So you've submitted an abstract

You've thought hard about your conference talk ideas; you then fleshed out your idea and worked hard on an abstract; and finally you plucked up the courage to make the submission to that big conference.

What next?

Keep momentum.

#physics

It really depends on the style of your talk, but in most cases, just keep whatever momentum you have (or had back in December), and work on it in some form every week.

Wait, abstracts closed. Public voting complete. Aren't I just waiting for a March notification before I bother starting?

No.

There are a few reasons you could be working on your talks each week. For instance:

1. Rome wasn't built in a day - it depends, but a reasonable talk should take at least 20 hours to develop, plus the time needed to gather the experience the talk represents, past, present, or future. Presentations left to the last minute can look & sound like it. Presentations started early will have time to cultivate, allow your ideas to progress as you write up progress so
2. Experience - even if your talk isn't accepted, you have gained the experience necessary for a topic you've considered worthy enough to talk about it. Maybe you've already gained the experience, but compiling your thoughts will help you gain a deeper understanding of the topic.
   Maybe you gathered a few important insights along the way.
3. Aim high - OK, maybe you end up getting a "sorry, not this time" email for the big conference. So what's happening locally? Do you have a regular meetup nearby? Is there another conference where this talk would fit well? Would the team at your current workplace benefit from listening to your talk for an hour? If you write it, people will come.

And as an extra tip 

• Transform your speaker notes into search engine fodder
  I need to do this more often. I've seen more organised folk post their notes on GitHub, or as some sort of blog post. As a developer, sometimes I stumble across a great set of slides, but yearn for a little more context or content. It will always be useful for somebody, won't hurt your SEO, and you'll thank yourself immediately, and again in 6 months time when you google your own post.

How am I tackling my own submissions?

Slow at first, it's been a busy summer, but now I'm back at work building things, I feel like getting back into regular time aside.

I've submitted four ideas, to help my chances of being accepted. Maybe one idea is really good, but every other Tom, Dick, and Henrietta has submitted some variation of that idea. Perhaps your secondary submission fits rather well instead, among all the rest?

And given the thoughts above, I could make progress on all these ideas, knowing that they'll be useful somewhere along the line. Our local user group always seem happy to have me yak on about APEX.

Anyhoo, these were the titles for my Kscope20 submissions.

• Oracle Reports to AOP Case Study
• Visualising APEX Performance Monitoring
• Navigating APEX Version Upgrades
• A Practical Guide to APEX Authorisation Schemes

I was involved in the public voting exercise, and I not only saw some similar submissions, but a whole bunch of submissions on ideas I've considered, had, or wished that I had. Even if only a third of those submissions ever get produced, there's going to be some amazing content out there.

My titles are a little utilitarian, and lack some awesome word play I saw when reviewing abstracts, but I'm pretty excited about the building the content.

What am I doing to prepare these? I haven't got to this yet, have I?

• AOP - I strategically chose this topic as I'm learning this as part of business as usual at work. My aim is to present a cheat-sheet style session to help new AOP developers hit the ground running. All I need to do is show up to work each day to prepare, though I need bed down the session structure.
• APEX Performance monitoring - I've been writing charts & reports on these log tables for years, and I have the confidence I can piece together this presentation at will. I've offered different formats, so it may even be hands-on.
• Version upgrades - I've done a few of these over time, and I've been making notes. I need to start playing on an empty canvas to help cultivate exactly how it will play out.
  And by this I mean probably both a simple text file that slowly fleshes out a list of key items I want to cover, and some sort of scratching/drawing the represents the story of my talk.
• Authorisation Schemes - this one's been a real slow burn, something I've been wanting to do for a long time, but I hope to turn this into more than just a presentation. This is what I've been hinting about in this sites left menu bar, some form of publication.
  After piecing together a fairly clear breakdown of content, I may have procrastinated a little.

Regardless of where my experience is coming from to formulate the presentation, I typically start with a simple text file, flesh about my ideas, reorder as necessary, then start my slides.

Once the slides are done, I tend to go through them a few times, with a text file ready to note down simple modifications I want to make, without disrupting my flow too much.

Rinse and repeat, until your practice in front of a mirror/camera/friend comes out smooth, and on time.

Don't worry if you get nervous. We all get nervous.

PS - some of us have been living under metaphorical rocks, so if you've missed a bunch of posts by Martin Widlake on presenting, I recommend you check them out.

Kscope19 - What's not in the brochure

Kscope19 was my second Kscope.
It's a long way, but the trip is worth it.

Sure, we can all see the session list.
Delegates all see at least 5 sessions we'd want to see on each timeslot.
Those unable to come weep at the delicacies they are unable to see first-hand.

But what about what isn't in the brochure?

People often comment about the benefits of conferences beyond the seminar room. Let me tell you a story.

Well... turns out parts of this story actually is in the brochure, but some details made these examples particularly special, more than just an unexpected vendor schmooze.

Also remember, this was like a choose your own adventure. Like the session times, there are often concurrent activities to choose from, often aligned with the APEX/Database/EPM tracks.

Friday - Travel day

I left Perth on Friday morning. I thought if I landed Friday evening, I could fool my body into thinking squeezing more hours into a day was a survivable technique.

