The Oracle ACE program is one way that Oracle recognizes community members that make significant contributions to the Oracle community through blogging, forum participation, user group presentations, and other similar volunteering activities. As one of the Oracle ACE Directors, I have tried to promote the program by raising awareness of its existence and the importance [...]

I’m thinking of organizing a 2-tank (or more) scuba dive down in Monterrey, California, a little ways south of SF for the weekend prior to OOW 08. You can’t really scuba in San Francisco Bay–not much there, murky, ships, etc. In Monterrey, it’s a whole different story and there are many dive operators and charters [...]

This is a quick note about upcoming major events on my Oracle event calendar.

June 15-19, ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2008, New Orleans, LA
September 21-25, Oracle OpenWorld, San Francisco, CA
December 1-5, UKOUG Conference, Birmingham, UK
February, 2009 (TBD), RMOUG Training Days, Denver, CO
March 8-12, 2009, Hotsos Symposium, Dallas, TX
April 20-24, 2009, RSA Conference, San Francisco, CA
May 3-7, 2009, Collaborate [...]

I took a few extra days to decompress from last week’s events at Collaborate 08 before writing up a summary of my thoughts. I didn’t think it was really possible to be more busy than I have been in previous years, but I think I matched my previous year’s schedule pretty easily. This year, instead [...]

Collaborate 08 is here and I’m in Denver already to prepare for the start of the conference. This year, I won’t be blogging a day-by-day accounting of my whereabouts and happenings. Instead, I’ll save up for a summary of what I saw, heard, and vibes I felt during the week.
If you’re still one of the [...]

Okay, not for a while, but for those that are presenters at the conference, the US winter is a time of solemn writing. Whitepaper deadlines are approaching for the IOUG program at the Collaborate 08 (April 14-18 in Denver) conference quickly. Soon after, the presentations for those sessions will be due. No rest for the [...]

You’ll want to take some advice from Joel Spolsky of Joel on Software who recently completed his world tour. He had some great advice and lessons learned from his trip. I especially like Joel’s details about how to choose a room, music to play before starting the presentation, and how to conduct a good software [...]

After a late night, I was slow to join the world on Thursday morning. When I finally rose, it was mid-morning and I was lucky enough to meet up with Debbie Migliore from Oracle for breakfast (well, it was breakfast at least for me). Debbie is part of the beta programs office and we met [...]

I tried to sleep a little later this morning after being up a little bit later than usual last night. Didn’t really work–still up too early, but I guess I’ll sleep next week instead.
I met up with Jake from oracleappslab.com fame for a late breakfast. After that, I parked myself in the Piocon booth for [...]

I started today in the exhibit hall to check in on our booth and clean our Oracle Partner Network Titan Award. Sounds easy, but if you’ve ever tried to find glass cleaner and paper towels in an exhibition hall, you’d know it isn’t as easy at it seems at first. Anyway, it’s a beautiful glass [...]