No comments about Oracle E-Business Suite Security (Oracle).

5 comments about OCP: Oracle 10g New Features for Administrators Study Guide: Exam 1Z0-040 (Certification Study Guide).

1. This book will definitely teach you the new features in 10g and prepare you for the exam. The material definitely covered the test areas well, although often there are mistakes in the text and questions. The online tests and flashcards are very useful and (good or bad) provide additional information that the book does not cover.
   
   After doing 9i using the Oracle Press books I believe I will continue with this series when the next release comes out.



2. After taking the exam three times using this book, I finally realized that the book was missing a lot of information that was on the actual exam. It is poorly written, and the examples are poorly illustrated. If you want to pass the exam on the first try, I do not recommend this book! The CD software that came bundled with this book did not reflect the questions on the actual exam(?) The authors of this book need to head back to the drawing board and start all over again. What a waste of time and money....



3. I passed my 10g OCP upgrade exam using this book, together with the 10g New Features book (Oracle Press), the 10g DBA Handbook (Oracle Press), the Oracle documentation, an actual 10g database (several in fact), the Self Help Software practice test and, just for fun, the PrepLogic Audio Training CDs. Having been an Oracle DBA for nearly 17 years, my motivation to take the OCP exams is not just to pass. It's to get as close to 100% as I can. That being the case, I am very careful with my studies and take my time working through every single subject area, frequently building actual working examples of the new features.
   
   Passing my 10g OCP upgrade exam had more to do with my thoroughness than it had to do with this book. I prefer to use a published study guide in conjunction with the Exam Topics published by Oracle. Starting with my 7.3 certification, I have always used the Oracle Press exam study guides, but decided to switch to this Sybex title due to the number of errors and pieces of misinformation I was finding in the Oracle Press books. However, I was appalled to find this title to be as bad, if not worse, than the Oracle Press 9i upgrade book.
   
   I accept that writing a technical (exam prep) book is a difficult undertaking, but there is absolutely no excuse for getting published syntax wrong. By way of example, p367 states the RMAN command to specify a duration for a backup is:
   
   RMAN> backup tablespace users duration 2:00;
   
   WRONG! Try it and you'll see the RMAN syntax error message. It is in fact:
   
   RMAN> backup duration 2:00 tablespace users;
   
   Chapter 4 Q11 asks about the main differences between COPY_FILE and PUT_FILE. The given answer includes the option which states PUT_FILE requires a destination server name. WRONG! It requires a database link to know how to connect to a destination server, but to say PUT_FILE itself "requires" a server name, i.e. as one of its parameters is clearly not true. A question in one of the bonus exams makes reference to a Resource Manager parameter called MAX_IDLE_BLOCK_TIME. WRONG! It's actually called MAX_IDLE_BLOCKER_TIME.
   
   Whilst on the subject of the tests found on the book's CD, I found several questions that were worded in a very obscure way or that asked for a level of extreme detail that was simply unrealistic. There were even questions where you had to choose 2 answers from 4, but the answer selection method was a radio button, not check boxes, so you could only choose one answer! Also many questions asked about subjects or aspects of subjects that were not covered in the book itself!
   
   Nit picking? I don't think so. These are important details and the further I got into this book, the less I trusted it. Second guessing what you read in a study guide is not ideal exam preparation. The icing on the cake was several questions on the actual exam which were not covered by any of my preparation materials, but that always happens and I like to think that's just Oracle's sense of humor! :-)
   
   Bottom line is, anyone giving this book maximum stars and high praise could not have read it carefully enough. Personally, I'll be switching back to the Oracle Press book for 11g unless another option presents itself. If you use this book as your primary study guide, be very careful and double check often with hands on practice and reference to the Oracle documentation.
   
   Good luck with your studies.



4. I used it to pass my DBA OCP exam. There are a few errors in the book, but that is to be expected. You have to learn everything to be prepared for the exam. It is also wise to get a second book so you can track omissions in this books by answering all the questions and sample exams in the other book.



