Mindjet Connect - Document Collaboration via SaaS

I’ve been a big fan of MindJet’s MindManager application.  If you’re not familiar with Mindmapping, you should learn.  It’s an excellent way to take notes, diagram projects and brainstorm.  MindManager is the top-dog in this software field.

They recently announced Mindjet Connect, an online collaboration extension to MindManager that allows you to shared all kinds of office documents, as well as do online, real-time collaboration (chat, shared whiteboard).  I was one of the beta testers and was pretty pleased with their implementation.  Though I never tried any online collaboration (because I didn’t want to suggest anyone else on my team install the beta), I could see they’d done a good job with the online hosting of project files.  Pretty clean interface, decent levels of security, good integration with MindManager 7.

But now that they’ve released it from beta, I can’t recommend my company sign up for it, because of their pricing plan.  $8.95 per month per seat with an annual subscription?  Yikes, over $100 per year?

Sorry, but I don’t think Connect makes you that much more productive!  We use WebEx here for the occasional online meeting, but they’re pretty rare, so that’s not a great selling point for me.  I’d love to use the shared file folders for our projects, but we’ve got fileservers that can manage that (though not as smoothly or well).

I remember back in MindManager 5 when they added online collaboration, and they yanked the functionality back out on the next version.  Not sure why, but I’m thinking this new Connect isn’t going to fare any better.

Oh well.

ODTUG Wrap-up - Part I

Dang, I really meant to post regular updates while I was here at the Oracle Developer Tool User’s Group conference, but had too much fun going out to  New Orleans’ French Quarter.  Now I’m sitting in the airport waiting almost 2 hours for my flight because so many people were leaving at once that I had to share a cab to the airport, so left super-early.  So if this is more convoluted than usual, it’s because I got up at 5:15 and haven’t gotten enough sleep any night this week.  Forgive me (if anyone’s reading this, I rarely get comments).

I’ll try to get some more content in a later post if I don’t fall asleep here and now.

 

There were a huge number of Application Express sessions, which was great for learning, but I feel like they cut off the top of my head, peeled back my skull and poured information in.  Now it’s so full that they can’t close it back up!  And some of the speakers spoke so fast that my ears have been filled with their words by a firehose.  That’s even less-comfortable, especially when they were doing it.

 

My hat’s off to the ODTUG organizers on a great job.  I haven’t been to many conferences but this was easily the best in terms of organization, providing amenities for attendants, friendly service, good hotel, fabulous location and GREAT FOOD.

 

I already raved about the conference to one of the lovely organizers (whose name I didn’t catch) at the party last night.  I also gave a little constructive criticism about the problems with the quality of some of the speakers, which she acknowledged and clearly understood.  I joked about only getting 2 drink tickets and she immediately tried to give me another.  I declined because I’d already hit my limit (I’m a cheap date).  If anyone cares (or is even reading this), check out the podcast follow-up, where they briefly interviewed my co-worker and me about how we liked it.  I’m the one slurring his words after the second Chivas.  

 

Conference Party tips:

1. I know we got drink tickets, but if you tip the bartender a buck for your drink, they’ll usually make it a tall one, a very good value IMHO!  But remember your limits, no puking on the conference organizer’s shoes!  (I didn’t, in case you’re wondering)
2. On that vein, carry lots of singles around town for tips.  The service people work hard and really appreciate it, even if it’s just a buck, because you’re showing you care.  Tip freely and you’ll see a better time.  I tipped the street musicians and break-dance team I stopped to enjoy - pay for your entertainment.  On the other hand, don’t engage with the hucksters for the strip bars (ubiquitous on Bourbon Street) and the grifters and beggers.  Just say “No thanks” and keep walking.The party’s at the end of the conference and you’ve proven to the people who matter that you’re technically competent, so don’t be afraid to kick up your heels and do stuff that you wouldn’t normally.  At the beginning of the party when the band invited guys up to play the washboard, I was the bald guy on the left.  Nobody was going up when invited, but I had a ball!
3. Make sure you check out all the food stations around the room, because they weren’t all the same and I almost didn’t see the shrimp (horrors!).
4. Enjoy the noisy party, but check out the quiet corners too.  My co-worker and I stepped outside to the balcony to look at the city.  Even though it was the smoking lounge, we met up with a guy from Amsterdam who was fascinating to talk to.

