I’m planning to install Oracle Portal. My pc OS is windows Vista and has oracle10g installed.

Can anyone help tell some information about the guidelines on how to install this software and other system requirements? Where I can find all the required software to download?

Please tell me software installations sequence and important steps.

Thanks so much for your kind instruction.

Regards
M Ahmad

Some notable posts include:

• Tanmay Vora’s Leadership Belief and Building ‘People-Centric’ Culture
• Jennifer Miller’s The Perfect Corporate Culture Doesn’t Exist
• Erik Samdahl’s Inclusion Measurement – Tracking the Intangible
  
• Dan McCarthy’s Make Sure You “Hug” Your Top Performers During Times of Change
• Aaron Ziff’s If Lebron Went Corporate: A Cautionary Tale
• Mark Stelzner’s Winning the War on Talent

and as a reader, I recommend also checking out:

• The Devon Group’s Ten Minutes with Vinnie Mirchandani – Industry Expert
• Trish McFarlane’s Top Summer Reading for Business Leaders

This Carnival of HR offers a terrific opportunity for you to get a great sample of a variety of perspectives, thinking, and just plain good writing. Who knows? Maybe you’ll discover a great blog you never heard of before.

First create a new virtual disk using virtual box
Applications -> System Tools -> Oracle VM Virtual Box
File -> Virtual Media Manager
You will see the window below

Click on New to create a New disk. The New Disk creation wizard starts up.

Click on Next

Choose Dynamically expanding storage, Click Next

Choose the location and file name for the virtual box, vdi file. I chose the same directory, where my first vdi file was located (/u02/vimage/oel55). Also choose the size of the new disk you need. Click Next.

The Summary Screen displays summary information regarding the new disk you are configuring. click next

Now add the new virtual disk to your operating system image

Applications -> System Tools -> Oracle VM Virtual Box

Click on the image that you want to add the virtual disk to.

On the right hand side click on Storage

Choose the SATA controller and click on the + button to add a new disk

You can edit the new disk it creates by click on the disk Name and editing the disks properties on the right most window. (Use the properties to pick the new disk you created in the previous step, and give it a new name).

Now once you boot up your image you will see a new disk at your operating system level. In my case the original disk i had was /dev/sda. The new disk i added showed up as /dev/sdb. I partitioned the disk, formatted it, mounted it and added an entry to /etc/fstab so that every time i startup the image this file system will be mounted.

fdisk /dev/sdb

mkfs -t ext3 /dev/sdb1

mkdir /u01

Add the following entry into /etc/fstab

/dev/sdb1 /u01 ext3 defaults 0 2

Then run the command “mount” from the prompt and /u01 will be mounted.

To educate myself in the ways of the new Apex 4.0 Plug-Ins feature, I decided to create a simple item Plug-In which automatically converts all the text entered into the item either to uppercase or to lowercase, depending on which option the developer chooses. I’m making it available here not so much because I think it will be a useful Plug-In (though perhaps it might be if your requirement is very simple) but rather in the hope that it might be helpful to anyone else looking at Plug-Ins for the first time. I have heavily commented the code to explain what each bit is doing.

See it in action

A working example of this plugin can be seen here.

Download and install

The plugin itself can be downloaded here.

Once you have downloaded the Plug-In, you can install it by going to Shared Components > Plug-Ins > Import and following the prompt. You will then be able to create ChangeCase items in your application, choosing whether you want the contents to be automatically uppercased or lowercased.

Creating it from scratch

If, for the hell of it, you want to create this Plug-In from scratch as opposed to just downloading and installing it you can do so by following these steps.

1. Within Application Builder go to Shared Components > Plug-ins and click “Create >”.
2. Specify the following details and then click “Create”:
   
   Name: ChangeCase
   Internal Name: uk.co.tulley.changecase (or change this to be a universally unique name based on your domain name)
   Type: Item
   PL/SQL Code: Paste in the contents of this file. This contains two PLSQL functions (render_changecase and validate_changecase which we reference in the Render Function Name and Validation Function Name properties of this Plug-In). This PL/SQL code is heavily commented so should hopefully be fairly self-explanatory.
   Render Function Name: render_changecase
   Validation Function Name: validate_changecase
   Standard Attributes: Tick the checkbox labelled “Is Visible Widget”. If you do not tick this checkbox then there will be no option to specify a Label for our ChangeCase Item Plugin when we create an instance of it in our application. Since this is essentially just a slightly-modified Text Field, we certainly want the ability to specify a label.
3. Click “Custom Attributes”. When we create a new instance of our new Plug-In, we want to be able to decide whether we want the contents to be automatically uppercased or lowercased so we create a custom attribute here to allow that decision to be made.
4. Click “Add Attribute”.
5. Specify the following details and then click “Create”.
   
   Scope: Component
   Attribute: 1
   Label: Case Alteration Option
   Type: Select List
   Required: Yes
   Default Value: UPPER
   Add Value button in List of Values Section: Create two entries. One with a Display Value of “Uppercase” & a Return Value of “UPPER”; and the other with a Display Value of “Lowercase” and a Return Value of “LOWER”.
6. We want the value entered into any instance of our new Plug-In Item to be either automatically uppercased or lowercased. We want this to happen client-side so for this we need some Javascript. That very simple Javascript can be found in this file. Download this file to your computer.
7. Back in Application Builder, click “Files” and then the “Upload New File” button.
8. Browse for the changecase.js file that you just downloaded and then click “Upload”.
9. Finally, click “Apply Changes”.

You will now be able to create ChangeCase items in your pages where you’ll be able to specify, under settings, whether you want the content automatically uppercased or lowercased.

Multiple times.

There are several ways to define winning, but the one that is most universally accepted is when a product makes money.

When a product makes money there is a kind of love that comes that is really unmatched.   I wish this love for all my development friends.  Here are a few things I think that help increase the probability that this will happen for you.

• Make sure you validate your market before you start.  This is easiest when you have experienced strategists but if you don’t, do your own homework.  Spending any amount time on something that people don’t care enough to spend money to solve, is not going to optimize your results.

• Align other teams to a shared success.  The best and most lucrative projects I have done are ones where others get to show their best work through my delivery.   Whether that is the documentation group, the performance and benchmarking team, the user experience group the training group or the technology team.  The more people who want the project to succeed, the better result you will have bringing your vision to light.

• Really know your customer.   Both the customer who is buying your product and the person who is using your product.  Make sure your product makes them feel smart.  A product that makes the customer feel smart is the one they want to buy.

• Expect that the deliverable will  be much more than code.   Products that make money are those that are well understood and ready to be sold.  References, road-maps, white papers, examples, demos, these deliverables are what can accelerate or stall a product ramp.  Never leave these to chance.  Make sure they are worthy of your products and be ready and willing to personally do what it takes to get them right.

• Have a hook but not only a hook- you need something that captures the imagination and attention of the sales team but also delivers actual value.  The more you have of both, the better you will find your long term results.

• Once you have done your homework, and know you are right, don’t lose your faith. In the time from idea to delivery there tends to be a lot of thrash and second guessing.  My best wins were where I did my homework first and then held firm to my belief.  In the end, it’s the delivery that differentiates the women from the girls [grin].

So for all my friends who apply their talents to creating the new and the needed, I wish you all unmatched success.  For I really do know you have earned it, and even if the money goes to your company and not to you directly, I am sure that the fame will more than make up for it!