Your SIG needs you?

What was that again?
It was interesting to read this note in Antony Reynolds Blog. It says, "Your SIG needs you. and of course, it displays the above picture". Nice point Antony! I hope it received the clicks it deserved!(to read his post Click here )

Feeds while Offline?

Google Gears is an excellent way to catch with your reading (rss feeds )while you are flying or cannot get connected.

Here is the link to blog note: Feeds on a Plane!

Update:
Although Google gears says there is no need to reboot, I had to reboot a Windows XP (Home edition). After rebooting all I had to do was to link up with Google reader.

XML Publisher or BIP

I had an opportunity in the recent past to work on XML Publisher (or BI Publisher as it is known now) - on an EBS 11.5.10, XMLP 5.6.2. It is definitely easy to start working; Did not take more than 2 weeks to get going - I also had help from the BI Publisher Team at Solutionbeacon, especially Tim Sharpe, Thanks folks.

What I like about it is that we can design the Template in Word. That leaves us (Developers) to focus on developing a better program and leave the BA's change a dot or semi-colon or change the Syntax. Although I have seen a few claims that BA's (read non-oracle skilled persons) can create reports using BIP, I disagree. Creation of template still needs technical knowledge - at the very least, should know how control logic flows, when to use these;
Although "Validate" does provide some help,there are instances when the Template gets "Validated" by this tool but fails to get executed when you run it from Template viewer or from EBS.
Error messages are cryptic; Oracle should either provide intelligible messages (these seems to presume knowledge of XML and/or XSLT) and an utility to search for these messages.

for ex: an if you are checking whether there are records found, then it has to coded like this:
"<?if COUNT > 0 ?>". If you enter incorrect syntax, then validate will produce an error screenshot as shown below:




Using Tools->Validate, you will see a message like the one shown below:




Although "Validate" helps, still left me wondering how an Non-Technical person can understand or resolve it.
Other than this, I am very excited to work on this Product, seems to me miles ahead of Oracle Reports writer (It is downright frusturating to see REP-1219 error - 'F_3' has no size or length zero; when the damn thing looks fine).
Also, changing the template is in BIP much smoother and faster. Changing Static text? No problem. All of this can be done in Word (If there is a need to change text or change the font, no need to raise a ticket to the IT Department then, wait for few weeks to get the changes completed).
As far as the price goes, per release note available at oracle (see 2007 Jan OBIEE Press release ) it seems to cost $1500 per user.
For more information goto
Forum: BI Publisher