What can you sell to a depressed consumer?

The world is shaking more with economical woes than earthquakes. Everyone is in shock about what might happen to them. Am I going to breathe in peace? Can I go ahead and buy a house? There are lot of confused and depressed consumer. They are not sure what they want  and when and where.

Ten years ago, one of the best seller in this situation would be a counseling books or a session in person. There are many things that I still believe sells in this market condition. Safety and Security sells. Are you open to get bruised or would like to prevent it. Any company that provides innovative approach to secure the mind of a person is sold. Be it a medical insurance, security device at home or safety system in car. I am sure you are not going to buy a less safe automobile to save some dollars.

The big challenging product that can marketed is Technology. There is no shutdown for technology. This doesn't mean that the jobs are recession proof. There are job loss but innovation always steps up. You need a team to convert new concepts to final products. Here you can never believe that you do not have a competition. Technology innovation isn't always about developing a new tablet, re-engineering a software or finding what is in Mars or find a cure. Reverse engineering, Bio-Technological life sciences are areas that can open the wallets. The best example is the revamped automobile industry. Chrysler redesigned their popular models. Toyota had been teased in news, movies for their huge recalls. In reality, They are correcting their faults to build an impressive future. 

Movies and Music, Have you observed the movies released in summer of 2011? There are bunch of superheros -  Green Lantern, Transformers, X Men, Captain America and so on. Does this mean common people are turning comic pages and looking for superheros to relieve them from their stress? If you say yes to the question. You are sold to the superhero. Comic books, movies, music are simple sources of entertainment for half a century now. We forget our issues and try to relax when you catch humor or plugin white headphone of iPod. (I believe that is why Google introduced Google Music last Wednesday).

Education, This is one commodity that brings lot of confidence to some who directly got burned by economy. Many people who lost jobs decided to take education seriously. Universities are one of the most growing industry now.

Fashion, Fashion world is certainly  affected but it still breathes. You know that you have to save but you also want to look good. Even in crying economy, you have social get together, college reunions, romantic dates, theme parties, dance clubs, weddings that you want to be astonishing. Companies makes wardrobe for seasons, sports jerseys, proms, halloween costumes, glass heels to sneakers. No wonder why Victoria Secret displayed 2.5 Million dollar bra two weeks ago at their fashion show.

Food & Drinks, You don't want to cook every day of the year. You need a break from kitchen to relax and get hot sizzling food on the table. Another area where people can't resist to swipe their cards.

Travel and Vacations, Another activity that brings emotional break from routine life. I can see people flying down seeking relief  from long family, school, destination weddings. 

The list don't end here, I simply wanted to give you an overview. I am going to evaluate what is the hot-seller this Thanksgiving. I am positive the graph of expenditure per family will be high as in 2005-06. That does bring to another question why the uncertainty? Where are the green Washingtons, Lincolns, Benjamins disappearing?

One Last Thing

All we strive is for a little more money, little more luxury but if you want to make a change a sensible motivation do help.

"When you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way it is, and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life. Have fun, save a little money. That's a very limited life. Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is everything around that you call life was made up by people who were no smarter than you. And you can change it. You can influence it. You can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again."

This is a quote from late Steven Paul Jobs.

iPhone iOS5: Battery drain fix

I upgraded to iOS5 and soon realized that my battery gets depleted within 6 hours even though I neither didn't talk much nor have much apps open. This seems to be a bug with iOS5 that some programs runs in the background and consumes lot of resource.

First, I went to Settings > Location Services> ON and tried to re-evaluate if I really need location for certain apps. It didn't fix much.  Secondly, I did reset my network settings (Settings> General> Reset > Reset Network Settings).  Now I started to get my battery life back. The battery charge remains for 1 whole day.

Recent update that Apple have fixed the battery drain issue in their recent update iOS 5.0.1.  The beta version is already out to developers.

BEA-141281 - unable to get file lock, will retry ...