3 flights later, ~21 flying hours, I'm in Seattle. 4 hours late, check in not long after midnight. Food or bed? Bed won.

Saturday - Recuperation day

I spent the morning walking down to the famous local market on the pier, get a feel for the area, and treat myself to some local food. I haven't really seen mountains before, so I was hoping to experience a scenic flight over Mt Rainier and Mt St Helens, but unfortunately it was cancelled due to cloud cover.

So instead I had a few looseners with Connor, before registration in the afternoon. A couple of Perth lads who find themselves in Seattle at the same time.

[In brochure] Seems good to get registration out of the way Saturday afternoon, instead of Sunday morning. I see a few people I haven't seen since my last Kscope 4 years ago; and meet a few I've also met online - match some twitter handles/faces to actual human beings.
After a few awkward greetings, people are made aware of an APEX meetup in a nearby establishment for dinner & refreshments.

The APEX Meetup provided a few lubricating ales, and a darn good curry. The ice was broken, and a team of APEX groupies from around the world were primed for a non-stop conference. People gradually dispersed, and it was time for bed.

Screw you. jet-lag, I do what I want.

Sunday - Symposiums

[In brochure] Sunday symposiums. If there is one day you can do at Kscope, do this day.

Here's where I made an ironic rookie mistake. I thought I'd attend the newbie information session, making sure I was getting full value out of Kscope, and not missing anything obvious. Turns out I forgot receiving an invite for drinks at a speaker reception on 35th floor, held at the same time. Not in brochure, just a card my jetlag ignored during registration.

[In brochure] Welcome Reception, first chance to really explore the exhibition hall.
[In brochure] Geek Game Night - popped in for a bit, but not quite the mood a small group of us were chasing.

But we found ourselves back at the pub we were at the night before, making more conference friends. An amazingly diverse group of people, and the conference hasn't even officially started.

Monday - Bring it

Again, while the first two items were technically in the brochure, there were a few surprises I was not expecting... hence... they.. were.. surprises.

[In brochure] Keynote Session.

I appreciate magic, and the role it plays in critical thinking. I'm not so much a fan of the flashy illusionists, so I wasn't sure where Jason Latimer was on that spectrum.
I really appreciated the message he had for our society, looking to inspire wonder in children with STEM. Honestly, I was moved - I'll be looking to consume more of his content.

The facial expression says it all. Not magic, just cool physics, and talented slight of hand inspiring wonder.

[In brochure] APEX Demo night

Firstly, we had an announcement from Maria Colgan, stating APEX is now part of the autonomous database. At first I felt like Roel, thinking big deal, but over the week it become very clear that it was more than just its presence - Oracle really are promoting Oracle APEX is the development tool you need in the cloud to build your own solutions. It's mentioned on Oracle's home page, Lauren Cohn was recording testimonials illustrating how APEX helps rock our world, and we're seeing it permeate the media, though still in a sponsored manner.

Secondly, we had an APEX app for with something to demonstrate could sign up. Of course we did.
Not only that, instead of first come first served, audience members could pledge a donation to their demo of choice. These donations will go towards ODTUG fundraising for Pike Street Markets food bank. I was pleasantly surprised to see Connor & myself at the top of the list.

Mine was a demonstration of the monitoring page I regularly use, as I've raved about here.
Connor put an APEX UI over a PL/SQL engine for a chess game.
The other demonstrations got many of us thinking about the relevant concepts shared. What an engaging event.

No need to stop there, a sponsored event is afoot. Not only do I see a bar, and some hot food, it's in a pool hall! I'm in my element.

After a few chats with people from all around the world, I finally unleash a few rounds of pool. Apologies to the fella I knocked out while flexing my pool legs, but I was itching to get some nice clean shots in - it had been a while.

A deep conversation about humanity and the pursuit of technological & cultural advancement later, and it's time for bed.

Tuesday - ACE Day

For me, Tuesday turned out to be an "ACE day".

After my first talk, I had a rare hour downtime where I didn't mind having a break and missing the next set of talks.

Instead I made time at the exhibition hall to do a couple of small recordings with Bob Rhubart for the Oracle Groundbreakers.
First I did at "Two minute tech tip", and didn't even need the full 120 seconds to rave again about APEX workspace activity logs..
Bob also interviewed me about APEX, but I'm not sure those are available yet.

I think this was also when I spent 5 minutes with Lauren spruiking the benefits of Oracle APEX - I particularly look forward to these, though the cameras were a little more imposing than I expected, compared to our initial conversation. I'm possibly not made for TV.

I was humbly invited to participate as a panellist at the APEX Lunch and Learn. I found myself next to giants like Scott Spendolini, a smooth talking sponsor of many of the evening soirees; Dimitri, founder of AOP; Peter, founder of FOEX; Vincent, the PWA guy; and me. I felt a little out of place, but I think the panel members were also conduits for the entire audience. There were plenty of individuals in there capable of answering the interesting questions raised, and some of them certainly did. You can also find these types of people on the forums, it would be great to see more participants.

Tuesday evening started with a dinner for the ACEs, giving us the opportunity to converse face-to-face, since we're all actually in the same place. And despite what you may think, conversation is rarely about tech. With such diversity around the table, we couldn't waste it with what we've been talking about all day!

