those theiving goats!

I love this story!

The burning question, of course, is why cars?

almost a whole week

Well we've had 5 whole days of Obama and the U.S. hasn't started any new wars. I take this as a significant sign of progress.

On another note, apparently Dub'ya left a letter for Obama in the Oval Office. I would love to know what it contained. Well, thesmokinggun.com, get to work.

today is the day!

Finally, the day has arrived! Mr. Bush no longer has his finger on the button, so to speak. What a frightening administration he maintained. Rumsfeld? Competent? Those two words don't belong anywhere near each other in a sentence, let alone a paragraph. I would be suspect of any document, magazine, newpaper, memo, book that used those two words together in a context where they do not contradict one another.

For the first time in years I feel hopeful about the American people. You elected the right man, the right party. The Republicans never seem to understand that if you shoot at someone, they are bound to shoot back, eventually. Hopefully, the new administration will do a better job of understanding human nature.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Today we honour a great man in history, Martin Luther King, Jr.

Well that's not entirely true. Being Canadian, we don't observe the holiday. Personally, I think we should, but seeing as alot of Americans don't bother to observe Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, how can Canadians possibly get on board.

I work for an American-based IT outsourcing company, who does not observe the holiday. I think this is shameful. Martin Luther King, Jr. is the kind of man who has appeared more than once throughout recorded history (the biggie being, oh, Jesus Christ) and still we don't stop to honour his memory.

People I know in the U.S. have suggested to me that only Blacks observe the holiday. I was dumbfounded, for two reasons. First, I could not believe what I had just heard. Being Canadian, and well educated, working in a highly diversified environment, I just don't hear racial comments like that. Secondly, I had to suppose there was an element of truth in the statement, which also left me agape.

I am sure I have more to say about this but I had better leave this topic for now. I am feeling rather ill.

apex.oracle.com

Well, I like it. It has been everything they said it would be. I have worked on local installs of 10g + Apex 3.0 and this hosted solution is just the same. Of course, you don't get to create your own workspace or manage the administrative stuff, but you have complete control over your own workspace. The only thing I have not investigated yet is LDAP authentication, which you probably wouldn't need to worry about if you are generating public-accessible apps.

Occasionally, it is slow. Yesterday morning, for example, it took over 7 seconds to return 30 rows from a table. This was a select * from t_xxxxx query, too, to it's not like it had to process a lot. And creating a view took so long I finally just logged out. But when I went back a couple hours later the view was there and worked properly.

Y'all take care now, Dubya!

Finally, the mental midget of the midwest is leaving the WhiteHouse. Thought I'd pay tribute to the man who brought us so much but gave us nothing...

1. "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."—Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

2. "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family."—Greater Nashua, N.H., Chamber of Commerce, Jan. 27, 2000

3. "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"—Florence, S.C., Jan. 11, 2000

4. "Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across the country."—Poplar Bluff, Mo., Sept. 6, 2004

5. "Neither in French nor in English nor in Mexican."—declining to answer reporters' questions at the Summit of the Americas, Quebec City, Canada, April 21, 2001

6. "You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.''—Townsend, Tenn., Feb. 21, 2001

7. "I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."—Washington, D.C., April 18, 2006

8. "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."—Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005

9. "I've heard he's been called Bush's poodle. He's bigger than that."—discussing former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, as quoted by the Sun newspaper, June 27, 2007

10. "And so, General, I want to thank you for your service. And I appreciate the fact that you really snatched defeat out of the jaws of those who are trying to defeat us in Iraq."—meeting with Army Gen. Ray Odierno, Washington, D.C., March 3, 2008

11. "We ought to make the pie higher."—South Carolina Republican debate, Feb. 15, 2000

12. "There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again."—Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002

13. "And there is distrust in Washington. I am surprised, frankly, at the amount of distrust that exists in this town. And I'm sorry it's the case, and I'll work hard to try to elevate it."—speaking on National Public Radio, Jan. 29, 2007

14. "We'll let our friends be the peacekeepers and the great country called America will be the pacemakers."—Houston, Sept. 6, 2000