While starting Weblogic if you receive the below error : BEA-141281 - unable to get file lock, will retry ...

This means there are some other Weblogic process that is holding the server lok. Please make sure all the Weblogic server process are down and try starting again. If you again see the 'lock' error. You can manually remove the lok file. The AdminServer.lok file is located in MW_HOME/user_projects/domains/DOMAIN_NAME/servers/AdminServer/tmp

In case of OBIEE 11g, The lock file (bi_server1.lok) may also be in:
MW_HOME/user_projects/domains/DOMAIN_NAME/servers/bi_server1/tmp

where MW_HOME is Fusion Middleware Home

iPhone 4S

Many people had expectation of releasing iPhone 5 last week. I have seen news floating around about fans being unhappy with what Apple released in Oct/04. Apple surely did improve its device. Everyone can see that. 

I don't think fans are unhappy with iPhone 4S rather the media is. Media is competing all across the air to get their programs, articles and prints get noticed. iPhone 4 was  dissected by all the tech blog and news channels. Media have less to add-on now. I believe iPhone 4S is targeted totally towards a different community. iPhone 4S is less focused on people who own an iPhone4 rather who have been using iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, other smartphones like Android , Windows Phone and Blackberry.  A high percentage of iPhone 4 users are still under contract. Everyone who are now cautious about spending a penny would stick to iPhone 4.There are millions of people who have a basic phone. iPhone 4S would attract them and be a Apple customer. A smartphone has become a necessity than a line of richness.

I have been using my iPhone 4 for more than a year now and am totally happy with it. The new apps that get released at the iTunes store makes my phone feel fresh. Next mobile gadget from Apple would have less changes to its chipset but more to its shape, battery and antenna. A 8MP camera, HD video recording is a lot of art/photography offered in a phone.

Mac OS X Lion (10.7)

Apple have made the OS X Lion (10.7) installation process is so cool. You can either buy the software from Mac Store for 29.99 using your iTunes account or USB which is 69.99. Apple have made the software distribution in the direction of cloud and Macbook Air. 

The installation took close to 1 hour for me including downloading the software. It is a good practice to make a OS X Lion DVD before you actually proceed to run the program. The downloaded software is cleaned up after the Lion installation.

Launchpad, Mission Control, Auto Save and Full Screen application window are the features that you will notice immediately. One feature which I loved with Lion is that upon restart, Lion opens up the windows that were left open at the time of shutting down.

Leopard was awesome with no# of features, Snow leopard was all about tweaking and tuning Leopard, Lion is all about exploring new dimension towards user interface.


Automated script to start and stop OBIEE 11g (11.1.1.3.0 and higher)

Below are the two links that can help you have your own script to start and stop OBIEE from command line. Both the script works for 11.1.1.3.0 and 11.1.1.5.0.



Metalink Notes for starting and stopping BI process:
a. How To Start / Stop An OBIEE 11g (11.1.1.x) Unix / Linux Environment Via Command-line [ID 1240964.1]
b. Cannot start the BI Managed Server using the weblogic account [ID 1311425.1]


OBIEE 11g - Starting Services

I have installed OBIEE 11g (11.1.1.3.0) and recently upgraded to 11.1.1.5.0. Unlike 10g, it is a big complex to start and stop the OBIEE services.

All my commands are for Linux OS.

1) Make sure the database that stores the Repository Schemas are up and running.
2) Starting Web Logic- The scripts are located at $FMW_HOME/user_projects/domains/BIfoundation/bin.

Where FMW_HOME= Fusion Middleware Home location. By detault, the domain name is bifoundation_domain but the domain name that I use is 'BIfoundation'.

a) Setting the environment-
sh setOBIDomainEnv.sh
sh setDomainEnv.sh
b) sh startWebLogic.sh & (Use this if you have set the weblogic password in boot.properties).

or use

sh startWebLogic.sh -Dweblogic.managment.username=weblogic -Dweblogic.management.password=wlpwd &

3) Starting NodeManager : The scripts are located at $WLS_HOME/server/bin.