At 44°N, Seattle surprised me with the amount of brightness at 8pm. Apparently the next opportunity that beckoned was another sponsored event at a local hangout called Spin City - an underground place full of ping-pong tables!

So there I found myself, playing pong with Steven Feuerstein - and the night has yet to find the most surreal moment.

After a getting it out on the ball for a while, I found a drink, a chair, and someone new to talk to. Turns out she was a local of Seattle, and part of the APEX development team. A distant traveller meets conference local. What a hilarious yarn.

At some point we start to get ushered out of the establishment, and the local suggests "let's go to my apartment". After multiple assurances to the question "are you sure?", and a few head counts to ensure nobody was left behind, we found ourselves with tremendous views of Seattle from the common area on a 40th floor. Soon followed with pizza & booze, and blurry photos.

Thanks Jason

Now that was surreal.

Day 1 completed with a game of pool with the German FOEX lads.

Wednesday - Party Night

A plan made the previous night was the play hooky on the first session and go to breakfast at a great local eatery. Best darn eggs benedict I ever had, washed down with the best darn orange juice I ever had. My companions had a combo that involved the fruit bar, where the fruit looked picture perfect. Thank you to the Oracle dev team for that meal, and more conversations that weren't about Oracle.

Note to self - ensure you have enough battery power during your talk.

[In brochure] KScope Party
A few more sessions later, and it was time for the party. The ODTUG Kscope Wednesday night event is not just any event, they really go all out. When I found out they encouraged fancy dress, I got my procrastinating bum into gear and spent about $40 of my colourful Australian dollars on what I thought was a comfortable, but fun pop-culture costume choice - Forrest Gump.

How's this accent?

The cover band were sensational, wandering through a museum of pop culture was a treat, and the dance floor was thoroughly lubricated. The after-party was too many people in such a small place for my liking, but the security check at the door gave me a laugh when turning my licence upside-down to check authenticity.

 And a sensational way to release the brain fry that was the previous 4 days.

Thursday - Not quite over

Yes, there is still half a day to go, and a chance to have the afternoon to soak up the local city.

[In brochure] The final morning was also live streamed, and I liked the format of having multiple people covering the essentials of their niche topic.

There is also a closing session where a few awards are announced, and you see further evidence of a clearly successful succession plan the ODTUG crew have for future board members, to ensure the quality that is the Kscope conference is sustained. Colour me impressed.

I'm sure this conference is like no other, and I'm thankful for not only the opportunity to speak, but to be dedicated participant for every waking hour. I've got 25+ hours to sleep on the way home, right?

I had the afternoon to kill, I ensured my flight times facilitated me a little more of Seattle, to help make up for not getting to do that scenic flight.

I walked to the Space Needle. I figured I couldn't be a real space nerd without heading back to take a closer look. The local food court seemed progressive, and inclusive, lunch was awesome, and I explored the Chihuly glass garden while I waited for my ride up the needle. The garden was stunning, not only visually, but the smells of the flowers, and the sounds of the local buskers mastering their stringed instruments.

I needed a few more of my Australian dollars in the souvenir shop on the way out...

Finally, it was time for my journey to the airport, where I managed my first bit of catch-up sleep.

Sydney fog delayed my arrival home with a lovely diversion to Brisbane. I was due to arrive before the local footy game began, but alas. At least I wasn't travelling with a child this time.

For those fiscally minded, I have three comments

1. Submit an abstract. Connor advised me many moons ago to start speaking, "it will take you places". You no longer have to convince someone to pay for your entry. The need for diversity is everywhere, so you'll always find new speakers. An estimated 42% of Kscope19 speakers were new.
2. While my own boss was sponsoring my flights, accommodation, and meals, I barely paid a thing in between land & leaving. On the rare time Kscope, or one of its generous sponsors, or an Oracle credit card wasn't paying, it was hard to grab the tab.
3. The value of the conference is beyond the entry ticket, beyond the sessions from a plethora of passionate subject matter experts, many of which are particularly talented presenters, but also in the people meet; the conversations you have; the problems (and solutions) you all share. Finding normalcy on the other side of the world.
   Also, how often am I going to find myself in Seattle? Or Boston, Nashville? A life experience in itself.

So, there were 7+ hours worth of sessions, and there is also 7+ hours worth of networking each day, if you can eke it out. Difficult to put a true value on it, but personally meeting people and having normal conversations certainly seems to enhance the nature of future online interactions.

Presentations I didn't see, or too dazed to properly comprehend at the time? They are recorded, and will be available after post-production.

Boston? You betcha, I've got abstract ideas already to help make it happen. Probably with family this time. Travelling with a 6 year old should be a breeze, right?

And choosing between sessions is hard, how am I to choose from all of this?!

Sans Kscope

A few years ago I was lucky enough to attend Kscope15, and while I wasn't there this year, I have bizarre feeling of involvement.

The Buzz

I knew it was coming because the Twitter engine told me. I could have ignored Twitter for a week, or I could try garner some interesting information.

I could also live vicariously through all those Oracle fanatics sharing their Kscope experience on Twitter. I joke, but actually a lot of the gurus regularly share knowledge and interact in forums such as Twitter, Slack and OTN. If you're not involved in one of these feeds, you're probably missing out on a valueable source of contemporary tech information.

