Doug's Oracle Blog

MOS Survey

dougburns@yahoo.com (Doug Burns) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:43:39 PST

I'm trying not to go on about the past weeks My Oracle Support fiasco, but surely this is Customer Relations 101 - someone senior apologises and at least gives the impression the company cares about their customers more than they do about making excuses and patting themselves on the back?

Anyway, just in case Oracle is still under the illusion that this migration has been acceptable and that the critics are a minority, make sure you take the time to complete the online survey that Daniel Fink has set up here.

My Oracle Support

dougburns@yahoo.com (Doug Burns) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:45:52 PST

... and I really do mean my Oracle Support. Because I've had a funny experience in the office this week. Monday arrived and, as I fully expected, Oracle were having problems with the migration from Metalink to MOS. In fact, that's probably the saddest indictment of this whole process - didn't everyone just know it was going to be completely screwed-up? Because, let's face it, if you've been around the Oracle world for anything length of time, you know that the way they manage new releases of the applications inside Oracle that their customers access from outside is an embarassment. If I had been part of those releases, I'd hang my head in shame. Because once might be understandable (actually, it isn't with proper planning) but when things keep getting screwed up, lessons should have been learned.

So why my Oracle Support in particular? Because from Monday morning, the only problem I've had is that stupid splash-screen getting stuck on 90% the first time. I hit refresh and I haven't had a problem since. Whether you think MOS is an improvement is another matter, but I have had no problems at all. Which isn't why I haven't blogged about it - I've just been busy. But it did give me some entertainment yesterday when I was able to make it work for me and others couldn't. In fact, my mate Jari, who was hitting constant I/O errors and had to start setting up new accounts asked me to login to his browser on his machine using my account and everything was just fine. At which point I pointed out that maybe there's a special app server for at the back-end for Bloggers and ACE Directors who know how great My Oracle Support is!

Yeah, well, it isn't and Oracle should think very carefully about how they manage these migrations in future and for anyone who thinks that being an ACE-D means not criticising Oracle, forget it. But whether I'll ever manage quite as withering posts as some of these is another matter!

http://jkstill.blogspot.com/2009/11/metalink-we-barely-knew-ye.html
http://optimaldba.blogspot.com/2009/11/its-messbut-its-no-surprise.html
http://dbasrus.blogspot.com/2009/11/quite-frankly-warticki-you-should.html

Well done people - said it like it is and made me sigh and laugh in quick succession. However, I also think it was the right thing for Chris to apologise. Not sure it helps people right now, but let's hope Oracle take the criticism very seriously - people are paying big money for this Support and it's not some nice-to-have web app but an important business application for their customers! Those who know me will know I have constantly defended Support in arguments in the past - I think people exaggerate how bad they are - but this is a shambles and here's the thing - who actually asked for this change?! It reminds me of IBM from the days of my youth - telling their customers what they wanted. Look how well that worked out for them ....

OEM Desktop Widgets

dougburns@yahoo.com (Doug Burns) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:11:45 PST

This was in my list of possible future posts but I see my mate Ilmar Kerm has beaten me to it, so you might as well read about them here ....

My First Web-Conference

dougburns@yahoo.com (Doug Burns) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:16:26 PST

Last week (yeah, I've been busy) was the first time I'd delivered a web-conference - using Microsoft LiveMeeting at my current customer site.

As others have reported in the past, it's a little weird not being able to look into the eyes of the people you're presenting to but I'm pretty passionate about the OEM Performance Pages and ASH instrumentation, so I think I probably just about pulled it off. However, the second half was much better than the first half after someone suggested I asked if anyone had any questions*! For one, it's difficult to know if people are following you if you can't see them so it's better to check and, for another, hearing other voices on the line helps alleviate the strange feeling of talking into a void!

* ... and, interestingly, they asked the question via IM, rather than pipe up verbally in the meeting and interrupt me which was both nice of them and also an indication that the web-conference experience is weird from both sides.

OOW2009 - Pictures

dougburns@yahoo.com (Doug Burns) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:30:00 PDT

Thanks to Marco's OOW 2009 Photo Stream, here are a few pictures from my Unconference Presentation :-

Clockwise L-R - Me, JB from Oracle, Jacco Landlust, some Cuddly Toys.

I have to thank Boneist for this line she sent me in an email not long before the presentation. It seemed somehow appropriate. Yes, I know I missed an umlaut - I was in a hurry.

There's a story behind the next photo. I have been known to be so positive and excitable when discussing the OEM Performance Pages that I thought I should tone down the overall effect by wearing ....

A SQL Server T-Shirt There were various guerilla marketing crowds outside Moscone West this year and a woman had thrust a goodie bag in my hand. I accepted it before I knew what was in there, honestly! But in came in handy although I doubt I'll be wearing it again.

I think my presentation may have sent a few people to sleep - a few eyes certainly glazed over ....

... and finally, a couple from the final day of the Oracle Closed World conference.

Uri Shaft discussing some maths stuff. (and believe me, this is his big writing, which he only agreed to after people found the small writing above impossible to see. We are largely old men.)

~~A shameless Media Type~~ Greg Rahn doesn't allow people's lunch to get in the way of him talking about DW performance or Exadata or something. I wasn't in the room at the time, but you can see a rather more shy Flatcat off to the right.

But here is the photo that I absolutely demanded Marco take at some point. As regular OOW visitors will be aware, people have a variety of ribbons attached to the bottom of their badge holder representing various groups, affiliations and extra conference registrations. As I pointed out to Marco, there is a well-known syndrome of men perhaps compensating for their inadequacies when purchasing long, flashy sports cars. For some reason, this popped into my head when I first saw Marco's ribbons.

Trying to compensate for something, Marco? I think we should be told. LOL

Then again, as Boneist pointed out - 'What is it with you guys and your ribbons? Do you need to tie your hair up or something?'

Disclosure: I attended this year's Openworld Conference at the invitation of the Oracle ACE Director program, which paid my travel and accommodation expenses.