Review at amazon: Oracle 11g R1/R2 Real Application Clusters Essentials

Last week i read Oracle 11g R1/R2 Real Application Clusters Essentials.

Ok, the cover is really cool (does anybody know, if this is a real city?), but the content (500 pages) is missing any coolness. Only three of the twelve chapters do contain informations, you cannot easily google...
The description shows the problem:

Basic understanding of Oracle DBA is required. No experience of Oracle RAC is required.

Is it really possible to describe Oracle RAC within 500 pages for Newbies? All essentials? Perhaps RAC is so easy, that after introducing HA, RAC architecture and installation (100 pages) the rest is enough.
If you are interested, take a look at my review at amazon.de (like all my reviews: written in german ;-).

Firefox: Java plugin for Firefox does not work...

Do you have a problem with getting the java plugin running on your linux?
First a site, which checks, if your plugins are installed and up to date:
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/plugincheck/
You should get something like:

But how to add java into this list?
There are many tutorials out there:

• link jdk1.6.0_23/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so
• or copy some other libs...

But this will only result in no plugin or a crashing firefox, when you visit a website, which starts this plugin.
The only way to get the plugin running is:

1. delete all java-lib/plugins in .mozilla/plugins
2. create a link to YOUR-JRE/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so
   (do not copy!!!!)
   

Thats all...
Just check via https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/plugincheck/ again:

Oracle 11g Database Express Edition released

After the beta phase Oracle Database Express Edition 11g Release 2 was released:

Free to develop, deploy, and distribute

Oracle Database Express Edition 11g Release 2 (Oracle Database XE) is an entry-level, small-footprint database based on the Oracle Database 11g Release 2 code base.  It's free to develop, deploy, and distribute; fast to download; and simple to administer.

The installation is only for the following operating systems supported:

• Oracle Enterprise Linux 4 Update 7
• Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 Update 2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 7
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Update 2
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP2
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11

(only RPM-based 64 bit distributions).

Here some important license statements:

• If Oracle Database XE is installed on a computer with more than one CPU
  (including dual-core CPUs), then it will consume, at most, processing
  resources equivalent to one CPU.
• Only one installation of Oracle Database XE can be performed on a single computer.
• The maximum amount of user data in an Oracle Database XE database cannot exceed 11 gigabytes.
• The maximum amount of RAM that an Oracle Database XE database uses cannot exceed 1 gigabyte, even if more is available.

If you are interested in features which are not included with Oracle Database XE take a look here:

• ...
• Flashback Database
• ...
• Oracle Active Data Guard
• Oracle Total Recall
• ...
• Oracle Real Application Clusters
• In-Memory Database Cache
• Oracle Diagnostic Pack
• Oracle Partitioning
• ...
• Advanced Replication
• ...
  

Google+ games: privacy and sharing information about played games

I read about Google+ games and i knew:

Today we’re starting to gradually roll out games in Google+. We look
forward to making them fully available to everyone in Google+ soon.

and this evening there is a new icon:

and clicking on this four connected points showed the following:

Ok. Let's go: I clicked the blue "play" button and got:

I followed the "Learn more" link:

Who can see that you're playing games

Games on Google+ are social. Information such as the games you play
and your accomplishments within the game (such as high scores and
levels) may be visible to other Google+ users.

Google+ won’t publish your gameplay information to the stream without
your consent. You get to choose when to share updates from games (and
the people you share with). So how do people see that you've played a
particular game?

In “Featured Games”

If you’re looking at the "Featured games" area, you might see the number
of people in your circles who have recently played a game, along with a
photo of a recent player. Click on played recently to bring up a box that shows who those people are.

Within Games

When you play a game, you’re consenting to share information such as
your name and profile picture with the game developer. This lets
developers design better social games.

Additionally, a game may involve multiple players in a single match
(such as a poker table). In these situations, the other players in the
room can see and interact with each other during gameplay.

Some games allow you to partner up with (or work against) another
player, such as a neighbor, ally, or an enemy/rival. These games use
your circles to suggest people to interact with. You could show up as a
suggestion to another player to become an ally or to challenge.

This sounds fair, so let's start playing one:

And then just play...