5. I've used Sybex's study guides for my 9i OCP qual and found them to be ok. As a DBA working closely with 9i and 10g databases, I assumed this 10g New Features guide would round out my practical experience and help me pass this exam first time. Turns out that I was wrong. This book contains more errors than it should, is contradictory or ambiguous in places, and is not comprehensive enough to pass the exam - although you might get lucky I guess (I was short by 1 question, but luck shouldn't play a part in certification!). To be fair to the book, I also think that some of the questions in the exam itself are needlessly ambiguous and obfuscating, so I'm disappointed with Oracle too! I have copies of Sybex's DBA I and II guides, which will possibly be helpful on my resit.

5 comments about Oracle Forms Interactive Workbook (Interactive Workbook Series).

1. While this book is good for learning Oracle Forms 6i, and allows you to learn in the step-by-step as advertised, the layout of this book is horrendous. The chapters are literally 2-3 pages long. Then there are 3 pages of questions, followed by 20 pages of answers and their explanations. As another reviewer said, the questions asked are not meant to be known by the reader. Instead it's a quick way to make a point about what should be known, and then it's answered for you later. What I hate and got more and more frustrated by with each passing chapter, is that while the answers section of each chapter relist the question, it does not relist the steps you're supposed to do between each question. So while it would be nice to just skip the questions and go to the answers where the questions are anyway, you're constantly flipping back and forth to know what to do next. It's good to learn Forms 6i, but be warned that you're going to be frustrated by the format/layout.



2. I work in a position where I train professional programmers for our client. Most of our programmers are transferring from Legacy systems to our new Oracle system. We have started using this book as an alternative to more expensive classroom/online training and have found it very useful. The chapters are small enough to do in a sitting and the exercises help reinforce what was learned in the chapter. The current users are programmers who have been doing mainframe programming for 10-20 years and are just now transitioning to Windows programming. I'm amazed at the progress they are making through the use of this book.
   
   All of the data and sample forms are available online at a website listed in the books introduction. It's designed to be run on a personal installation of Oracle DB, but I was able to run the provided data creation scripts in our enterprise installation without issue. I used our developement environment and created the data without any modifications to the scripts and no DBA security rights (other than the right to create new tables). Took about 5 minutes of setup and then all my students were able to work with it under their normal developer rights.
   
   There is only one downside I've found, and that's the binding. For a book that's designed to be read while doing exercises on the computer, it should have a spiral bound rather than normal book binding. The book does not want to stay open, the margins are too close to the binding, and after several times of forcing it open the bindings are wearing very badly after just a few months. Some copies even have pages starting to fall out. It's a minor thing in comparison to the content, but is awfully frustrating for my students.
   
   In summary, we've looked at countless resources and have found this to be one of the best (cost vs. effectiveness) training tools for our programmers.



3. In order to use the course (and the prerequisite courses) you need to download tons of Oracle software on a one-month trial license or spend a couple of thousand dollars. If you also have a job, this gives insuficicient time to do the course.



4. could be a fairly good "first draft" of a book, but clearly not ready for publication. Many of the primary Oracle Forms features are not discussed at all and what is is done in a very confusing fashion. The entire book appears to be straight out of a word processor.
   
   For the money, a user would be far better off referring to the on-line documentation that comes with forms.



5. This book is very useful for the beginners in Oracle Forms.
   Unlike the other standard books,it explains the Forms from the beginning,
   step by step, with examples and intelligible way.

5 comments about Oracle PL/SQL 101.

1. This book is incorrectly titled. It should read Oracle 101 SQL not PL/SQL. Simply put there are only 2 skimpy chapters on PL/SQL. If looking for PL/SQL purchase a different text and save yourself the aggravation and lost cost issues.



2. This book covers it all - the SQL you need to be able to write PL/SQL, and then actual PL/SQL procedures, functions, triggers, and packages.

   Look at the Table of Contents - covers everything you need. And easy to read too.




3. I bought this book to learn more PL/SQL, but 95% of it is about SQL. The title suggests PL/SQL. If you want to know more about PL/SQL, this is not the book to buy.



4. I was looking for more PL/SQL than this book offers (misleading title, I feel), but it contains good material. My biggest frustration, though (and unfortunately, this is shared by many technical books) is that the index is very incomplete. I would say that 80% of what I want to find in the book turns up empty when I use the index. Eventually I can find it by turning many pages, but I'd prefer not to waste so much time.