Conferencing tips: (like I said, I don’t do conferences much, but maybe you don’t either and these will help)

1. Even though we’re geeks, try to be more outgoing with conference attendees than you usually are.  Half the benefit of these things is networking, not just for that next job but for an answer to that tech question you need next month.
2. Similarly, hand out your business card - Bring lots and give them away freely.  They’re paid for and you don’t get a credit for not using them when you need new ones.  I gave out a dozen and probably should have done more.  I was surprised more people didn’t have their cards with them.  Or maybe they didn’t want me to have their contact info???
3. Don’t be late for the session starts (like I was yesterday).  I was amazed that most sessions started on time (though many went late).
4. Get your butt out of the hotel and enjoy the local area.  We walked at least once a day and saw stuff that we would have missed.  We found some great jazz only because we kept looking and trying out different areas.  Though Todd from InstallFest told me this morning that he had even better luck by asking the concierge at the hotel, which I’ll use more next time.
5. Read the conference brochure when you get here.  I missed a couple great opportunities because I didn’t.  One I would have loved was the walking photo tour of New Orleans that was right there in the brochure!  Aagh!
6. Book the airport shuttle - I did on the way in but not the way back, which caused the abusively-early cab ride this morning.
7. Take session notes - even if they’re just the highlights, it’ll help you remember later which whitepapers you should study later.
8. Laptop users - If you like to take notes in sessions like I do, borrow an extra battery from your IT dept for the conference.  Mine hadn’t been holding a charge long before I came so I asked for a got a new battery plus a loaner second battery to replace my CD-ROM drive for the week.  Turn off your WiFi to extend the life too.  And charge it up during lunch in your room or between sessions.  I took comprehensive notes in every session, except for Tuesday when I forgot to charge up over lunch.

[More to come]

Using Apex Dictionary Views… Notes from ODTUG Conference

…  Monday

[Please excuse the weird formatting of this post.  I'm having compatibility troubles between EverNote (which I took notes with) and WordPress.]

Great conference for Apex Developers. Tons of sessions, many very good quality.  The following session just finished and unfortunately I wasn’t as impressed with the presentation of this one.  Though I’ll bore you with my notes anyway. (?)

Using the Apex Dictionary Views to increase the quality of your Apex Applications - Karen Van Hellemont, iAdvise

Moving back and forth

I stopped maintaining this blog because I’d moved it to the ning.com Oracle Community, but that software lacks so many good features that I’m probably moving back.

I’m also trying out free note-taking database software, EverNote, to keep track of all the Oracle Apex tips and tricks I’m learning. It has a web interface as well and says it has a widget I can use to share here, but can’t seem to connect to WordPress. So far… sigh…

That Apex notebook is here: http://www.evernote.com/pub/sstryker58/Stews_Apex_tips/

I’m probably moving back here shortly. I’m so decisive! :-/

Apex - Column Linking with data that includes commas

You want to define a link between one page an another via a report column. Everything works great until you try a link where the source column value includes a comma, like:

Smith, Fred, A.

Then the link doesn’t work!

I found the answer in the Oracle Apex forum. This is documented in the 3.0 User Guide under itemValues as:

To pass a comma in an item value, enclose the characters
with backslashes. For example:
\123,45\

You need to put ‘\’ (backslash, not slash) on both sides of the column value you’re passing, simple as that. You don’t need to change the query on the receiving end at all.
Forum user Chet Justice even wrote up a sample query:

SELECT my_column_with_commas, –use this one to display
‘\’ || my_column_with_commas || ‘\’ my_commas –user this one for the link
FROM table_with_columns_of_commas;

Then change your column link to pass the my_commas value.

Piece of cake, once you know!

Apex - Change Application-Level Default Templates

Home>Application Builder>Application xx>Shared Components>Themes>Create/Edit Theme.

Change the default for your theme.

Simple once you know how!

Apex - Substitutions into page templates

For some reason, if you want to substitute one of your application substitution strings into a page template, you need to use the following syntax:

&EXTRA_BODY_DEF.

I think this is odd, as the templates include all the standard substitution strings, such as

#WORKSPACE_IMAGES#

Go figure!

Apex - referencing Workspace images

1. Upload your file to the Workspace.

2) If the file is application-specific, assign it to the application.

3) Note the image name in the Shared Components->Files->Images. You’ll need to click on the icon/link for this item and get the image name value from the detail page, because the icon list replaces underscores with spaces and you need the exact name.

4) To reference it, like your company logo that goes on all pages, add something like the following on the Application Definition page in the Logo field:

#WORKSPACE_IMAGES#company_logo.jpg

You can also use this to reference Cascading Style Sheets that you’ve uploaded to your application.

I’m back!

Yeah it’s been a while.

I’m learning about Oracle’s web application builder, Application Express (aka Apex).  I thought this would be a good place for me to store what I’ve learned as I go.  So the posts are mostly for me, but if someone gets something out of them, all the better.

Apex Issues - Object Browser doesn’t give all code?

Problem: The other night, the Object Browser didn’t show all code from package body via FireFox.

Suggestion:

In this Oracle forum post, someone suggested we check out version of PL/SQL Web Toolkit…

Did you install the latest PL/SQL Web Toolkit? The version must be 10.1.2.0.6 or later. This is the version of the toolkit and not the database - Notes here .

They also suggested checking the DAD.

Did you configure the value of the character set in your DAD to be AL32UTF8 ?  See this.

Finally:

I realized later that I didn’t have this problem in Internet Explorer. Score a point for Microsoft!