15. "It's important for us to explain to our nation that life is important. It's not only life of babies, but it's life of children living in, you know, the dark dungeons of the Internet."—Arlington Heights, Ill., Oct. 24, 2000

16. "One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures."—U.S. News & World Report, Jan. 3, 2000

17. "People say, 'How can I help on this war against terror? How can I fight evil?' You can do so by mentoring a child; by going into a shut-in's house and say I love you."—Washington, D.C., Sept. 19, 2002

18. "Well, I think if you say you're going to do something and don't do it, that's trustworthiness."—CNN online chat, Aug. 30, 2000

19. "I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep on the soil of a friend."—on the prospect of visiting Denmark, Washington, D.C., June 29, 2005

20. "I think it's really important for this great state of baseball to reach out to people of all walks of life to make sure that the sport is inclusive. The best way to do it is to convince little kids how to—the beauty of playing baseball."—Washington, D.C., Feb. 13, 2006

21. "Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream."—LaCrosse, Wis., Oct. 18, 2000

22. "You know, when I campaigned here in 2000, I said, I want to be a war president. No president wants to be a war president, but I am one."—Des Moines, Iowa, Oct. 26, 2006

23. "There's a huge trust. I see it all the time when people come up to me and say, 'I don't want you to let me down again.' "—Boston, Oct. 3, 2000

24. "They misunderestimated me."—Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000

25. "I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office."—Washington, D.C., May 12, 2008

apex.oracle.com

Well duh. Sometimes I miss the obvious. Most of us do at one point or another, but this is a fairly spectacular example of not seeing the obvious.

I spent a day or two trolling around the web looking for free APEX hosting, and found maxapex.com who offer a pretty good deal for free hosting (see previous post) with 5 mb database storage. That's certainly enough to play around with and learn a bunch of stuff. But somehow I completely missed apex.oracle.com offer of free hosting. So I signed up there and got 10 mb db storage right off the top, plus they included the DEMO tables so you can follow along with their tutorials.

So I am going to eventually poke around on both hosts and figure out which works best for me. I will post my findings.

apex update!

No update really - haven't had a chance to try the maxapex.com stuff yet as I was consumed by the World Junior Hockey Championship which was held in Ottawa this year. Canada won Gold for the 5th time in a row. The IIHF (International Ice Hockey Federation) would probably be happier if another country won Gold every once in a while, but hey, we don't brag about anything else except hockey, we Canadians. Oh, I guess we go on a bit about our Maple Syrup, and our beer, but all that's pretty harmless if you ask me. Americans portray themselves as Canadians when they go abroad because they are treated better. I personally hope there is a special place in Hell for those Americans.


Come to think of it, that's a bit harsh. Plus, I have no say in the afterlife, as such, so it seems a bit presumptuous of me to hope there is a 'special' place for Americans who impersonate Canadians abroad.


However, isn't it telling? I mean, if you have to pretend that you are from another country, just so you get treated with even the smallest amount of courtesy, what does that say about your own country? Or rather, it's citizens' behaviour when travelling? Shouldn't this be like a raging siren to you, saying, 'Wow the Americans who were here before must have been utter assholes, and pissed everybody off so badly I have to pretend I'm not American just to avoid being beaten with sticks and driven from the land.' Bit of a bloody giveaway, don't you think?

maxapex.com pulled through

Looks like maxapex.com pulled through for me. I received my log on details earlier today and gave it a whirl. It all works! I will have to start developing something tonight after work. Will post later.

apex hosting on the web

I have found a site that ostensibly hosts APEX apps for free. I am waiting for an email with details of my account. You don't get much (5 MB db space, 1 user, 1 workspace) but it's enough to practice on. Plus if you are mocking-up an app for a prospective client you don't have to host through your own web site, or put your development box in your DMZ.

Check them out here.

Evil LDAP Trickery

Before you even try to use LDAP authentication between APEX and Microsoft's Active Directory, you need to remember that MSAD is NOT standard. Do not, repeat, do not use a DN structure such as DN=userid, OU=people, DC=your, DC=domain, DC=com. The DN Microsoft's AD wants is domain\userid. Very VERY frustrating.