5. This is a great book for the very beginner person who has no experience at all in SQL. It is very in details and very easy to understand. Unfortunately, I have to return this book since it is not what I am looking for.

No comments about Grid Revolution: An Introduction to Enterprise Grid Computing (Osborne Oracle Press).

5 comments about Big Blues: The Unmaking of IBM.

1. This is a penetrating and often amusing look at the rise and fall of IBM. It's dated, much like any book about computers that was published about seven years ago is obviously expected to be.

   If IBM is doing better now, this book might have had something to do with it. Things like corporate hymnals, the ponderous decisionmaking process, and the reasons for the failure of IBM's PS/2 line are all exposed in humiliating detail. As a former retail sales rep for an IBM dealer from 1988-1990, I can tell you that in that time frame the IBM I saw looked a lot like Carroll's portrayal (and completely turned me off about them). This book is worth a search.




2. I have now read this book twice. Not only have I read the book, I remember this time period as my company worked closely with IBM. One of the other reviewers said, "An amusing book that attributes IBM's success to a couple of lucky business decisions followed by endless blunders. Carroll makes alot of assertions about IBM but provides few facts to back them up..." Obviously, this person either works for IBM or did not know what was going on at that time. What Carroll says is true. Especially if you had ANY ties with IBM during these years, you will find this book fascinating. I have referred back to it many times.



3. People who complain that this book is unfounded because IBM is growing and profitable forgets that over a decade ago, IBM was a stinker: the bottom had fallen out of the lucrative mainframe market, and IBM could not compete long-term in the rapidly growing PC/Workstation market. This book is a great lesson in how not to adapt to change.

   Luckily, IBM has pulled itself out, but at what cost? Imagine if IBM had got the PC revolution right? There might not even be a Microsoft today and IBM could have retaken its position as THE corporate super-power.

   Besides discussing poor management, I enjoyed the information and great anecdotes about IBM's relationship with Bill Gates and Microsoft. I cannot believe the number of opportunities IBM squandered to acquire, invest or eliminate Microsoft. It seems that IBM pratically pushed Gates to build Microsoft into the power it is today.




4. This very readable book is the model that Gerstner should have followed. Elephants can do heavy towing, or push aside obstacles; they can't pirouette en pointe. This book is the viewpoint of IBM by an outside journalist. It lacks a table of contents. The book describes the problems, it does not tell when or why it originated.

   Page 20 says IBM developed "a lush bureaucracy that prided itself on having a higher ratio of managers per employee than any other business around." Is this what they teach in business school? IBM's chairmen came from the sales force; if you can't sell it, there's no point in making it. The IBM PC was created from off-the-shelf parts so it could be quickly marketed; pre-defined interfaces too! Page 24 tells how Microsoft did an operating system: they licensed QDOS (a replica of CP/M), then bought it. It eventually made Gates the richest man in America.

   Page 27 tells of the management problem in creating software. Architects spent months producing detailed designs for software. Then masses of programmers had a hard time deciphering the hundreds of pages of specifications. More time was spent in communicating than actually writing code! Isn't this a recipe for a project to be over budget and behind schedule? Estridge's habit of shunning meetings, not returning phone call, and ignoring unwanted advice could set an example of a well-ordered project manager who concentrates on the mission, not the housekeeping. Page 37 explains why standards for PCs began at birth.

   Page 53 mentions the "fear of nuclear attack" as the reason for moving out of New York city. But other companies also moved out in the 1970s; the fear of a nuclear attack drained away after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Didn't IBM build a skyscraper in the 1980s only to sell it in the 1990s? Didn't AT&T do the same?

   Page 87 tells how Gates got lucky when VisiCorp began to self-destruct. Those familiar with counter-intelligence operations may think of another reason (p.192). Page 97 says IBM never wanted to have too many people in one spot. Unstated here is the fear that nearly all could walk out to a new company (p.186). Page 101 tells that IBM used lines of code as a measure of programming; what did IBM use to measure its management? Microsoft rewrote IBM code to make it faster and smaller, then; how are they doing now? The last pages of Chapter 8 deal with the OS/2-Windows politics. There is no explanation as to why they didn't share the same application interface. Page 201 tells of developing a RISC chip; didn't CDC do this in the early 1960s? Page 208 describes the chip development problem in Burlington VT. Page 217 mentions the "golden screwdriver" and how quickly some machines were upgraded. Think ahead!

