will see me wandering aimlessly around the shopping precinct in Reading, spontaneously shouting at shoppers while clutching four cans of Special Brew in a brown bag.

For the remainder of the week, I will be returning to the scene of last years summer holiday - Norway. Again, the work calendar informs me I will be spending 8 days embroiled in what is tersely described as a 'deep dive'.

While I appreciate the break from work and the respite from staring blankly at a computer screen, I do have some reservations about this 'deep dive' activity. Bear in mind that I very nearly drowned whilst hiring a motor boat on the Norwegian fjords last year.

Still, it will be a fantastic opportunity to learn all about the fascinating world of scuba diving and hopefully realise a lifelong ambition and gain my Padi Open Water qualification. This means I will be able to stop boring people with my detailed analysis of the football season and my offspring's sporting prowess and academic abilities.

Now, armed and dangerous with a Padi, I will fully empowered to participate in prolonged and tedious dinner party conversations about the joys of scuba diving and the pros and cons of the crystal clear, warm water in Egypt versus a purpose-built, 20 metre, freezing swimming pool in Plymouth naval base.

I received a summons yesterday for non-payment of council tax. Ah well. It was good while it lasted. I reckon at £1,000 each year for 10 years residence at this address, I probably saved in excess of £10,000.

Still, all good things must come to an end. What a pity those rotters at the council caught up with me.

Then I realised - I already pay my council tax automatically by direct debit to fund the firemen, refuse collectors, recycling collections, the lengthy queues at the tip on a Sunday morning, the multitude of speed bumps and liquid lunches for the fine councillors of this parish.

I read the letter more carefully and then I remembered. This demand for council tax was for a property in Dover. I do not own a property in Dover. I do not want to own a property in Dover. In addition, the named person on the summons was not actually me.

Then I remembered. I had already received an initial bill from Dover City Council which I ignored followed by a red letter which I 'annotated' and returned to sender. Finally, I received a final demand from Dover City Council so I had to write yet another letter explaining the situation.

At this point, Norma started to worry that I might be sent to prison (and be molested in the showers by hard-core criminals) so now I was forced to call Dover City Council on the telephone to explain the situation to a human being.

I was assured by a helpful lady with a funny accent that they would update their records accordingly and she even apologised for the inconvenience and upset caused. Then she passed me onto 'Debt Recovery' where a menacing, softly spoken gentleman demanded to know if I knew where 'Andrew Henderson' actually lived.

This communication ended the whole administrative nightmare and I forgot about it until the summons arrived yesterday.

Now Norma is locked in the house armed with a shotgun, living in fear of the bailiffs arriving to seize goods to the values of £548.21. I told her my United programs were absolutely sacrosanct and maybe consider wearing a short skirt, a wide smile and negotiate 'payment in kind'. This strategy worked very well with the driving examiner.

However, I suspect when I return home, I will discover that she will have buried all our valuables (both of them) in the garden and deposited all our money (£17.89 and some dollars) in the loft.

I only hope she doesn't shoot the window cleaner who calls every other Thursday.

I am very lazy. It takes a gargantuan effort for me to maintain motivation and continue making material up for this blog.

Therefore, actually sitting down, in my own time, to compose a letter to appeal against a £20 fine imposed by Transport For London on my 14 year old daughter, Norma Jean, was not a task I undertook lightly.

I didn't appeal because I can't afford the £20.

I didn't appeal because I think my daughter is above the law.

I didn't appeal because I disputed a similar case five years ago when I was caught on a train without my monthly travel card and successfully got the fine waived 'without prejudice'.

I didn't appeal because I think I will be successful.

I didn't appeal because I want my daughter to conduct her own defence in a court of law.

I didn't appeal because I want to get in the local paper.

I appealed because my daughter is entitled to free bus travel and applied for an OysterCard to prove it.

I appealed because a £20 penalty fine for the heinous crime of dodging a bus fare of, err, zero pounds and zero pence is completely disproportionate and utterly ridiculous.

So, when my daughter hangs herself from a light fitting using a pair of tights in Feltham Young Offenders Institute, don't blame me, blame the Nazi Bus Inspector who asked her

'Do you have an OysterCard ?'

'Yes.'

'Do you have your OysterCard on you ?'

'Yea - oh no - err, wait a minute, hang on, no, sorry. I left it at home.'

to which he replied

'Excellent'.

Not content with writing excellent books, helping Oracle customers, maintaining his blog, presenting at technical seminars, traveling around the globe, family commitments and managing asktom.oracle.com, the workaholic Tom Kyte has now released a streaming media player.

Yahoo! kindly chose to close my Flickr! account because it was associated with an additional email and not my primary Yahoo Id. I contacted support in an effort to resurrect my Flickr account but to no avail.

So, goodbye Flickr and hello Picasa. To get things underway, I proudly present a couple of poor quality camera phone shots from my recent stays in anonymous and overpriced hotels in Cardiff and Oxford respectively.

Publish your metrics as a colourful chart in Google Spreadsheets or upgrade to Thunderbird 2.

Looked good but you forgot the cardinal rule of CRM.

It takes 3 years to win a new customer and a mere 3 seconds to lose a customer.

I was away for two weeks so didn't have time to follow the 'soap opera'.

After my recent holiday, I have been sent on the road for two weeks. I am currently staying at the (heinously overpriced) Malmaison hotel in Oxford.

This place is very expensive and seems like a gaol for the vertically challenged. You emerge from reception into a prison wing. If you are over 5' 8'' tall, you are forced to duck under the door to enter your room.

Oxford is not car friendly. That is why you have to pay £20 to park your vehicle.

Watched Manchester United beat Sheffield United 2-0 at the Market Tavern hostelry.

The Market Tavern is a curious mix of pretentious Oxford students, dressed in shorts and flip-flops, discussing philosophy contrasted with threatening, tattooed hard-cases from the Blackbird Leas estate.

I feared for my life until I spotted the referee of the inevitable battle who was heavily tattooed but also sported khaki shorts and flip-flops.

A band was simultaneously playing (practising ?) upstairs. They had more fans then Sheffield United and played a curious mix of blues and indie rock-n-roll until an ill-advised cover of 'Never Mind' forced their 23 female groupies to depart en-masse for McDonalds.

You are supposed to be unobtrusive software.

On two computers, you have spontaneously stopped working.

No changes to Windows Media player.

Plonk.