You may notice some of the most recent #Kscope17 tweets are from the after-party. It turns out this party is actually before the final 2 hour sessions on Thursday morning. Kudos to all those party animals that turned up to my jQuery deep dive in '15. 

Content

People share key slides. This gives us all a head's up for something photo worthy. Discussions start, interesting news and techniques get explored.

Key sessions were live streamed, and (I believe all) sessions will be available to ODTUG members as screen/voice recordings in September. For $99US a year, that's bargain training value. It's just setting aside an hour or so a week to knock off the relevant sessions.

Party

The Kscope party is amazing. I obviously wasn't there, but half a world away I experienced my own night out and I had a little epiphany, of sorts.

I was going to a music gig. No big name band, moreso a collaboration of local musicians performing a tribute to A Perfect Circle's Mer de Noms album. I know a few of you out there will have some clue as to what those words mean, or may like similar progressive rock. For me it was seeing a few mates perform an album I love live.

The gig was on at the same time as the Thursday morning live stream, but I wasn't missing this gig. It turned out to be an amazing gig. 

I've seen the singer (Dez) perform a number of times and he does a brilliant job emulating not only the original singer's voice, but also brings an amazing on stage presence. He smashed Tool's Aenima a few months ago at the same club, renowned for seasonal tribute gigs.
Another good friend was up there, pretending to know what to do with a six-string bass ;p, plus some other talented guys I've seen playing around before. And then out comes another dude up with an electric violin for a few songs!

Sea of Names - A Perfect Circle tribute

The sound was amazing, the small crowd was pumped, I had a lift to the gig so I actually enjoyed a few beers for a change. They did so well I had an early call of best gig ever, which is hard to judge & compare, but then I remembered seeing Roger Waters perform The Wall a few years ago and that will be hard to beat.

It ticked a lot of boxes, boys, well done. Encore.

Reflection

We're a long way from iconic music meccas like Seattle, but Perth kicks out some brilliant musicians, and I'm a grateful music lover.

For a few moments I thought about the Kscope attendees, having a fine time, letting off some steam after some solid days soaking up a lot of information.

I also thought about the dedication and skill required for people to learn a craft, then share it with others, be it music or code.

Congratulations ODTUG on creating an annual conference with such an impact.

Future

Many things afoot in this household at the moment, and if all goes smooth, we could find ourselves moved into a new home by the time abstracts close for Kscope18 in October.

That's the plan ;p

Kscope ODTUG Interview

The ODTUG booth at Kscope15 had a permanent spot for interviews, and they can all be found on the ODTUG channel.

Martin interviewed me, and here it is, with embarrassing front still and all.



If you want some more Australian accent, and the sound of a local magpie, listen to Connor's little video regarding his move to Oracle. Though he's done quite a few more now since I drafted this post.

I have an idea or two for some videos from myself, finally. All just a matter of time.

Introducing Slack to the Oracle APEX community

If you're like me, the first time you ever heard of Slack was when you checked out apex.world launch last month.

Update April 2016 - apex.world Slack Community Guidelines are now available on GitHub
https://gist.github.com/tschf/149881e7dbc60311b5cd

Since then I've signed up, had a play, interacted with people and with the support of apex.world I thought about what it could do for our community. Slack's mission is “make your working life simpler, more pleasant and more productive.” To me that sounds like something we should think about getting involved with.

What is Slack?

Slack is a relatively new site but has grown extremely fast, compiling the some of the best bits of twenty years of Internet interaction in the one offering. It's basically a highly integrated chat app built by the guy that brought us Flickr. The best article I've seen describes how it's killing e-mail, and I can really see how. It's worth the read and will help you understand why we're a little excited.

Firstly let's consider the tools we currently use:

Email

Email is a funny thing. I still email the colleagues that sit nearby. Don't get me wrong, nothing goes past a good face-to-face conversation, but we also work with code, visualisation, and our headphones on. We want to be disturbed on our own terms, so e-mail can be a convenient tool. However, an email conversation is quickly polluted with signatures, loss of context and which ones do you keep?

Forums

The OTN community is a great place to ask questions, float ideas and see what other developers are struggling with. I find it optimised for clear questions and concise responses. Anything requiring more interaction can be painful and slow as forum lag creeps in.

Twitter

Need to float an idea? Need to consume information based on a particular tag like #orclapex? Twitter's a great tool in our community and you'll find plenty of the experts and gurus use it. Tim Hall induced an interesting discussion this week on its value. Journalists and sociologists worldwide love it's instantaneous nature and insight into the human psyche; information is extremely current but transient.

One downside is that sometimes it feels rude joining an existing conversation, despite the fact you're essentially writing on a public wall. Others also like to talk about things other than Oracle and related technologies, who knew? For me it's science and pseudoscience, a side hobby. Some like this insight into the personal nature of people, but it's not for everyone.

Following conversations between others can be hard unless you're directly involved, and trying to convey technical information with 140 characters can be tough. Unless of course you transfer your discussion to somewhere like Slack, where other perspectives are naturally welcome.

ICQ

Remember this? It was fantastic for instant chat, we used to use it at university to communicate with students in other study rooms. Apparently it's till around, and I think Slack is a more advanced, more mature version of a chat room - built for engineers.

