Book on APEX and XE published

Finally! My first book on Oracle APEX has just been published and is available for sale now! Would make for a great Christmas present :)

I have teamed up with Jens-Christian Pokolm (a long time DBA from Postbank Systems, regular presenter at various Oracle conferences) and Denes Kubicek (Oracle ACE and APEX developer of the year, you know him ;).

Jens-Christian covered the Oracle XE part and Denes and me both worked on the APEX parts.

We took a very practical approach writing about the best practices we have developed through the years and many successful projects.

The book is available only in German, sorry ;).

We also provide a website for the book (http://www.apex-xe-praxis.de). How was it built? Certainly we have used Oracle APEX and XE, what else? Proof of concept ;).

Cheers and have a great Christmas,
~Dietmar.

Oracle APEX Training in Bensheim/Frankfurt (08.03.2010-10.03.2010)

Following up on the other successful APEX trainings in the past, Denes and me holding our next class in September (08.03.2010-10.03.2010). The class will be held in Bensheim (Germany), close to Frankfurt.

Oracle APEX: Knowhow aus der Praxis

The class will focus clearly on conveying the best practices that Denes and me have acquired in many different APEX projects at various client sites.

We have assembled the essence of the methods, strategies and workarounds to deliver successful APEX implementations.

The training will not be theoretical but jam-packed with all the essential tools and tips to get the best results. These are all proven techniques from real world projects.

You can find more information about the class here.

Surely one of the highlights of this training are the Q&A sessions which we will have on both evenings from 19:00-21:00. Bring your current APEX application to the session and we will discuss with you possible strategies and/or help with coding problems in your application right there.

We are looking forward to see you in Bensheim!

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Speaking at the DOAG conference in November

Once again this year, I will be speaking at the German Oracle User Group (DOAG) conference in Nürnberg, Germany.

The conference will be held in Nürnberg from 17.11.2009 to 19.11.2009.

The title of the presentation will be (Producing complex MS Excel reports using Oracle APEX and jXLS):

"Komplexe Excel-Berichte mit APEX und jXLS erstellen"

I have implemented a pretty cool technique on producing complex forms and reports in MS Excel based on a templating approach using the open source framework jXLS.

But it is in more general term a showcase on how to embed a java framework into an APEX application.

Hope to see you there :).

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Oracle APEX Training in Bensheim/Frankfurt (21.09.2009-23.09.2009)

Following up on the other successful APEX trainings in the past, Denes and me holding our next class in September (21.09.2009-23.09.2009). The class will be held in Bensheim (Germany), close to Frankfurt.

Oracle APEX: Knowhow aus der Praxis

The class will focus clearly on conveying the best practices that Denes and me have acquired in many different APEX projects at various client sites.

We have assembled the essence of the methods, strategies and workarounds to deliver successful APEX implementations.

The training will not be theoretical but jam-packed with all the essential tools and tips to get the best results. These are all proven techniques from real world projects.

You can find more information about the class here.

Surely one of the highlights of this training are the Q&A sessions which we will have on both evenings from 19:00-21:00. Bring your current APEX application to the session and we will discuss with you possible strategies and/or help with coding problems in your application right there.

We are looking forward to see you in Bensheim!

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Speaking at OOW 2009

I have just gotten my speaker invitation for Oracle Open World 2009 in San Francisco (October 11-15).

So far I have been talking about APEX at two ODTUG conferences and three DOAG conferences in Germany. So, this time it will be OOW.

Once again I will be talking about an alternative PDF printing solution with Oracle APEX, Jasper Reports:

ID#: S307883
Title: PDF printing with APEX - a cost-free alternative

I have already held the presentation at the last ODTUG conference in Monterey and the presentation was well received. There seems to be a big interest in this solution (PDF printing with APEX). Even for me, this was the reason I had built the integration in the first place ;).

I am pretty sure to have the integration kit ready to be released to the public by then. Currently I am still pretty much engaged in my customer projects and writing a book on APEX (and XE), together with Denes Kubicek and Jens-Christian Pokolm.
It will be in German only and - hey, we are already on Amazon :)

Oracle APEX und XE in der Praxis

One more thing about OOW 2009. I am really looking forward to seeing you guys again at OOW. Who will be going and where will you be staying in SF? I still have to make my reservation for a hotel.

