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Man of Steel

Tim Hall - 5 hours 37 min ago

I’ve just got back from watching Man of Steel at the cinema.

I went into this film with extremely low expectations. For people of my age, this is the third time round for this story, so I expected to be pretty bored from a plot perspective.

I’m going to split the film into three parts.

The first part of the story concerned the birth of Kal-El and him getting sent to earth. I expected this to be really dull and a bit annoying because of Russell Crowe’s presence. Actually is turned out to be completely brilliant. If the whole film had been similar to this first section it would probably have been the greatest Sci-Fi movie I had ever seen. If all you do is go in, watch this first sequence then leave, you will have had your money’s worth, especially since it was only £3 to get in on Tuesday night.
The second part involved Kal-El growing up and becoming Superman. I also expected this to be a little dull, but actually is was really neat. They approached this part of the story in a different way to the previous films. It worked really well and I actually felt myself starting to care about the lead character.
The third part of the film was just disaster porn. I found it really dull and generic. In parts it felt like a rip-off of the last fight scene in The Matrix Revolutions, mixed in with anything Michael Bay has ever done. I found myself hoping everyone would just hurry up and die so I could go home. Sometimes I find this stuff mildly amusing, but most of the time I just zone out and wonder what I am going to get to eat on the way home…

On my way out I was listening to a few conversations. One woman said, “The acting was terrible and I am so bored with seeing buildings get blown up!” I heard a group of guys talking in the car park and their conversation distilled down to, “He just didn’t do anything for the last half of the film!”

As it stands, I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected, but after a fantastic start it degenerated into mediocrity.

Cheers

Tim…

Man of Steel was first posted on June 19, 2013 at 12:04 am.
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Oracle Siebel CRM 8.1.1.10 Software Download : Install Siebel CRM / OCH Part I

Online Apps DBA - Tue, 2013-06-18 15:31

Over next few days I am going to cover Oracle’s Siebel CRM 8.1.1.10 installation on Linux . In this post I am going to cover software media that you must download to install Siebel CRM 8.1.1.10 Software for Siebel CRM can be downloaded from eDelivery

This is a content summary only. Visit my website http://onlineAppsDBA.com for full links, other content, and more!

Categories: APPS Blogs

June 2013 Critical Patch Update for Java SE Released

Oracle Security Team - Tue, 2013-06-18 13:51

Hello, this is Eric Maurice again.

Oracle today released the June 2013 Critical Patch Update for Java SE. This Critical Patch Update provides 40 new security fixes. 37 of these vulnerabilities are remotely exploitable without authentication.

34 of the fixes brought with this Critical Patch Update address vulnerabilities that only affect client deployments. The highest CVSS Base Score for these client-only fixes is 10.0.

4 of the vulnerabilities fixed in this Critical Patch Update can affect client and server deployments. The most severe of these vulnerabilities has received a CVSS Base Score of 7.5.

One of the vulnerabilities fixed in this Critical patch Update affects the Java installer and can only be exploited locally.

Finally, one of the fixes included in this Critical Patch Update affects the Javadoc tool and the documents it creates. Some HTML pages that were created by any 1.5 or later versions of the Javadoc tool are vulnerable to frame injection. This means that this vulnerability (CVE-2013-1571, also known as CERT/CC VU#225657) can only be exploited through Javadoc-generated HTML files hosted on a web server. If exploited, this vulnerability can result in granting a malicious attacker the ability to inject frames into a vulnerable web page, thus allowing the attacker to direct unsuspecting users to malicious web pages through their web browsers. This vulnerability has received a CVSS Base Score of 4.3. With the release of this Critical Patch Update, Oracle has fixed the Javadoc tool so that it doesn’t produce vulnerable pages anymore, and additionally produced a utility, the “Java API Documentation Updater Tool,” to fix previously produced (and vulnerable) HTML files. More information about this vulnerability is available on the CERT/CC web site at http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/225657.

Oracle recommends that this Critical Patch Update be applied as soon as possible because it includes fixes for a number of severe vulnerabilities. Note that the vulnerabilities fixed in this Critical Patch Update affect various components and, as a result, may not affect the security posture of all Java users in the same way.

Desktop users can leverage the Java Autoupdate or visit Java.com to ensure that they are running the most recent version. As a reminder, security fixes delivered through the Critical Patch Update for Java SE are cumulative: in other words, running the most recent version of Java provides users with the protection resulting from all previously-released security fixes.

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For More Information:

The Advisory for the June 2013 Critical Patch Update for Java is located at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/javacpujun2013-1899847.html

More information about the Javadoc tool is available at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/documentation/index-jsp-135444.html

Fine Grained Access Control with DBMS_RLS using UPDATE_CHECK=>true

The Oracle Instructor - Tue, 2013-06-18 13:09

Fine Grained Access Control aka Virtual Private Database (VPD) has been there since Oracle 8 and got enhanced in each subsequent version. One minor New Feature of 11.2 was the addition of the parameter UPDATE_CHECK to the DBMS_RLS.ADD_POLICY procedure. During the OCM Preparation Workshop that I deliver presently, one of the attendees asked me what this parameter is actually doing – the doc is not so clear about it – which is why I came up with this simplified example. Hope you find it useful also

SQL> grant dba to adam identified by adam;

Grant succeeded.

SQL> connect adam/adam
Connected.
SQL> create table emp (ename varchar2(5),salary number);

Table created.

SQL> insert into emp values ('SCOTT',3000);

1 row created.

SQL> insert into emp values ('KING',9000);

1 row created.

SQL> commit;

Commit complete.

SQL> grant create session to scott identified by tiger;

Grant succeeded.

SQL> grant select,update on adam.emp to scott;

Grant succeeded.