Slack

Imagine the benefits that instant messaging could give your team, one with a useful UI, one that's searchable, where you can set up a few different channels, include various forms of media, and one that integrates with a whole bunch of other frameworks. That's Slack.

What does apex.world do?

For those that aren't interested in registering with forms of social media, apex.world does a great job of aggregating information.

apex.world screenshot

The first column lists all the conversations coming out of Slack, with a drop down list for the different channels. By registering with apex.world you can get invited to the orclapex.slack.com domain.

The column on the right aggregates all messages coming from Twitter with any of the tags shown in the region heading, which are typically the cream of the crop for data mining. This differs from lists that people can make in Twitter that show any tweets by particular people, which sometimes aren't about Oracle or technology.

The middle column lists any link the apex.world team deem newsworthy. The first few in the screenshot relate to jobs, but the types of links are quite heterogeneous. The next in the feed was highlighting a particular tweet from Joel Kallman essentially confirming Oracle JET as the target charting engine in APEX 5.1.

Visiting apex.world means you don't need to be a member of Twitter nor Slack, nor do you even have to register at apex.world, but I'd like to convince you otherwise. I've previously posted about the advantages of Twitter as a work tool, and I'd like to familiarise readers with why Slack could help APEX community members.

Finally, the apex.world site is bigger than just this landing page and registering brings other benefits such as the job market.

Using Slack

Slack sidebar

I'm still a relatively new user to Slack, but Juergen tells me that makes me the prime candidate for spruiking my findings. It's certainly a new tool for the APEX community, and I'm sure there are uses we're yet to discover. Consider this a time of cultivation of a product that's already proved its worth - apex.world would not be possible without Slack due to the vast geographic separation of the development team.

Domain Header

The big "orclapex" in the top section provides a drop down with site level links of interest, including Preferences.
For instance, I've chosen a skin I like, separated private channels in the list and set emoji to text only. I also enabled desktop notifications for certain events.

Channels

The these predefined channels were devised by the apex.world team as to break up the orclapex domain into categories that hold their own weight when it comes to discussions.

If you have a question or thought regarding dynamic actions, there's a spot for you. If you need feedback on using plugins, ask a question over there. When you sign up you can opt in to channels that interest you, I've done subscribed to them all.

The channel displays bold when new content is present, as per the private apex-world channel in the screenshot. The UI does a great job at showing new information to suit your preference.

No doubt others will arise over time, perhaps more transitory channels for use in ODTUG webinars?

Private Channels

It's also possible to define private channels for your own projects, cities or languages... or who knows what in future. There are two in this screenshot, signified with the closed padlock.

We welcome non-native speaking communities to define private channels for their native tongue. First ask in the #_general channel if one has already been created in your language and you will be sent an invite since anyone who's a member can invite anyone else in slack domain.. If one doesn't already exist, we suggest create a language channel using the international format

• apex_nl
• apex_de
• apex_ru

Or city based, eg:

• apex_perth
• apex_nyc
• apex_birmingham

We hope this will reduce channel clashes and help consistency.

Direct Messages

Direct messaging is available, just like most other networking sites, but please consider standard etiquettes. Not everyone likes private messaging.

Back to a utilitarian perspective, you can define a group of people for a private conversation. New message appear bolded like the channels, with the addition of a message count.

Membership is growing quickly, so it's possible to put your friends, colleagues and favourite channels in a starred section, back up the top of the sidebar.

As a Gmail user, I find this perspective rather familiar.

Slackbot

The Slackbot helps you start out and has potential for future utility just like Siri, as you type commands into the message box prefixed with the / slash.

Command shortcuts

There are actions it can do now such as set reminders, but keen an eye out for this little AI. You can also use it as a place to test out messaging features.

Communicating

I've found the message bar rather impressive. For a start it handles me pasting an image from the clipboard, enabling me to add some meta information before posting. In addition to this common need, it's possible to upload documents, pictures, videos and does it with a smooth UI.

This screen grab shows some examples that all programmers should be interested in. Inline code, the result of talking to the AI, multi line code and a snippet example I used after being gently prompted as I started to write code. There is a more direct option under the plus button.

Markup examples

The markup options are suggested on the bottom right. If you want to include something larger than a few lines of code, check out the snippet popup. Is this tool for built programmers or what?

Add snippet

You can use the @ symbol to mention people within a message so they receive addition notification. 

This can also be useful in a larger discussion if you need to keep information in the group but focus your contribution to someone in particular, just like Twitter but with more elbow room.

https://community.oracle.com/thread/3823539

And hereby lies an example of how Slack can be effective, highlighting a nugget amongst the chaff in the #javascript channel.

Search

The search facility is a clever looking bit of UX, and for a community our size it should filter through a decent look through the past. Ten thousand messages to be exact, enough to be current.

Slack search 

Back to the UX, as you can see from the screenshot the search for "workspace" was effective. Clicking on any of these cards expands the neighbouring conversation to help with context.

For a more generic guide on what you can do in Slack and how, try
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/08/11/the-ultimate-guide-to-doing-anything-in-slack/

There are some awesome shortcut commands for the keyboard warriors out there. For instance, after submitting message you can press the up arrow to quickly edit a mistake. Ctrl / will display the current shortcuts.
http://www.howtogeek.com/219328/become-a-slack-power-user-with-these-useful-tips/

As good as I find the browser experience, apparently there's also dedicated applications for most device types.
https://slack.com/downloads
I've tried the mobile app and it's clean and easy.