   Pages 245-7 tell of the PS/1 project: crippled so it would not compete with PS/2. Would General Motors restrict the sale of Chevrolets to sell more Cadillacs? Page 281 suggests Microsoft moles reported on IBM's strategies. Pages 301-9 tell of the changes in Lexington under new owners. In political history, this is like a revolution that sweeps away the aristocracy and lets the farmers and merchants rise to power. Does the description of the IBM bureaucracy remind you of France before the Revolution? Will anyone write a book to cover the last ten years as well as this one does?




5. This is an excellent book. It answers a lot of questions about how a nothing (at the time) software company like MicroSoft was able to trounce the largest (at the time) hardware/software company in the world.
   
   It was particularly fascinating to read how MicroSoft was so reluctant to even get involved with IBM and had to be cajoled and bullied by IBM into doing the IBM-DOS project.

No comments about Oracle® Financials Interview Questions: Unofficial Oracle Financials / Fusion Certification Review: Includes Oracle Financials and Oracle Fusion Middleware Interview Questions.

5 comments about Oracle Privacy Security Auditing: Includes Federal Law Compliance with HIPAA, Sarbanes Oxley & The Gramm Leach Bliley Act GLB (Oracle In-Focus series).

1. This remarkable book covers how to use Oracle 9i security and auditing facilities to achieve compliance with three major laws. While the book emphasizes HIPAA, it also addresses, either directly or indirectly, privacy security and auditing with respect to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (Subtitle A: Disclosure of Nonpublic Personal Information 15 U.S.C. 6801-6810 and Subtitle B: Fraudulent Access to Financial Information 15 U.S.C. 6821-6827), HIPAA requirements for protecting data and enforcing security and privacy, and Sarbanes-Oxley Act Section 404 requirements related to integration of transactional systems, logs and auditing trails, and data security.

   Structure of this book is in three sections:

   Section I gives an introductions to HIPAA, Oracle security and Oracle auditing. Among the topics covered are grant, role-based, and profile based security, as well as virtual private databases (row-level security, fine-grained access control), and application server security.

   Section II goes deeper into general Oracle security, covering relational grant security as it relates specifically to HIPAA (but can be also used for Gramm-Leach-Bliley and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance because the requirements are similar regarding these mechanisms and techniques). Also covered are encryption and network security.

   Section III deals with auditing using Oracle facilities, tables, DDL and DML, and covers the spectrum from grants auditing to fine-grained audits. Again, the focus is on HIPAA requirements (Chapter 11, for example, contains the following topics: Auditing select access as per the HIPAA mandated auditing of Patient Health Information, and Combining FGA and Flashback queries to answer the most important question in addition to who saw the data, what they saw.) This section ends with HIPAA security and auditing checklists, which can be also applied to Sarbanes-Oxley and Gramm-Leach-Bliley security and auditing.

   This book is an outstanding addition to bodies of knowledge spanning three disciplines - internal auditing, DBA, and IT security & privacy. A copy should be provided to managers and subject matter experts in each of those domains.




2. The title of this book is quite misleading. The title should stop with HIPAA. HIPAA is the sole focus; there is no mention of SO or GLB. True, the overall goals of SO and GLB are similar to those of HIPAA (control, accountability, confidentiality) but I would expect a book that has SO and GLB in the title to mention those laws and perhaps (as I was hoping) provide some specific insights. If you want to learn something about HIPAA, this is the book. If you want to learn something about SO or GLB, you have to learn it elsewhere and then apply the legalistic knowledge into this book on Oracle.
   
   The second gripe is with the index. Personally, I don't have the time to read a book cover-to-cover. I need a competent index to be able to look up specifics. This index is woefully short (4 large type pages). Further, I sincerely believe the index is for some other version of the book or other book entirely. The page references do not match the pages. Hence index is useless.
   
