EddieAwad.com

A River of Useful or Just Fun Stuff

Ten Reasons Why IT Is a Great Career Choice in 2010

  1. According to June Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers, the IT unemployment rate was 5.5 percent, compared to an overall unemployment rate of 9.5 percent.
  2. Technology is one of the strongest sectors of the economy. The long-term employment forecast released by the BLS shows that many of the fastest-growing occupations are technology-related.
  3. A resurgence in technology recruiting is under way, as evidenced by steadily increasing demand for the services provided by Dice.
  4. Seventy-five percent of HR managers and recruiters have at least one hard-to-fill technology position open, and there are thousands of vacancies going unfilled.
  5. There is an acute shortage of workers with experience in such high-demand skills as virtualization, building secure databases and networks, Ruby on Rails development and SAP engineering.
  6. There is ongoing demand for tech pros with expertise in core talents, including project management, Java development, network engineering and database administration.

  7. The combination of a surge in projects getting the green light after being put on hold 18 months ago, and the fact that we’re entering a technology upgrade cycle to refresh aging systems, is boosting demand for technology skills.

  8. IT as an occupation pays considerably more in salary than the national average. The average salary on the Dice.com site is more than $70,000.
  9. IT is a great career for women because the pay gap between men and women in technology is small in comparison to that found in other professions.
  10. Technology positions are typically merit-based, and offer an opportunity for flexibility in terms of providing contract or full-time work.
via IT Business Edge

DBA Q & A iPad App

The DBA Q&A (99¢) app presents a collection of Oracle-centric questions and their corresponding answers — written by an author who apparently has studied English as a second language — designed to mimic what a prospective candidate might be asked in a typical DBA job interview. Sweaty palms optional.

via http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/14/ipad_apps/page3.html

Why would someone need an "app" for that?

What! Only 6 results?

via techcrunch.com

mDBA - an iPhone and iPad app for Oracle DBAs

Grant Execute on SYS.DBMS_SYS_SQL, Smart DBAs say NO

The Oracle database ships with a supplied but undocumented PL/SQL package named SYS.DBMS_SYS_SQL. This package enables the execution of dynamic SQL but it also enables the parsing of a statement as a specific database user and with the privileges of this specific database user. This PL/SQL package is highly privileged, obviously. The EXECUTE privilege on this package is not granted to database user, by default. It should almost never be granted to any database user, ever. When asked to grant execution on this package to someone, a smart DBA will always say "no."

via http://joelkallman.blogspot.com/2010/08/application-express-and-parsing-of-sql.html
More from http://www.pythian.com/news/652/using-dbms_sys_sql-to-execute-statements-as-another-user/

Oracle Mergers & Acquisitions: Who’s Next?

With the Sun Microsystems deal closed, SoftwareAdvice.com thought it would be fun to guess who might be next on Oracle’s M&A agenda.

In the post that follows, SoftwareAdvice.com attempt to make a few educated guesses on Oracle’s next move based on the criteria they employed in their past acquisitions. They also want to hear from you. What company do you think will be Oracle’s next target? Be sure to take the survey and express your opinions.

Before we go any further, let’s put this all in context by looking at a graphical illustration of Oracle’s recent M&A activity.

 

continue reading at softwareadvice.com

 

Facebook's 'outrageous' privacy policy: By the numbers

5,830
Length, in words, of Facebook's current privacy policy (last revised on April 22)

4,543
Length, in words, of the United States Constitution

1,004
Word count of Facebook's original privacy statement from 2004

1,203
Length, in words, of rival networking site Twitter's current privacy policy

45,000
Word count of Facebook's privacy-related Frequently Asked Questions

47,094
Word count of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

50
Number of settings Facebook users must adjust to keep the site from sharing private information with third parties

170
Number of different options users must choose from to keep Facebook from sharing their information

2
Number of minutes The Huffington Post says it takes to secure your profile if you follow their handy guide

4,000
Number of Harvard students that a 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, reportedly called "dumb f**ks" in 2003 for providing him with their private information for an early version of the site. "If you ever need info about anyone at Harvard," the teenager boasted to a friend, "just ask."