Behaviour

The tools I've mentioned serve their niche well. For instance the OTN forums are great for technical questions, but I'm not sure Slack is the best medium for this. Slack is more of a technical discussion board than a technical answer board.

Something might arise in Slack, but as soon as it starts looking like a forum post with connection details being passed, it probably belongs in the forum. Though people on the forum might get places faster in a private discussion on Slack, timezones permitting. In this time of exploration we'll probably find more examples of the Forums and Slack complimenting each other.

Twitter can also be good to throw something to the crowd in a sentence or two, hoping to elicit a response directing to more detailed information. If the conversation gets deep, transfer it to Slack. This might encourage others to contribute to a conversation that can get lost in the quicksand that is Twitter.

I find Slack a place where a conversation can be had about current events, or asking "has anyone done this potentially esoteric thing". Or something that used to be an email discussion where some listened, others contributed, and we all got frustrated at such an unconsolidated feed.

Keep an eye out for a concise set of guidelines from the apex.world team shortly, so we all try eke the best out of a useful tool.

Looking forward

Slack is a modern tool with a lot of potential. The #orclapex community is still exploring it but I think it's effectiveness is already shining through. People have asked various questions about current events and received feedback from around the world. It's similar to Twitter, but more focussed and digestible.

As I wrote this post I asked if anyone else had experienced what I thought was a strange behaviour I encountered today. Within minutes Patrick Wolf suggested I turn Escape Special Characters off my column, something I'm sure I thought I tried but sure enough, I was on my way.

As OOW15 was going on, people who weren't at the event wanted to get involved in the converation, seeking further information announcements like as Oracle JET. Sure, people were also doing the same thing on Twitter and the OTN forum, but the tone of the discussion on Slack was more accessible. I found it encouraged more participation. Less like we're on a giant spinning planet keeping us all geographically distant, well, me anyway.

There are downsides, Juergen read about a team that outgrew Slack, where the free plan allows search/browse of the last 10k messages. That sounds like a lot until you have thousands of users. The tool will still be a useful communication device, but one will hope the future 'Enterprise' pricing plan will help larger user sets since a per person charge for even a modest group would probably price communities like ODTUG out. The orclapex domain is currently at 321 confirmed members, so with modest participation rates I think we'll be ok for now. You never know, by that stage we might have a searchable archive on apex.world.

I'm sure the greater community will work out how to use which tool most effectively and for what content. Either way, I recommend keeping in touch! Let's make this big world a little smaller.

#letswreckthistogether

ODTUG APEX Gaming competition submission - Boggex

This post announces my humble attempt for the ODTUG APEX Gaming Competition 2015.

You can play the game yourself at
https://apex.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=70316
The about section allows you to download the current source I have exported.

I originally wasn't going to submit anything since I was busy writing a book this year, but I got inspired by something one day and thought I could at least submit something as long as I follow two major criteria:

1. Minimal time spent to create
2. Declarative as possible

Besides some allowances made to work nicely on a mobile, I think I fit both of those fairly well. It's a fairly basic framework over a fairly basic idea.

Besides the simple but addictive game play, there are two other tabs of interest:

'Tech' begins to details some of the technical aspects of the game. I'll be converting some of this detail into a presentation, hoping to illustrate some interesting concepts.
'Stats' shows some pretty graphs that show some statistics people might find interesting. This is also the precursor to a presentation idea.

Feel free to use the Feedback option to send me thoughts, ideas and constructive criticism.

Update
- iOS users - Fixed the fact you can't touch letters by adding touchpunch.js using 'touchstart click' as custom event for click letter. Wasn't a problem with the non-Apple devices I had on hand!

Otherwise, have fun! I can't wait to see the entries from those smarter and less time poor than I. On Twitter a few weeks ago I saw some submissions from other entrants, I think the organisers are thinking 'mission accomplished'.

Scott

ODTUG from afar

I would like to extend my apologies to those people who persevered just now with our attempt to bring to you my presentation on APEX 5 Page Designer thanks to ODTUG.

Due to the massive time zone differences, the appropriate time on my end (6am) means I connect from home - where I'm limited to an ADSL connection. My location is even a bit of a dead zone for my smartphone's 4G plan which is normally better than my home internet speed. I considered just tethering the laptop to my phone, but I don't think it would have been an improvement.

After testing the audio last month it seemed things would be fine as long as I didn't use Prezi (not powerpoint), which hogged the connection with the visuals updating - but obviously the gremlins had other ideas today.

Blame him or Tony Abbott

Melissa from ODTUG has suggested we try record it another time so you don't miss out. In the meantime you can view the slides yourself here, you just don't get to enjoy my Australian accent attempting a few jokes - particularly at the start.

Next year I plan on attending Kscope in Florida, where I've submitted a few abstracts. I think we'll hear who's been accepted next month - but I look forward to meeting so many people I've collaborated with online in some form.

Stay tuned!

ODTUG Webinar: APEX 5 Page Designer

I'll be presenting an online webinar for ODTUG not long after the Perth conference.