   I was in the process of returning this book (first time I would have done so) when I came over to the reviews and started reading them. My gripes are legitimate but I have decided to keep the book for its security aspects rather than its integration of HIPAA, SO or GLB requirements into Oracle security. After all, the Oracle Security Handbook (Theriault and Newman) is out of date.



3. I bought this book for understanding how to handle compliance in Oracle. No where in the book can you find details about HIPAA, SOX or GLBA complaince!!!! It was totally, completely, worthless for me!



4. I primarily purchased this book for help on Virtual Private Database (VPD) and Row Level Security (RLS). We use these features at work and need to expand on them. Something I did like about this book is that it is well written and covers many subject areas that are spread out over many different books in Oracle's documentation. The examples are not much more helpful than Oracle's and that is an area that could be improved on the second edition.
   
   The book is 672 pages and if it was formatted a little differently it would probably be closer to 300. The font is large and the pages are narrow.



5. Excellent book for general security information with Oracle (VPDs, Roles, Encryption and the rest)
   As an another review pointed out, the book is very light on SOX material and focuses instead on the HealthCare sector.
   If that's what you want..by all means, buy the book...A.Nanda is one of the very best DBAs out there and knows his material inside and out...
   If you need SOX and/or GLB, look elsewhere...

3 comments about Easy Oracle Automation: Oracle10g Automatic Storage, Memory and Diagnostic Features (Easy Oracle Series).

1. I was very impressed with how easy it was to understand this text, Even though the automation features are comploicated inside, using them should not be and this book helps!



2. Dr. Kumar's book is amazing!! The examples and the way it's written, truly compliment the Oracle documentation. All of our Oracle DBA's at work use this book as a valued reference. Easy Oracle Automation : Oracle10g Automatic Storage, Memory and Diagnostic Features (Easy Oracle Series) is a must read!!



3. As the editor for this book I was very impressed with Dr. Kumar's writing style and his ability to generalize and simplify complex concepts and explain them in plain English.
   
   This book is a great place to start for anyone who wants to learn about the Oracle automation features.

5 comments about How the Web Was Won: The Inside Story of How Bill Gates and His Band of Internet Idealists Trans- Formed a Software Empire.

1. There's been a lot of blather from competitors about Microsoft's so-called predatory ways -- some of it, I understand, directed at this book. But the real reason Microsoft is so feared and often loathed is that they compete so well. How many companies of Microsoft's size in any industry would be fleet-footed enough to completely reinvent their overall strategy to address a sea change in their market? This book tells you how this remarkable company did it. Get to know the real players who helped turn this battleship around -- and kept Bill Gates very very wealthy.



2. Overall I liked the book because it shows a side of Microsoft, but advocates them in the side of the antitrust trial, and they don't explain how a free web browser earns money.



3. Microsoft has released such a confusing stream of products into the Internet arena, it's hard to keep up with it all. This book provides excellent perspective and historical context for those decisions. I also really enjoyed the compelling writing style of this book, especially on the fascinating charaterizations of the colorful players at Microsoft. A good read for anyone interested in the history of the Internet!



4. This book is obviously very slanted and biased in Microsoft's favor. It seems as if this book came straight out of the Microsoft book of propaganda! All of Microsoft's actions in the past are shown to be harmless and not anticompetitive. In total contrast, the actions of Microsoft's competitors are shown in a very negative light. Even the most incidental actions of Microsoft's competitors are shown in a bad light. It is odd then that Microsoft escapes this accounting. The author is obviously very pro-Microsoft and I would not be surprised to see that he may have close contacts at the company. The author does not really show how Microsoft's actions regarding "leveraging their OS into other software areas" could lead to destruction of competition in the computer industry. In fact, he either outright ignores this argument or downplays it! Even if you are interested in how the web was won, this book does not really give much insight to outside developments. There is no real context given. Other books fully account for the complex events surrounding the battle for supremacy on the internet. This book does not. It skims over much of the "outside action" and instead focuses only on Microsoft and it's quest to dominate the new emerging industry. Of course, given that this book should revolve around Microsoft but it should NOT exclude other angles to the story. The author takes Microsoft's side without justifying it for the readers. And ultimately this EXTREMELY BIASED account makes the author lose much of his credibility. Also without going in depth with the emerging industry as a whole the narrative loses much of what would have been very interesting and engrossing story. By and large this is one of the worst books regarding this interesting period in the computer industry. NOT RECOMMENDED. FIND ANOTHER BOOK IF YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE INTERNET AND THE "BROWSER WARS'.



