Cupcake Wars at NoCOUG Spring Conference

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Cupcake Wars at NoCOUG Spring Conference on May 15 at UCSC Extension Silicon Valley

SILICON VALLEY (APRIL 1, 2014) – In a bold experiment aimed at increasing attendance at its awesome educational conferences, the Northern California Oracle Users Group (NoCOUG) is considering changing the format of its spring conference to that of Food Network’s “Cupcake Wars.”

Distinguished Oracle Product Manager Bryn Llewellyn will lead the PL/SQL team, OraPub founder Craig Shallahamer will lead the DBA team, Hadoop maven Gwen Shapira will lead the Big Data team, and Database Specialists Director of Managed Services Terry Sutton will lead the RAC team. NoCOUG president Hanan Hit will stride from one room to another shouting “TEN MINUTES, BAKERS! YOU HAVE TEN MINUTES LEFT!

“NoCOUG has been serving the Oracle community for 28 years but our conferences are best known for their awesome educational content. We want our conferences to also be a place where people can come together on a social level” said NoCOUG president Hanan Hit when asked for comment.

Registration for the spring conference is now open. Click here to view the complete agenda and register.

Also in today’s news:

• Want to make easy money? “Airbrb,” based on the apartment-renting app Airbnb, lets you rent out your office desk while you hang out at the water cooler or take a bio break.
• Convert any website into emoticon characters: Google now lets you emojify the web.

Oracle 12c Gives Fresh Life to the Relational Database Movement

Explosive Revelations about Dr. Edgar (Ted) Codd rock the NoSQL World

Secret of Oracle Database Performance Found in 1897 Sears Roebuck Catalog

Solve the Oracle Database murder mystery and win a free ticket for yourself and a friend to the NoCOUG conference‏

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You may remember this children’s song from kindergarten or you can listen to this YouTube video:

“Ten green bottles hanging on the wall
Ten green bottles hanging on the wall
And if one green bottle should accidentally fall
There’ll be nine green bottles hanging on the wall.”

In this Oracle Database murder mystery, there were no green bottles left hanging on the wall after the first bottle fell. Send your solution to contact_nocoug@nocoug.org and receive a free ticket for yourself and a friend to the NoCOUG conference on Thursday, August 15 featuring performance guru Craig Shallahamer, a full track of Oracle Database 12c presentations, and alternative technology presentations on MySQL, NoSQL, and Big Data. Click here to review the detailed agenda.

It was a beautiful spring day. Popcorn was popping on the apricot tree. What does this have to do with databases? Nothing, but I’m trying to write a novel!

As I said, it was a beautiful Wednesday morning in spring. The time was exactly 9:12:00 AM PST. A database user noticed that her favorite database was down and called her favorite DBA—let’s call him Jack—for help.

For the record, I am not related to Jack.

Young Jack jumped to it and restarted the database lickety-split. Then disaster struck! The nine other databases on that database server—a Linux box with NetApp storage—crashed like bowling pins!

An unseen hand restarted all the databases immediately but the damage was done. Jack was dragged to the DBA interrogation chamber—the DBA manager’s office—and made to sit on the hot seat.

It was a sunny day and the sun was streaming in through the plate glass windows, which explains why the seat was so hot. Besides, the air-conditioning was not working that day.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE,” bellowed the furious DBA manager. “I was only trying to help,” said poor Jack.

“HELP!? DO YOU CALL THAT HELPING!?” bellowed the furious DBA manager. The database alert logs were examined. The first database log showed that someone had used the command “STARTUP FORCE” at precisely 9:12:00 AM PST.

“DID YOU DO THAT!? DID YOU DO THAT!?” bellowed the furious DBA manager. “Yes, I did that,” said poor Jack, “but I was only trying to help.”

A single tear slowly streamed down young Jack’s cheek.

“HELP!? DO YOU CALL THAT HELPING!?” bellowed the furious DBA manager, unmoved by Jack’s obvious distress. The remaining database alert logs were examined. Each of them showed that someone had used the command “SHUTDOWN IMMEDIATE” followed by “STARTUP” right after the first database was restarted by Jack. “DID YOU DO THAT!? DID YOU DO THAT!?” bellowed the furious DBA manager.

“I didn’t do any of that,” said poor Jack.

If you believe Jack’s protestations of innocence, figure out how and why nine databases were mysteriously stopped and restarted. Send your solution to contact_nocoug@nocoug.org and receive a free ticket for yourself and your friend to the summer conference on Thursday, August 15 at Chevron in San Ramon. RSVP here.

Happy sleuthing!

P.S. For more than 25 years, NoCOUG has helped Oracle professionals like you continuously improve and enhance your skill sets through our conferences and Journal. Our conferences are held on the third Thursday of February (winter conference), May (spring conference), August (summer conference), and November (fall conference) and are filled with practical and cutting-edge content for application developers as well as database administrators. Please help spread the word about NoCOUG by forwarding this message to your friends and colleagues. They can join our email list at http://www.nocoug.org/.

This colleague of Dr. Edgar “Ted” Codd was featured in the latest NoCOUG Journal

Top 12 reasons why you should NOT attend the next NoCOUG conference

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#12 All NoCOUG emails automatically go to your spam folder, including this one. You rely on Outlook for career guidance.

#11 They won’t send a stretch limousine to pick you up and take you back.

#10 They talked up SQL for 25 years but now, they’re all, like, “No SQL.” I mean, really!

#9 You’re wayyyyy too busy working to learn anything new. (A very good problem to have!)

#8 Your head is exploding with knowledge already. (An even better problem to have!)

#7 It’s always the same people there, like Iggy and Kamran. (We totally understand but we can’t tell Iggy and Kamran to stop coming, can we?)

#6 You were there the day NoCOUG webmaster Eric Hutchinson sang the theme song from Cheers “Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name.” You don’t ever want to hear Eric sing again. Ever!

#5 The food is just too good. You eat to live, not live to eat. (Good for you!)

#4 You don’t appreciate being bribed with free raffle prizes like iPads, Oracle Press teddy bears, and Oracle Press books. (The world needs more upright and honest people!)

#3 You’ve been going for 25 years already; it’s time for a change. You’re going to AARP meetings now (American Association of Retired Persons).

#2 You’ve finally converted your company to Excel spreadsheets. So much cheaper and easier to use!

But the #1 reason not to attend the NoCOUG conference tomorrow is:

#1  You thought that NoCOUG was the North Carolina Oracle Users Group on the East coast!