It will be the same session I did for AUSOUG back in July, which is lucky since it's 6am for us Perth locals. It's a close look at the Oracle APEX 5 Page Designer, and what it means to you as an APEX developer.

Check the webinar registration page for details on the abstract and help with the time zone conversion for: Thursday, November 20, 2014 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM EST

It was originally written as a Prezi, but due to my ordinary ADSL connection I've had to convert it to PDF. It translates ok but some of the magic is lost. I'll provide a link to the Prezi on the day and you should be able to follow along with the original if you wish.

Even if you're like me and still love the component view, I reckon once you see all the benefits of the new IDE, you'll be a convert and will be itching for the new release to finally arrive.

For those not at Kscope14

Geographical, monetary or otherwise - some of us simply can't make it to the conference every Oracle developer should do at least once, or so I've heard.

For those of us stuck at home we do have some options.

1) ODTUG offers a LiveStream of selected presentations. 

I stayed up past my bedtime to watch Patrick Wolf introduce the APEX 5.0 Page Designer. I look forward to watching the recording of Shakeeb Rahman on Beautiful UI in APEX 5.0. I've heard great things on the twitterverse about it, and I want to learn more about the Template Options feature.

2) Keep an eye out for ODTUG webinars.

Unfotunately Martin D'Souza had to cut his Kscope14 trip short, so his presentation on Logger will hopefully appear in the reasonably near future - among other quality the tends to come by.

3) Search for the #kscope14 hashtag

Even if you're not on Twitter you can still view a bunch of information coming out of the conference using the hashtag #kscope14. Despite all the ribbing hashtags get (thank you, instagram) they are a great indexing tool in Twitter. There seems to be plenty of socialising and beer drinking going on, but plenty of tech news coming out as well.

4) Attention Perth residents

If you happen to live in my home town of Perth, at the Oracle offices on morning of the 23rd July I'll also be presenting on the APEX 5.0 Page Designer - helping to jumpstart the learning curve to the new release and show the local Oracle Forms community how much of an advantage they'll have with the new APEX environment.

If all goes well, I hope to meet many Kscope regulars next year in Florida!

Webinar reminder - APEX Mobile

Just a quick reminder about a coming webinar on APEX mobile on 18th/19th December.

If the time zone suits you, it would be wonderful if you could join in

• US west coast - noon
• US east coast - arvo
• Europe/Africa - PM
• Australia east cost - AM
• Australia west coast - too early, and you probably saw it at the Perth Conference ;-)
• any other suitable regions I neglected to mention, my apologies

Register via ODTUG.

Scott

Webinar: A foray into APEX mobile

If you missed it, it's going to be ok!

For those unable to make it to the Perth conference this year, I will be presenting my session as a webinar on  the 18th December 2012 at
4pm - New York
9pm - UTC / London
(19th December)
5am - Perth (yes, I'm getting up early)
8am - Sydney/Melbourne
(timeanddate.com)

Register via ODTUG.

I've modified the abstract slightly considering the accompanying application was designed for the conference - feel free to have a play now - even play the buzzwords game.

A foray into APEX mobile

Mobile development had beginnings even prior to Oracle Application Express 4.x, but with 4.1 itching to be a true mobile development platform - only held back by the jQuery library - APEX 4.2 has arrived with it as standard armoury in the utility belt.

We asked delegates prior to the 2012 Perth AUSOUG Conference to visit the following site either on desktop or mobile device apex.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=SW2012 (via tinyurl.com/SW2012AUSOUG)

We encouraged them to register interest in presentations, then provide feedback on each session. It is essentially a prototype built specifically for the purpose of this presentation, but it became a valuable tool for the conference organisers, and will be improved & polished for next year.

Listen to this presentation to see how the sausage was made; what you may expect to see out of APEX mobile development in the future; and what you need to consider learning before putting on the stetson!
It will be interesting to see how the prezi style works as a webinar, because in person I find it's more engaging than powerpoint - as long as you don't make the movements too much.

Scott

Review: APEXposed Melbourne 2012

Thanks to ODTUG, we had the pleasure of part-time Aussie David Peake, who happens to be an Oracle  product manager for APEX, & Canadian ACE Director Martin Giffy D'Souza from ClariFit. They were here to conduct 2 rounds of APEXposed - one in Auckland, then Melbourne.

With thanks to Bambi Price and other user group committee members - visitors from many states were ushered into a room with 2 large screens, great room width but only 5 or so rows - it worked. Compliments also to Cliftons, I liked the venue. And those chocolate things on day 1 arvo tea - yummo.

I'd like to offer my take of each session, at least what I remember and garner from a few tweets that were about #APEXposed

1 - Intro to APEX
I was a little unsure what the level of detail would be, and the ODTUG team anticipated this an apologised in advance for not meeting everyone's needs & wants - which I thought was great. I think a few people suggested separate advanced session for next year.
For me this was mainly a repeat of recent conference material, and a little "yeah come on, get on with the good stuff". Although I did note that I should have a fresh look at the Collateral section on OTN.

2 - APEX page types
It was good to have a walk through of what APEX is currently offering with commentary from Martin. Audience feedback was pretty good too. I counted about 60 people, with perhaps a dozen double power outlets around the room... hmm
It was also good to hear David's displeasure for tabular forms matches with mine.