5. I am writing this after the appeals court has done the smart thing and voided the breakup remedy and exposed Judge Jackson for the little punk he is (His bias was obvious during the trial, despite MS's missteps. Congress should impeach him pronto). So I have perspective many of the other reviewers don't.

   All I can say is: Ah-hah. Ah-hah. The appeals court may have found that MS maintained its monopoly illegally, largely because it didn't provide sufficient evidence that it needed those contracts with PC makers to protect the proprietary elements of Windows. And they may be right (although I think the general rapacity of the software industry is enough). But it agreed with nothing else, and I think the author of this book has been more than vindicated against his critics.

   Yes, he had access to top MS officials, and probably shares their views of things. But you don't need that to agree that Netscape did everything all wrong ... they walked out of the HTML 3 standards conference, made their browser as incompatible with IE as they could just because they were so afraid. Their entire business plan could be summed up as "Bill Gates must be incredibly dumb and tone-deaf, so we'll make all the noise we want about how we can make them irrelevant and they won't notice until it's too late. Oh, and if this somehow doesn't work, let's get the Justice Department to sue them."

   Well, it tells you a lot about this strategy (as if you couldn't guess) that Netscape today is just another cog in the AOL Time Warner media machine. The author is particularly good at noting what has not been much noticed elsewhere ... how Netscape, especially in the infamous 1995 meeting, seemed to be working hand-in-glove with Justice to create the appearance of improper competition on Microsoft's part (Funny how, when Larry Ellison (and Bill Gates' biggest service to America is keeping that guy from taking his place, believe me) pays people to sniff through DC trash to find connections between MS and DC lobbying groups, the news is more about the latter aspect of the story than the former).

   But the larger issue that this book doesn't get into is how the New Economy guys, all devout members of the Church of the Invisible Hand, were done in by their own economic beliefs working too well.

   That basically went that MS would become, and remain, hidebound and lazy like all companies with little real competition (of course, many companies have said they competed against Microsoft, which comes as a real surprise to anyone who has used many of their products ... Linux especially). After all, hadn't IBM and Apple before MS? Our laissez-faire theory tells us so, that economics will trump all human ability ... right?

   Well, no one ever thought to imagine that maybe a company that has achieved the kind of market dominance that MS has might just retain the competitive instincts that got it there (as plainly logical as that might be). You're going to have to wait a while for MS to get soft. The story is not that it was easy to win the web war or that MS shouldn't have been at risk of losing it in the force place. It was that they got into it at all. The market is supposed to reward supertankers that turn on a dime, isn't it? (In fact, I believe MS's problems may have come from it being too eager to compete sometimes, owing to Gates' oft-cited paranoia that somewhere out there are two guys in a garage building the future that he won't see coming until too late. But should he be penalized for not forgetting his own company's history?....

   Along the way, it was hilarious at first but scary later on to see how standard business practices, and things that would be recognized as smart moves in any other business, were invariably transformed into flaws whenever MS did them. Add lots of features to your OS so a broad segment can find it useful? "Bloatware." Keep in mind your customers who are just casual end users? "Dumbing down the operating system?" (Reminds me of Dilbert: "Hey, you're one of those condescending Unix users!" "Here's a nickel, kid. Go buy yourself a better computer") The looniest was, and still is, Linux, dedicated to the principle that people who don't make money from what they do do a better job than people who do. (And this system is often pushed heavily by some of the most libertarian, pro-free enterprise types around! I still do not get it)

   So, seven years after the Web became the Internet's killer app, Microsoft has won, and IMO deservedly so. Deal with it. If you weren't in their tent, you should just cash out, shake Bill Gates' hand like a good sport, recognize that they won because they just played a better game, go enjoy a nice retirement and stop wasting the public's time.