While I was at Oracle Open World 2008 in September, I met Ignacio Ruiz and agreed to an interview with him. Ignacio is the person behind www.databases-la.com which publishes database-related content aimed at the Latin American community and he also blogs at oracledisect.blogspot.com. As a result, most if not all of his content is available [...]

I’ve been enjoying reading everyone’s OOW08 summaries and thoughts lately, which reminded me that I hadn’t posted the slides that I promised to put up. Unlike some presentations, my slides aren’t usually of too much use without the narrative that I spew in the session. That’s mostly because I try to make slides that have [...]

My session scheduled for Wednesday at noon titled “Integrating Microsoft Active Directory and Oracle Internet Directory with Database Logins: Enterprise User Security” (S300044) has been moved to a larger room. It will now be in Marriott Salon 8, so if you were on the waiting list (there were quite a few of you!), you shouldn’t [...]

In no particular order, here are some observations and thoughts on my OOW experiences so far. Everything is about people, who you know, and knowing what those people do. With people and connections, you can learn a lot more than doing it on your own. Identity Management is sort of important, but not important enough [...]

I presented the Building RAC on VMWare for Free session yesterday. It went pretty well and I had lots of questions from the crowd of over 140 (according to badge scans). Luckily, I had the last session before the lunch break, so I was able to carry a few of the Q&A sessions a little [...]

A few years ago, I started getting too many events on my schedule for conferences, so I began using a spreadsheet to track all the sessions I wanted to attend, presentations I was scheduled to give, meetings with customers, times I had to be on booth duty, and, of course, social events I had to [...]

All RAC SIG members should have received an announcement regarding the voting that’s now in progress for new RAC SIG board members/officers. There were several nominations received in July and early August and voting is open now to all RAC SIG members. Just login to the site and use the Elections tab to cast your [...]

Every year it seems like I get part way through the Oracle OpenWorld event and comment that next year, I need to be less busy so I can enjoy the event a little more and attend others’ presentations more than giving my own. And yet it seems that somewhere between then and the following year, [...]

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 [...]