more pics....


Elton and the band














Elton on a big screen

















Typical Oracle...just when you are waiting for the next version....3 come along














A wee tram














pre - Elton drinks......Alex fell asleep 5mins after this was taken

Thursday 26th October Pics from Openworld



A Big Building in San Francisco! ( and a big tent )


















A Big Oracle Building in San Francisco! ( and another big tent)

Alex gets the Business Casual all wrong!


















All aboard the good ship Oracle....or a big boat














A big Oracle Bus...where do you plug the bus in?













A dull speech on a big screen

Tuesday October 23rd 2006 @16:45 am

Been to a APEX session with the guys from CERN at the Hilton San Fran.....quite interesting but very small applications ( 1 developer over 6 months )....There was a lot of competition as to who got to present on APEX ( as its not the 2nd most popular download from OTN and the most posted forum )....I reckon CERN won the vote as they invented the web, but they should have picked a bigger customer......Also a lot of people gave the Product Manager a tough time about where it lies in the big picture with Fusion Middleware. He said its another development tool which fits a particular set of requirements i.e. what skills have you got ( PL/SQL ), how complex are the applications etc.....He did hint that the next version will have a lot more integration with the other fusion products ( portal, XML publisher )

Back to the Moscone Centre to meet up with Colin.......Sir Elton awaits us with a 15 min set at the delegates party and a rendition of Candle in the Wind.......better go buy a lighter...yeah right!

Tuesday October 23rd 2006 @10:30 am

Arrived in one piece at sunny and warm San Fran @16:30 Sun ( 2AM body time), managed to survive the 10hr flight crammed into the space called Economy....never do manage to get to turn left when I get on a plane, if only Wallace had come with us

Hotel is smack bang in the middle of the city about 2 blocks from Union Square....good choice Nichola, although it is a little pretentious, with its Carol Smillie makeover and minimal ikea furniture.....my room is painted lilac!

Alex is in a suite at the Regency Hyatt somewhere down near the embarcadero Centre.....I think he's got a butler on hand!!

Anne Marie's hotel is another story altogether.....think trailer trash two storey motel out of a Tarantino movie where they rent the rooms by the hour!, with breakfast consisting of a table stacked with coffee and bagels and guy saying "that'll be a buck fifty"....wished I'd got a picture

Oh yeah.....onto the conference itself....suppose that's why I'm here.......

Its enormous.....approx 40K attendees and coverage over 3 parts of the convention centre and 3 other hotels......they even shut the road between two parts of the centre and put up a huge tent for lunch

Keynote speeches so far.....

11g, Content Database, Web Centre, SOA Suite, and BI ( very big on BI ) as the Siebel products they have inherited appear to be much better than Oracle's....no big surprise there!

Went to an Architecture session with the head guy at Dell IT ( Dell's internal IT department ) and got a really good insight on how they are using 10g RAC to its limits......16 Node RAC clusters, ASM, Gridcontrol, 600 production databases, 24/7 up time ( even when patching....take note Neil....something called "Rolling Oracle Home" strategy ).

Also went to a SOA session on best practices to implement....again very interesting and did supply the best lines yet.....

"Perfect SOA storm"......ideal conditions to implement an SOA solution
"Don't try to boil the ocean"......start small

Colin also went to a session by the guy who wrote "Oracle for Dummy's" who advocated "get everything in the database"....mmmmm

For me Tuesday.....more sessions on SOA plus XML publishing and Application Express at CERN ( where Graeme Kerr is currently working...bumped into him on Monday )

Anyway back to the jolly.....

Oracle UK had a drinks reception at the Carnelion Rooms on the 55th floor of the Bank of America building......stunning views of San Fran with the sun setting, could see all the way from the Golden Gate down to Alcatraz and Fishermans Wharf......about 50-60 people from the UK folk here but only us and RBS from Scotland, which is a bit poor.

Taking pictures and will attempt to upload them to here...check back later