Tech

As I'm using Civicspace with about 10 different production websites currently, rather then send off a bunch of e-mail to various folks with the same content, I'll just put it here and send out the URL.

• CivicSpace configuration guide.
• Very detailed CivicSpace upgrade processes
• How to integrate Civicspace and MapServer
• New Event Module
• Status report on the new Event module
• A step by step view of submitting events to the new event module.
• A blog entry about the new event module by one of the senior developers.
• CRM News
• CivicSpace CRM described in one page.
• The concept paper for the CRM being developed for CivicSpace.
• CivicCRM UI Mockup
• The new anti-Troll module
• The free donation collection system that can be integrated with Civicspace.

The first week of the Oracle 9i training camp in Bushkill, PA started off somewhat ok, all of the experienced DBAs were passing the exams but the newbies weren't passing the exams. The beginning of the second week is when everything started to go sideways. I think the problem could be traced to how the instructor wasn't aware of how many multiple multiple questions (pick 2 of 3, 4 of 6, ...) were on the exam and how much more detail was on the 9i exams as compared with the 8i exams.

While we were sent pre-reading material they were mostly useless for exam purposes because they weren't really targeted at the high level that you need prior to starting the course. Even with the lack of quality pre-reading materials, we might have been able deal with all the additional details if we would have been provided with an extensive outline of the books so we wouldn't need to be frantically taking notes for 12 hours a day.

I still made it out of the training with being an Oracle Certified Associate for 9i and I have three exam passes to take the 9i DBA II (again) exam, the 9i Performance and Tuning exam and the 10g upgrade exam. My boss and I are both pressing Training Camp to offer a partial refund or comp the costs of lodging to retake the second week of training.

Missed it by that much, three questions to be exact.  Looking over my notes I'm clear that what cost me the exam was not having enough experience with RMAN.  As we don't use it at work  I didn't have enough experience with it coming into this training and clearly I didn't get enough experience with it over the last three days.

I'm on day seven of the Oracle training camp and I finally took and passed the 9i DBA 1 exam! Only half the class passed the exam and the main reason I passed was because of extra testing questions I was able to look over. The 9i DBA 1 exam threw a lot of oddball questions at us and several more were worded so poorly that it was difficult to figure out what they were even asking. Though this could likely be said about any standardized exam so I can't complain too much about this particular test.

We will be taking three tests ( DBA 2, Performance and Tuning, and 10g upgrade) over the next seven days so if I haven't returned your e-mail/call don't take it personally :-).

I'm sooo glad that I flew in a day early for the Oracle Training Camp located in the Poconos "Mountains". This is a beautiful area, but I discovered they are rather sensitive about their "Mountains" which are not even as big as a Powell Butte.

At the end of the fourteen straight days of Oracle, Oracle and more Oracle I hoping to have completed my Oracle 9i Certification and my 10g Certification. As I passed the Oracle 9i SQL exam last year so the first three days of this week will be a little easier.

I've already started requesting that if people find me just babbling they should just drag me off to the nearest bar.