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ORCAN event

Yesterday I attended an event organised by the Swedish Oracle User Group (ORCAN). They picked a real nice venue for this meeting: the top floor (54) of the Turning Torso. From this top floor you have a stunning view over the Oresund (all the way to Copenhagen) and Malmö and it's surroundings. Might be a little bit distracting from the presentations, but nevertheless...
There were two concurrent presentations. The first one I attended was by Moren Egan about Edition Based Redefinitions. As I presented about the same subject at OOW and UKOUG, I was just curious about how he would present this material. More SQL*Plus oriented as I did it, but I think the message came across just fine. The second one was by Randolf Geist, called "Advanced Oracle Troubleshooting". In fact it was just the first half (the second half was after lunch). Although I could grasp most of he said, some details were a little bit over my head. So I skipped the second part and went to SQL Developer New Features by Sue Harper. I was already familiar with most of the features, but it's still worthwhile to renew your insight about this product. It is growing with every release!
Then it was my turn wih APEX 4 New Features. To my surprise 75% of the audience had no experience at all with APEX - so all features are new to them! But I emphasized and spent most of the time demoing the cool Dynamic Actions and Plug-ins. Just to show how you can create stunning results with almost no coding! After a short coffee break I presented about Charts & Dashboards. This time I had alomst all attendees in my class, as the "other side" only had 4 (sorry Sten). All went pretty well I think, but I have to admit, doing two presentations back to back is a little bit exhausting.
Then it was time to leave for dinner in the center of Malmö. When I got my jacket I noticed my pockets were empty - and I was pretty sure I left my car keys and phone in there (which isn't that smart, I have to admit)! So a little panic broke out. We contacted the reception, searched the whole place - but nothing found. But then I noticed that there was something else missing from my jacket: It had just the Oracle logo, and mine had Oracle ACE Director logo! So it wasn't mine! A quick thought whose jacket it could be...and it had to be Sten Vesterli. And Sten was on his way to Copenhagen... We phoned him, but got his voice mail. So we went to the restaurant...and there was Sten with my jacket. While walking to the station he noticed there was a phone in his jacket (or my jacket) and another one in his pocket. So he also concluded he had taken the wrong one - and decided to go to the restaurant to exchange jackets. A total relief for me. Thanks Sten - not for taking the wrong jacket, but for returning it ;-) !
We had a nice dinner outside on the square. This little square is packed with restaurants and everyone is sitting outside. So they have a lot of heaters (and I mean really a lot!) and blankets for everyone. So I think global heating is for a major part caused by the Swedish... ;-)
All in all a nice event and I am looking forward to the next one!

Comments

Learco Brizzi said…
Sounds like a nice day. I'll hope APEX will be as popular in Sweden as it is here in Holland :-)
linlasj said…
It is starting to evolve. I do not fully understand why there is such hesitation.

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