Where $WLS_HOME=$FMW_HOME/wlserver_10.3

a) sh setWLSEnv.sh
b) sh startNodeManager.sh &

4) Login to Weblogic console to start the Manager services
Login to http://yourbihostname:7001/console as weblogic super user. In the environment menu, click on servers. You can see the list of managers servers. Select the 'control' tab and check 'bi_server1' and click on start button. The time taken is usually 4-6 minutes in my environment.

5) Finally you have to start the BI services using opmnctl
opmnctl is located at $FMW_HOME/instances/BI_Instance/bin.

Where BI_Instance is the instance name I had given during the install. By default it will be 'instance1'.

$FMW_HOME/instances/BI_Instance/bin/opmnctl startall

Once it is started you can access the BI page at http://yourbihostname:9704/analytics .


Think Different - 7 Success Principles of Steve Jobs

This scribbling is based on blog on forbes.com by Carmine Gallo. I have just taken the main points of the article.

1) Do what you love.
2) Put a dent in the universe : Two people can see the exactly the same thing, but perceive it differently based on their vision.
3) Kick start your brain : Creativity is connecting things. Connecting things means seeking inspiration from other industries.
4) Sell dreams, not products : Some people think you've got to be crazy to buy a Mac, but in that craziness we see genius.
5) Say no to 1,000 Things: In Apple's world, Innovation means eliminating the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.
6) Create insanely great experiences : Apple is not in the business of moving boxes; they are in the business to enriching lives.
7) Master the message : You can have the most innovative idea in the world, but if you can’t get people excited about it, it doesn’t matter.

Innovation is attainable by anyone at any organization, regardless of title or position.

Triple A Debt Club

Following countries are elite members of AAA Debt Club as of last Friday(Aug/05):
(In alphabetical order)

1) Australia
2) Austria
3) Canada
4) Denmark
5) Finland
6) France
7) Germany
8) Isle of Man ( west coast of UK)
9) Luxembourg
10) Netherlands
11) New Zealand
12) Norway
13) Singapore
14) Sweden
15) Switzerland
16) United Kingdom

United States got downgraded to AA+ by S&P (Standard & Poor).

Oracle RDBMS: Database Link fails with ORA-1017 & ORA-2063

If you try to create a database link between a 10g and a 11g instance. There is a good chance that you might get the following error:

ORA-01017: invalid username/password; logon denied
ORA-02063: preceding line from (database_link_name)

The reason is from Oracle 11g Release 1 the passwords are case-sensitive by default.

Example:
My target database is 11g - named TIGER


Create public database link TIGER connect to dbadmin identified by dbadmin1
using 'TIGER';

select * from v$instance@TIGER;
ORA-01017: invalid username/password; logon denied
ORA-02063: preceding line from TIGER

Solution:
1) On the originating 10g database server, drop and recreate the public database link using double quotes around the password (IDENTIFIED BY clause) for the user account on the 11g Database

Drop public database link TIGER;

Create public database link TIGER connect to dbadmin identified by "dbadmin1"
using 'TIGER';

OR

2) Use the 'SEC_CASE_SENSITIVE_LOGON' initialization parameter on the target (11g Database) to disable password case sensitivity in the destination database.

Dynamic change:

ALTER SYSTEM SET SEC_CASE_SENSITIVE_LOGON = FALSE SCOPE=BOTH;

PFILE change:
SEC_CASE_SENSITIVE_LOGON = FALSE


Reference: Database Link from 10g to 11g fails with ORA-1017 & ORA-2063 [ID 473716.1]

Oracle: Re-org using 'Move'

Everyone of us are familiar with the simple re-org command - alter table (table_name) move. 'Move' command can also help us migrate a table from one tablespace to another. But sometimes you might get and error:

ORA-01652: unable to extend temp segment by 8192 in tablespace (tablespace_name)

For example :
I have a huge table 'employees' which holds 1.5 GB in TS_TIGER. I re-org this table every week as the table undergoes a lot of inserts, updates and deletes. Last time when I ran the 'move' comm it failed:

alter table employees move;
ORA-01652: unable to extend temp segment by 8192 in tablespace TS_TIGER.

