IOUG blogs

I started today in the IOUG booth at Moscone West. Quite a few members were congregating here as we waited for the vendor grounds to open. Once they did, I wandered over to find the largest exhibition of Oracle technology products I have ever seen under one roof. I visited with vendors, both familiar and new, and (I’ll admit it) I collected a fair number of t-shirts and other gizmos.

I then hopped on a #1 Oracle bus to get to the Hilton in time for another ApEx presentation. I decided to walk back as it was another beutiful day in San Francisco!

This evening I enjoyed a sunset cruise. The city views were spectacular!

Here is my report on Oracle Open World day 1.

There are red white and black Oracle signs EVERYWHERE in San Francisco and at times the sidewalks are filled to capacity with conference attendees proudly dangling their conference badges around their necks. Virtually every hotel is booked as best as I can tell and taxi business is brisk.

Inside the conference facilities at the Hilton on Sunday the IOUG and other user groups were the main attraction. THe IOUG hosted SIG meetings and technical presentations and many were booked to the room capacity! I attended the Application Express SIG meeting where I participated in a technical roundtable discussion on one of my favorite topics. It was a good opportunity to greet old friends and make new contacts. The ApEx SIG membership count is at 350 and rising!

At 2:00 I presented on Building a Menu Framework Application to a capacity crowd. There is quite a “buzz” about ApEx as many users figure out that this product is suitable for production applications and works reliably. I predict that we will see a rapid increase in the popularity of ApEx applications based on the comments I am hearing!

Sunday evening, the IOUG hosted a welcome reception for our many volunteers. I was pleased by the number of volunteers who found time in their busy schedues to socialize with their peers at this event. We are all looking forward to the exciting week ahead.

Hilton, Continental Parlor 3  Launching at Oracle OpenWorld!  Ari Kaplan will be present to kick off the start-up of this SIG, please join Ari and me at the launch.  The SIG will be discussing the creation of the ApEx SIG to augment the technical support efforts of Oracle Corporation and form a virtual community for the ApEx tool users. Tony Jedlinski experienced Ap Ex developer will be at the meeting to discuss the use and development of Application Express.  IOUG classes are reaching the full status quickly, sign-up soon!

Middleware Technologies SIG  Hilton, Continental Parlor 3 Featuring Jon Dart Chief Architect for Oracle’s Fusion Middleware platform.  IOUG Middleware Technologies SIG Meeting Oracle is strategically focusing its energies on the Middleware Technologies, and providing a great level of support for this endeavour. The IOUG has committed to amalgamating the different areas of interest into a new Special Interest Group to provide and share information on the middleware set of technologies. This group was formed early in 2006, and a set of forums has been created in the SIG web site, for users of middleware technologies to share information. Jon Dart is joining the SIG at the midnight hour, so by seeing this BLOG and being an active member of IOUG you get exclusive information about a dynamic leader in the Oracle community.  Sign-up now before the class fills up and you don’t get a place!