http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/ 2TARs Consulting Limited - Oracle DBA and Web Design en-us Nucleus CMS v3.33 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog//nucleus/nucleus2.gif http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/ http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=104
Good news indeed for long term bitbuzz users - they have reduced the monthly subscription fee from €49.95 to €19.99. Timely indeed as I was only this week looking to see if eircom who are more prevalent did a similar scheme. I couldn't find one so resigned myself to seeking out infrequent bitbuzz hotspots with varying success.]]> General http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=104 Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:24:35 +0000 http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=104 http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=102 Version1 Software. It's been seven months now and I have enjoyed the time here. The weekly commute does get a bit tiring particularly getting up at 04:00 on a Monday morning but otherwise it's not too bad. The rare luxury of working from home is very much appreciated however.

So what news? I am booked to travel to the UKOUG conference on the 1st December. This will be the first time I have attended the conference. I was planning to go last year but the management of the tickets was atrocious and I was unable to go as a result. I'm particularly looking for some information around the next release of Applications, and security of the RDBMS.

Just before I forget I had reason to download the install media for Apps R12 the other day, but was having a lot of problems with timeouts occuring. I had a quick look to see if I could find a suitable download manager and found Speed Download from Yazsoft on the Apple Downloads site. It's really very good and well worth the $25.

Other news, back in October I had a photo session with John Cassidy. I have known John since 1998 and sometimes provide assistance for his computing needs. In return he tops up my wanting knowledge on photography. Anyway, Version1 had asked me for a business portrait that could be sent out to their clients. I asked John if he could do the honours and I was very pleased with the results.

As a bit of fun, I built a simple website and blogging facility for my brother who is currently enjoying a trip around the world. It's all using the same software as here and it was good practise to keep the toe dipped in the water.
]]> General http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=102 Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:02:32 +0000 http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=102 http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=100
]]> General http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=100 Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:39:23 +0000 http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=100 http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=98
The first thing to do however is to attempt to upgrade the Nucleus software that runs this site.]]> General http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=98 Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:04:15 +0000 http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=98 http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=97
On another front my iPhone case has shown its first indications of wear and tear. The little clasp that clips over the top of the phone has become weak. As it's still perfectly useable, I'm not going to order another one yet - I'll wait until I've upgraded to the 3G phone.

]]> General http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=97 Sun, 17 Aug 2008 10:25:43 +0000 http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=97 http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=96
On another front I have been working on something that has been new to me - the Windows platform. It has been a steep learning curve trying to get Oracle Applications to run OK on Windows but frankly it's not as difficult as I was led to believe although it's nowhere near as capable as UNIX.

At present I'm working in Dublin and have been there since April. It's a great place and the project has been fun.]]> General http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=96 Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:24:44 +0000 http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=96 http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=95 vaja turned up today following a missed delivery on Friday and frankly, it doesn't disappoint. It really is quite a sleek design and as their advert hints the smell of leather is really rather good. It's a snug fit too and hopefully that will remain, but proof will be in usage.]]> General http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=95 Mon, 10 Dec 2007 11:00:27 +0000 http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=95 http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=87
Speaking of new features, I was flicking through some reviews of Leopard, when I came across this behemoth on Ars Technica. It was pretty slating of the UI, particularly with the Dock and the Folder icons, but I found myself agreeing with it. A link to an interesting site called IndieHIG throws up some interesting alternatives.

I finally booked the Bandit in for its overdue MOT. I've gone with a company called AMS Motorcycles who are collecting and delivering the bike too. Sounds like a good service, so we shall see. ]]> General http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=87 Wed, 31 Oct 2007 12:47:36 +0000 http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=87 http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=94
I went looking to buy a large external drive to use with Time Machine, Apple's new backup and recovery application. The idea had formulated even before the problems with the MacBook but it seemed pretty significant now. I already have two LaCie drives that have served me well and I would be happy going with another, but the 1Tb disk is physically quite a bit bigger than my existing ones. Instead I liked the look of the iomega UltraMax.

Unfortunately no-one at the show had any for sale, so we hoofed it up to the Apple Store in Regent Street where they had a couple available. I was umming and ahhing about whether to get it, but the problems with the MacBook kept springing to mind so I bit the bullet and bought one. All I need now is a MacBook to back up!

Claire was out with the girls in the evening which meant I was free to be a geek! I decided to clean up my old PowerBook and install Leopard. I spent a couple of hours manually backing up files onto the LaCie disks and then did a clean install of Leopard. It was stress-free as normal and very quick. I must say even on a 1.5Ghz G4, Leopard flies, and it looks great. One of two niggles but I can live with them.

I'm going to use the PowerBook as a lean-mean web browsing machine so I haven't bothered reinstalling applications like Photoshop or Aperture. I was surprised however to find that iLife isn't included with the OS. Maybe it never was, but I thought differently.
]]> General http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=94 Sat, 27 Oct 2007 13:39:00 +0000 http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=94 http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=93
Anyway, at 11 o'clock that evening there was a ring at the doorbell and lo - my copy of Leopard! Well to say I was shocked was an understatement. Still it goes to show that if you try to deliver when people are likely to be in, it's a sure-fire winner.]]> General http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=93 Fri, 26 Oct 2007 13:32:00 +0000 http://www.2tars-consulting.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=93