TS_TIGER had 1.5 GB of freespace and TEMP tablespace was not utilized either. Then why this error? The reason is Oracle uses temporary extents to build the table initially. Once the process is completed successfully, it converts the temporary segments to permanent one. This is just a dictionary update.

Oracle follows this methodology, in case the re-org fails (due to some error) , SMON would identify the temporary extents and just clean them up. The ORA-01652 error here simply means that the tablespace is short of space and you need to resize a datafile or add a datafile.

R12 : Password Change utility - AFPASSWD

Oracle has introduced a new utility to change the Oracle E-Business Suite passwords in R12.1.2. Reason for introducing the utility is to allow separation of duties between DBA and Application DBA.

The traditional FNDCPASS is mostly executed on the concurrent manager node alone and requires APPS, SYSTEM username and passwords. AFPASSWD can be run from the database tier as well as the application tier.

Example : Here I am changing the SYSADMIN password. In my environment, TWO_TASK is set by default therefore I am not giving @

$AFPASSWD -f SYSADMIN
Enter the ORACLE password of Application Object Library 'APPSUSER':
Connected successfully to APPS.
Working...
Enter new password for user [SYSADMIN]:
Verify new password for user [SYSADMIN]:
Password is changed successfully for user SYSADMIN.
Password is changed successfully for user SYSADMIN.
AFPASSWD completed successfully.

You can test the SYSADMIN login with new password. You can get all the different options of the utility by just typing 'AFPASSWD'.

$AFPASSWD
Usage:
AFPASSWD [-c [@]] -f
AFPASSWD [-c [@]] -o
AFPASSWD [-c [@]] -a
AFPASSWD [-c [@]] -l {TRUE|FALSE}
AFPASSWD [-c [@]] -L {TRUE|FALSE}
AFPASSWD [-c [@]] -s

Options:
-c [@]
Specify the connection string to be use, parameters

Application-manager user and/or TWO_TASK value,
this option can be use in combination with the others.
(If not provided, AFPASSWD will try to default the values
from the environment)

is the APPS schema owner.

-f
Change the password for an Application user.

-o
Change the password for an Oracle Applications Database user.

-a Modify ALLORACLE users.

-l {TRUE|FALSE}
Lock|Unlock account for a single Oracle Applications database user.

-L {TRUE|FALSE}
Lock|Unlock accounts for non-essential Oracle Applications database users

-s
Modify APPLSYS user. This requires the execution
of autoconfig (in ALL-TIERS) to distribute the
changes on your instance ie DB-TIER and ADMIN-TIER.

-h
Display this help.

Notes:
- AFPASSWD will prompt for the required passwords.
- AFPASSWD will prompt for new passwords twice for confirmation.
- Data entered for which contains spaces must be enclosed
in double quotes. For example, AFPASSWD -f "SCOTT TIGER"
- The only option permitted in combination with other options is the -c option.
Otherwise, there should only be one option per command (see usage above).
If additional options are provided on the command line, only the first valid
option after -c (if -c is present) will be executed.
$

Reference:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B34956_01/current/acrobat/120sacg.pdf

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B53825_08/current/acrobat/121sasg.pdf

How to Change Applications Passwords using Applications Schema Password Change Utility (FNDCPASS or AFPASSWD) [ID 437260.1]

Oracle: Oracle 11g R2 (11.2.0.2) Patchset

Oracle have released 11.2.0.2 version of the database towards end of 2010. The Oracle 11g Release 2 version you download from oracle.com/otn.oracle.com is 11.2.0.1.