3 - Dynamic Actions
A nice show & tell comparison with Martin performing something with JavaScript, and David repeating the function with dynamic actions. I mainly picked up notes regarding use of jQuery.
Don't read this lightly - I think dynamic actions are arguably the best feature to come out of APEX 4.x, competing tightly with the next topic...

4 - Plug-Ins
I think it may be a while before I create any item or DA plug-ins, but Security & process plug-ins may be on the agenda. It was brilliant to have someone who wrote a book on plug-ins to describe the mechanics of these magical components.

Martin ready for the big reveal

For those that missed it, here is the link to the APEX Builder plug-in.

5 - SQL Developer & SQL Data Modeler
I'm a regular user of SQL Developer for mainly SQL tasks, and occasionally re-engineer data models from the database with SQL Data Modeler, but I was interested to see what David had to show. I got a little bored of mentions to the cloud, as interesting as it would be to have a piece.

Hands on labs
Brilliant that they used VirtualBox to deliver a pre-packaged working environment with APEX workshops ready to go - but for me a waste. Others found it useful. I took the time to catch up with a few people, drop my bag off at the hotel, then meet the depleted team for a beer or three at the local.
What I will take away from this is the discovery of VirtualBox.

(sleep)

6 - Oracle Database Cloud
A good session covering all things Oracle cloud, although at times a little too salesy.

7 - Using APEX to build mobile applications
Even though I just experimented with and built a mobile application with APEX, I was keen to see what they had to demonstrate. I learnt a few things, it's certainly a big learning curve to climb, but I already crossed many of the bridges mentioned.  I think it was a well received session from the crowd.

8 - Debugging tools & techniques
Coming into it I think this was going to be my favourite session - and it turned out to be the case. Not so much for the demonstration of the tools, although it was interesting to see how someone else utilises them - but some of the idea's Martin presented for using components in ways I never thought of. Two examples
1) Using the error page template to e-mail notification of the error - something I've done myself in a Forms environment in the past :-)
2) Using build options to display debugging information such as session state in a global page (page zero) region.

9 - Securing APEX 
What I picked up from this session was delivery tips from Martin. I know APEX security fairly well, and Martin joked that I should have been delivering that session. From my perspective in the crowd as a presenter & part-time trainer - I took the opportunity to see how Martin delivered this topic.

10 - Administering & Deploying APEX
What I should have expected, but not what I was hoping for. David talked about the mechanics of infrastructure & delivery - again involving the cloud, and at the end of day 2 it was getting a little dry. I was hoping for more real-world scenarios of how people manage version control of APEX applications, for instance.
Common problems people face moving & versioning applications between environments. In saying that, David suggested maybe perhaps a fairy said in future there may be something going on with Editioning.

Do look out for a post coming up from me regarding APEX_APPLICATION_INSTALL - there were a few questions relating to this, and I have some content to share.

11 - APEX best practices
Ended up being a little short, I think everyone was tired & their brains were full. While the questions were good, there didn't get too deep since we were all tired. I look forward, however, to reading the best practices book.

Summary

For beginners it would have been a wealth of information, there was even fair call occasionally to the DBAs in the room. Intermediates would have had a number of good sessions each day.

I'm happy with my output - picked up a dozen good tips, and assert the understanding & opinions in other areas. I also paid note to the way everything was delivered, a few things caught my eyes & ears.

For all it should have been a valuable networking experience.

I do hope if the event were to be replicated in some form in future, I would like to see time dedicated to more advanced. I imagine the topic lineup may differ in future, the release of 4.2 almost wrote the agenda itself.

My suggested future event

I think Melbourne location was good for everybody, but I'd always invite people to Perth.

Same standard of speakers. Martin & David were very good. I don't think it would hurt to involve locals in some sessions. I feel people are more attentive when more speakers are present.

Major logistical improvement would be to increase the amount of power outlets - it doesn't need to be 1 for 1, but increase the ratio. People get resourceful.
Unless of course batteries undertake massive improvements in the next 6 months - or these ultrabooks with SSDs truly hard power friendly.
Or maybe there'll be a wireless charging pad along the desks, charging everybody's devices? I digress...

One day dedicated to the basic-intermediate skill level, talking about latest new features & developments, perhaps some standard topics & problems featured in detail - enough to keep everybody interested.

And then a second day dedicated to the intermediate-advanced developers, looking at

• jQuery
• CSS
• using attributes
• dynamic actions
• scripting deployment
• responsive design
• jQuery Mobile
• jQuery plug-ins (non-Oracle)
• plug-in consumption case studies
• JSON
• Web-services

I'd go to see that, and tell my friends.

And if I had it my way, I think that content could fill three days, not two.

Scott

OTDUG Australia / NZ APEX training

If you didn't get enough APEX at the Perth conference, then thanks to ODTUG and AUSOUG, you can supplement it further by welcoming ACE Director Martin D'Souza and Oracle Application Express Product Manager David Peake to Australia and New Zealand.

They will dive deep into the APEX world, including a hands-on lab.

• Auckland - November 5-6, 2012
• Melbourne - November 8-9, 2012

Further details can be found here: http://www.odtugapextraining.com/AU.html

I'll be attending the Melbourne event - I might see you there!

Scott