XHTML and CSS…

I finally got round to updating ORACLE-BASE.com so that it’s XHTML 1.1 and CSS compliant. The site was already “XHTML 1.0 Transitional” and CSS compliant, so it wasn’t a massive job. Most of the work involved updating 4 include files. I’m sure there are a few pages that slipped though the net, but I’ll pick those up over the coming weeks.

Regular users of the site will see that hardly anything has changed, it was just a revision exercise for my own amusement 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Two new articles…

I’ve posted a couple of brief articles today:

The TDE stuff looks pretty simple, and it seems to work fine. I’ve read a few people’s articles about it, but I wanted to prove to myself it really worked. Sure enough, when you open the datafile in a HEX editor all you get is garbage.

I didn’t realize that conditional compilation was an Oracle 10g Release 1 feature. It was included in the 10.1.0.4.0 patch and looks really handy. All I’ve got to do now is wait for the 10.1.0.4.0 patch to be made available on Tru64…

Cheers

Tim…

PS. I’ve got a cold at the moment. I am the tissue master!

DML Error Logging and Google Reader…

I’ve just done a brief run through of DML Error Logging. A number of people, including Tom Kyte, have already written about it, but I always find I need to play around with these things before they sit right in my head. Anyway, it’s there if you’re interested.

I’ve given up on Google Reader. I tried using it for a day and it annoyed me so much I gave up. I guess I’ll try again in a few weeks when it’s moved on a bit. The funny thing is, the thing that annoyed me the most about it was the feature I really wanted. I thought I would prefer a list of things to read, rather than a list of blogs with a count of unread posts, but as it happens I don’t. Some of the news sites I subscribe to have so many posts that Google Reader just feels unusable. On Bloglines it’s quicker to sort out what I want to read and throw the rest away. There’s a lession in that 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

The joy of support…

You may remember I wrote a blog post about the Enhanced Commit functionality of 10g Release 2 on the 4th of October in which I raised a question about the default action of BATCH/IMMEDIATE when not specified. On the 5th I raised a TAR in an attempt to answer the question, but still no luck. I came in this morning to find a bunch of waffle about commit processing had been added to the TAR and it had been closed. Had they answered my question? NO!

The phrase, “20% of the list price”, keeps ringing through my head! Where does this money go? Certainly not on paying people to read your question!

Oracle support is totally and utterly abysmal! Oracle need to do something about it, and it needs to be done quickly!

Don’t even get me started on support for the app servers or OCS…

You may have guessed I’m not a happy bunny!

Tim…

Update:

Almost as soon as I finished submitting this post I my TAR was switched to a member of the “Advanced Resolution Team”. Within a couple of hours he came back with the answer. The COMMIT_WRITE documentation is wrong and a bug (4668213) has been raised against it.

So, if neither IMMEDIATE or BATCH are specified, the default action is IMMEDIATE, whether you use the COMMIT WRITE command or the COMMIT_WRITE parameter.

A metalink note (336219.1) is due to be released soon with the correct information.

Pitty I didn’t get this guy first time round 🙂

I’ve updated my article and the related blog posts.

Google Reader

I’m experimenting with Google Reader as a replacement for BlogLines.

So far it doesn’t look too promising. I’ve had a bit of trouble with the subscription management. It occasionally fails, then works fine?? Also, the interface is a bit…. crappy. In this case the label “beta” is definitely appropriate. Some bits of the interface look badly formatted. I thought this was a firefox issue, but it’s the same on IE also.

What I do like it the idea of it presenting a reading list, rather than a list of blogs, some with new posts. In this respect it’s a little more like a news feed, rather than a list of blogs.

I’ll give it a go for a couple of days then make my decision. Google usually hit the mark so I can only assume this is the start of something better.

Cheers

Tim…

Question on enhanced commit processing in Oracle 10g Release 2…

I’ve been looking at the enhanced commit processing in Oracle 10g Release 2:

Commit Enhancements in Oracle 10g Database Release 2

In writing this article I’ve noticed a discrepancy in the default values for the COMMIT WRITE command and the COMMIT_WRITE parameter.

The COMMIT documentation says:

“If you specify neither WAIT nor NOWAIT, then WAIT is the default. If you specify neither IMMEDIATE nor BATCH, then IMMEDIATE is the default.”

In contrast the COMMIT_WRITE documentation says:

“If only IMMEDIATE or BATCH is specified, but not WAIT or NOWAIT, then WAIT mode is assumed.
If only WAIT or NOWAIT is specified, but not IMMEDIATE or BATCH, then BATCH mode is assumed.”

Is this difference true, or a documentation error? I guess I’ll have to raise a TAR about this, but if anyone knows the answer already I’d be grateful if you could pass it on.

Cheers

Tim…

Update:

The COMMIT_WRITE documentation is incorrect and Oracle support are raising a bug (4668213) against it. When neither BATCH or IMMEDIATE are specified the default action is IMMEDIATE, the same as the COMMIT WRITE command. A metalink note (336219.1) is due to be released soon with the correct information.