400 million
Current number of active Facebook users worldwide

176.3 billion
Number of advertisements displayed on Facebook in the first three months of 2010

$1.2-2 billion
Revenue analysts expect Facebook to generate this year

$11 billion
The current estimated value of Facebook

via theweek.com

SQLSaturday Open for Registration

On the weekend of May 22, 2010, the Portland Development community is coming together in a way never experienced before.

Using the University of Portland campus, SQLSaturday, Portland Code Camp, and Portland Bar Camp are combining and coordinating efforts to bring 800-1000 regional technology professionals together for the opportunity to immerse themselves in seminars, presentations, group exploration, and networking. Participants will be able to engage in their preferred technology, as well as to 'sample' other options

Admittance to this event is free, all costs are covered by donations and sponsorships. Please register soon as seating is limited, and let friends and colleages know about the event.

>> Click here to register.

Portland SQLSaturday is encouraging presentations related to interoperability of any of the SQL platforms, including T-SQL (SQL Server), PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Oracle PL/SQL. Abstracts for Platform specific sessions are also encouraged. The event is scheduled on Saturday May 22, 2010 from 8:00 AM until 10:00 PM.

Most sessions will be one hour and fifteen minutes (1:15), and a few 'deep dive' sessions will be longer (2.5 hours). The  'deep dive' sessions will be scheduled for 7:00 PM (after the snacks and refreshments.) Also, throughout the day, there may be opportunities for 30 minute 'SQL snack' sessions.

>> Click here to submit your presentation abstract.

I encourage all Oracle SQL and PL/SQL enthusiasts living in the Pacific Northwest to present in and/or attend this not-to-be-missed event.

Top 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors

The 2010 CWE/SANS Top 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors is a list of the most widespread and critical programming errors that can lead to serious software vulnerabilities. They are often easy to find, and easy to exploit. They are dangerous because they will frequently allow attackers to completely take over the software, steal data, or prevent the software from working at all.

RankScoreIDName
[1] 346 CWE-79 Failure to Preserve Web Page Structure ('Cross-site Scripting')
[2] 330 CWE-89 Improper Sanitization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command ('SQL Injection')
[3] 273 CWE-120 Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input ('Classic Buffer Overflow')
[4] 261 CWE-352 Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
[5] 219 CWE-285 Improper Access Control (Authorization)
[6] 202 CWE-807 Reliance on Untrusted Inputs in a Security Decision
[7] 197 CWE-22 Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')
[8] 194 CWE-434 Unrestricted Upload of File with Dangerous Type
[9] 188 CWE-78 Improper Sanitization of Special Elements used in an OS Command ('OS Command Injection')
[10] 188 CWE-311 Missing Encryption of Sensitive Data
[11] 176 CWE-798 Use of Hard-coded Credentials
[12] 158 CWE-805 Buffer Access with Incorrect Length Value
[13] 157 CWE-98 Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP File Inclusion')
[14] 156 CWE-129 Improper Validation of Array Index
[15] 155 CWE-754 Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions
[16] 154 CWE-209 Information Exposure Through an Error Message
[17] 154 CWE-190 Integer Overflow or Wraparound
[18] 153 CWE-131 Incorrect Calculation of Buffer Size
[19] 147 CWE-306 Missing Authentication for Critical Function
[20] 146 CWE-494 Download of Code Without Integrity Check
[21] 145 CWE-732 Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource
[22] 145 CWE-770 Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
[23] 142 CWE-601 URL Redirection to Untrusted Site ('Open Redirect')
[24] 141 CWE-327 Use of a Broken or Risky Cryptographic Algorithm
[25] 138 CWE-362 Race Condition
via cwe.mitre.org

 

Thinking Clearly About Performance (paper)

(download)

Creating high-performance as an attribute of complex software is extremely difficult business for developers, technology administrators, architects, system analysts, and project managers. However, by understanding some fundamental principles, performance problem solving and prevention can be made far simpler and more reliable. This paper describes those principles, linking them together in a coherent journey covering the goals, the terms, the tools, and the decisions that you need to maximize your application’s chance of having a long, productive, high-performance life. Examples in this paper touch upon Oracle experiences, but the scope of the paper is not restricted to Oracle products.

via http://method-r.com/downloads/doc_details/44-thinking-clearly-about-performance