The 11.2.0.2 version is 10098816. You can download from Metalink/MyOracleSupport.com.

Following metalink notes gives the details of Oracle Database Patchset/PSU:

  • Quick Reference to Patchset Patch Numbers [ID 753736.1]
  • Locating or finding RDBMS (Database server) patchsets on Metalink [ID 422681.1]
  • How To Find RDBMS patchsets on My Oracle Support [ID 438049.1]

11.2.0.2.1 PSU is already available on metlaink. The patch no# is 10248523 .

For windows 32 bit, Below are the list of installation types and corresponding package:

Oracle Database (includes Oracle Database and Oracle RAC) ->
p10098816_112020_platform_1of6.zip
p10098816_112020_platform_2of6.zip

Oracle Database Client -> p10098816_112020_platform_3of6.zip

Oracle Gateways -> p10098816_112020_platform_4of6.zip

Oracle Examples -> p10098816_112020_platform_5of6.zip

Deinstall -> p10098816_112020_platform_6of6.zip

Follow the patch read me for respective operating system to understand the packages associated with installation.

Oracle: Event 10046 and trace levels

10046 EVENT levels have four trace levels:
1 - Enable standard SQL_TRACE functionality (Default)
4 - As Level 1 PLUS trace bind values
8 - As Level 1 PLUS trace waits
12 - As Level 1 PLUS both trace bind values and waits

Oracle: Rotate Listener logfile

One of the larger growing log fileon Oracle RDBMS is listener.log located at $TNS_ADMIN. You can clean it up and put the logfile to rotation without shutting down the listener.

$ ls -l *.log
-rw-r----- 1 oracle dba 13387343 Mar 18 09:53 listener.log

Truncate file/ Clear the logfile:

cat /dev/null > listener.log

or

echo "" > listener.log

Now, listener.log will be of 0 bytes.

Mac: YouTube videos stop playing on Safari

Des Moines, IA: I was having a problem accessing YouTube on Safari. I used to get a black screen. I tried updating Safari Application, updating the flash plugin on my mac. It didn't really work out.

Here is a workaround:

Open the url http://www.youtube.com/swf_test.html on a new window. Right click on the video screen and select 'settings'. You can see a check box 'Enable Hardware Acceleration' on Display tab of the small pop-up window. Uncheck the option.

The alternate option is to Quit Safari application, Open 'Applications' folder in the Finder. Right-click on Safari, select 'Get Info', check 'Open in 32-bit mode' option.

Again make sure you have latest Safari, Flash Plugin on you machine.

Oracle R12 - Changing the form temporary file location

Des Moines, IA: I have recently faced with an issue where forms temporary files become so large that it fill up the /tmp. The default directory for forms is /tmp.

You can use lsof to identify the form process that is creating a big file:

$ lsof /tmp
frmweb 17530 applmgr 51u REG 253,3 364544 6832 /tmp/file9ogKcF.TMP (deleted)

The one shown above is fairly a small tmp file. Following steps would help to change the form temporary file directory a different one. I use linux/Unix machines for the system.

1. Request your sysadmin/UX team to give you a new mount point. It is encouraged to have local filesystem. For example: /frmtemp . Do make sure applmgr or your oracle EBS owner have privileges to write files to the mount point.
2. Update the TMPDIR environment variable in the file - $INST_TOP/ora/10.1.2/forms/server/default.env

TMPDIR=/frmtemp

3. Restart forms using adformsctl.sh stop/start. The script is located at $ADMIN_SCRIPTS_HOME.

Once done, you can check for tmp files getting created in /frmtemp.

4. The above 3 steps will be over written if any DBA executed an autoconfig. It is a good practice to make changes in the context file.

Location of the context file: $INST_TOP/appl/admin

Edit the (s_forms_tmpdir) parameter in the context file to reflect /frmtemp.