Andrei DANEASA

Lots of people think that Oracle is very complex, is suited just for large enterprises and is very expensive.
It is not true at all.
Since 10g, Oracle offers lots of absolutely free software:

• Database 10g XE (Express edition) – free version of the database with decent restrictions (4GB of data max, 1GB RAM max, 1 processor max). Available at
  http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/xe/index.html
• SQL Developer – free IDE for database objects. Good competitor of third-party Toad and PL/SQL Developer. Available at
  http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/sql/index.html
• APEX (Application Express) – free rapid developement tool. Development on web, deployment on web. Available for download here:
  http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/application_express
  You can try it online at http://apex.oracle.com (everyone can request a workspace).
• ODP.Net & ODT.Net – tools for integration with .Net. ODP (Oracle Data Provider) provides the data types and ODT (Oracle Developer Tools) provides IDE integration into Visual Studio (2003 and 2005) with features like drag-and-drop. Available at
  http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/tech/windows/odpnet/index.html

Regarding the books, lots of resources are available here:
http://tahiti.oracle.com

For new users, the recommandations are:

• 2 Day DBA
• 2 Day Developer Guide
• SQL Reference
• PL/SQL User’s Guide and Reference

For any question regarding the above technologies feel free to contact me.

Andrei
http://www.webxpert.ro

If you install VS2005 and then ODP.Net you will probably get a strange error when you will try to use Oracle Explorer for the first time:

The problem is an assembly mismatch. As Christian Shay (principal product manager for ODP.net at Oracle) said in an announcement, there are 2 options to solve this issue:

1. My recommended solution:

where is the Oracle Home directory where you installed ODT 2005. For example, on my machine is c:\oracle\product\10.2.0\client_1.

2. Reinstall:

Deinstall ODP.NET 1.x from your machine (if you’re not using it) and install ODP.NET 2.0 in the same Oracle Home.

Andrei
http://www.webxpert.ro

Long time no blogging… I changed my employer and starting January the 1st I am Consultant at Oracle Corp.
My main role is to deliver workshops & presentations to Oracle partners based in EMEA, helping them to take all the benefits from Oracle products.

Places where I’ve been with this new role? London, Prague, Athens, Bratislava, Zurich, Warsaw, Krakow, Moscow…..
All the pictures are here

Andrei
http://www.webxpert.ro