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Mike Hichwa talking about APEX 4.0

On the last ODTUG conference in Monterey Mike Hichwa was giving a presentation on the new features of the upcoming release 4.0 of Oracle Application Express.

You can see the presentation slides and here the complete presentation here, since the ODTUG folks have recorded this session as well as a few others and put them online.

Lots of interesting features are coming :).

Have fun,
~Dietmar.

So Funny

The photos from the last ODTUG conference in Monterey are online available.

It was really good seeing all my friends again. These conferences are really like family reunions - just without the fights ;).

Here I am talking to Joel Kallman and Marc Sewtz.



I also talked to Mike Hichwa about the one or the other new feature I would like to see in the product. Although now I do wonder what he might be thinking about my constant suggestions ;).


It looks like just one too many ;). (Thanks to Patrick for pointing this out).

It was so much fun hanging out with all of you again.

Regards,
~Dietmar.

ODTUG2009 - Excel Generation With jXLS Templates

On wednesday morning (08:00 am, really early) I have been presenting at ODTUG Kaleidoskope 2009 in Monterey / California.
The presentation was about "Generating complex Excel reports with APEX and jXLS".

There I first covered your basic choices when it comes to exporting data to Microsoft Excel.
Then I showed how to integrate the open source library jXLS into your APEX applications in order to generate complex Excel sheets using a templating approach.

In more general terms this was a showcase on how to integrate any kind of open source java library into you Oracle applications.

Since I have just loaded java classes into the database and made them available via a pl/sql wrapper, you can use them in any language accessing the Oracle database and calling the interface via pl/sql.

Thus, you can leverage this in applications using Forms, Reports, APEX, PHP, Java, ... You name it.

You can download the presentation slides here.

If anybody is interested, I will put up an example on how to integrate a java framework into your APEX application.

Are you interested?

Regards,
~Dietmar.

ODTUG2009 - PDF Printing

On Tuesday I have been presenting on ODTUG Kaleidoskope 2009 in Monterey / California. The presentation was about "PDF Printing with APEX - A cost free alternative". There I have shown and detailed the integration of the open source Java reporting engine "JasperReports" into Oracle Application Express for PDF and RTF printing.

For designing the reports you can easily use the graphical design tool "iReport Designer". It will generate the report definition file for you.

The combination of JasperReports and iReport Designer is a real good alternative to the very expensive reporting solution using the BI-Publisher.

You can download the presentation slides from here.

I will make this integration available for free! Right now I have very many things on my list to do, but I will make it available in the future.

If you are interested in such an integration, please drop me a note at: dietmar.aust@opal-consulting.de.

Regards,
~Dietmar.

APEX Stammtisch am 10.2.2009 in Siegburg

The following post is targeted towards a German audience, thus it is in German:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wir (Denes Kubicek und Dietmar Aust) werden am 10 Februar 2009 um 19:00 noch einmal den APEX Stammtisch in einer lockeren Variante durchführen, einfach nur ein leckeres Bier, gutes Essen, interessante Gespräche rund um APEX und interessante Leute.
Weitere Details und die kostenlose Anmeldung findet Ihr hier ...

Danach werden wir dem Stammtisch ein wenig mehr Struktur geben. Bei den Treffen werden wir uns dann auf einige wenige Themen konzentrieren, die im Vorfeld bekannt gegeben werden. Die Teilnehmer können auch gerne ihre eigenen APEX Applikationen vorstellen, ein Beamer wird vorhanden sein.

Wir freuen uns auf ein lockeres Kennenlernen bei einem Bier und evtl. leckerem Flammkuchen.

Leider ist seit dem letzten Stammtisch viel zu viel Zeit vergangen. Dennoch wollen wir es noch einmal versuchen, die Veranstaltung in regelmäßigen Abständen durchzuführen.

Viele Grüße und bis zum Stammtisch,
~Dietmar.