The user SCOTT is not supposed to see the salary of the other employees and VPD is an elegant way to achieve that. The following technique will silently attach a WHERE-condition to statements hitting the table emp:

SQL> connect adam/adam
Connected.
SQL> create or replace function whoisit(schema varchar2, tab varchar2) return varchar2 
as
begin 
return '''' || sys_context('userenv','session_user') || ''' = ename ';     
end; 
/    

Function created.

SQL> begin
 dbms_rls.add_policy
  (object_schema=>'ADAM',
   object_name=>'EMP',
   policy_name=>'EMP_POLICY',
   function_schema=>'ADAM',
   policy_function=>'WHOISIT',
   update_check=>true);
end;
/    

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> connect scott/tiger
Connected.
SQL> select * from adam.emp;

ENAME	  SALARY
----- ----------
SCOTT	    3000

Although there are two rows in the table, SCOTT sees only his own salary! So far, this has been the same in earlier versions already. Now to the effect of update_check:

SQL> update adam.emp set ename='KING';
update adam.emp set ename='KING'
            *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-28115: policy with check option violation

Without that parameter setting, the update would succeed – and the row would vanish for the user SCOTT as if the update would have deleted the row. Imagine the confusion of the user about that weird behavior

Talking about weird, by the way:

SQL> connect adam/adam
Connected.
SQL> select * from adam.emp;

no rows selected

SQL> connect / as sysdba
Connected.
SQL> select * from adam.emp;

ENAME	  SALARY
----- ----------
SCOTT	    3000
KING	    9000

SQL> grant exempt access policy to adam;

Grant succeeded.

SQL> connect adam/adam
Connected.
SQL> select * from adam.emp;

ENAME	  SALARY
----- ----------
SCOTT	    3000
KING	    9000

That was funny, wasn’t it?

Conclusion: The new parameter UPDATE_CHECK in the DBMS_RLS.ADD_POLICY procedure restricts updates that would else lead to the updated rows to fall out of the allowed visibility for that user. Check out the old behavior by just omitting that parameter. Because: Don’t believe it, test it

Tagged: 11g New Features, DBMS_RLS, fine grained access control, security, vpd

Categories: DBA Blogs

Explaining configuration files in Fedlet…. contd…

Online Apps DBA - Tue, 2013-06-18 12:28

This is in continuation of my previous post. idp.xml: This is the Identity provider metadata file. Don’t modify this file while placing it in fedlet configuration directory. idp-extended.xml: This file is generated by Fedlet by default. Copy the entityID from idp.xml to idp-extended.xml. fedlet.cot: This is the circle of trust file. This signifies what all [...]

This is a content summary only. Visit my website http://onlineAppsDBA.com for full links, other content, and more!

Categories: APPS Blogs

Oracle ODBC hello world with powershell

Laurent Schneider - Tue, 2013-06-18 06:44

Demo :


cmd /c "odbcconf.exe /a {configdsn ""Oracle in OraClient11g_home1"" ""DSN=helloworld|SERVER=DB01""}"

Create a helloworld data source connecting to your DB01 tns alias in your OraClient11g_home1 Oracle Home.

It is easy to get the Oracle Home key with


Get-itemproperty HKLM:\SOFTWARE\ORACLE\*| Select-Object ORACLE_HOME,ORACLE_HOME_KEY

ORACLE_HOME                                       ORACLE_HOME_KEY
-----------                                       ---------------
C:\oracle\product\11.1.0\client_1                 SOFTWARE\ORACLE\KEY_OraClient11g_home1
C:\oracle\product\11.2.0\client_1                 SOFTWARE\ORACLE\KEY_OraClient11g_home2

Then we create the connection (as we did in ADO or ODP) :


$conn = New-Object Data.Odbc.OdbcConnection
$conn.ConnectionString= "dsn=helloworld;uid=scott;pwd=tiger;"
$conn.open()
(new-Object Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand("select 'Hello World' from dual",$conn)).ExecuteScalar()
$conn.close()

Delphix

Jonathan Lewis - Tue, 2013-06-18 05:23

If you’ve been keeping an eye on my Public Appearances page you’ll know that I am scheduled to go on line with Kyle Hailey for a second (more technical) discussion about Delphix and virtual databases on 19th June (tomorrow). If you haven’t registered, there’s still time to do so. It’s scheduled for 5:00 pm (BST), which makes it 9:00 am in San Francisco.

For an idea of the points we’ll cover, here’s a link with a draft agenda that Kyle Hailey has posted.

Update 1: Delphix have got 10 copies of Oracle Core to give away and they’ve decide to give one to every 10th registrant (until stocks run out) for the webinar.

Update 2: Over the last few days Kyle Hailey has been writing a short series comparing the commonest technologies currently available for Virtual Databases (or “Thin cloning”):

Support may help cloud offices thrive

Chris Foot - Tue, 2013-06-18 04:42

Cloud computing technologies stand to have a major impact on organizations in every industry. With the help of these solutions, companies may be able to slash costs while boosting efficiency, and for this reason, it's no wonder that IT experts have positioned the cloud as the next big thing for offices everywhere. However, some new research shows that many businesses still haven't transitioned. With the help of remote database experts, taking full advantage of these emerging systems is possible.

A slow ascent
According to technology research firm Gartner, there are approximately 50 million enterprise users of cloud office systems today, and while this may seem like a significant number, it represents a mere 8 percent of the overall market for these tools. Tom Austin, vice president and Gartner Fellow, explained that even though there has already been a large amount of hype surrounding the cloud, the real revolution is yet to occur. In his estimation, more companies will begin to adopt cloud office systems by the end of 2013 and by 2020, 60 percent of business people will be using such technologies.

"Although it is still early in the overall evolution of this cloud-based segment, there are many cases where businesses – particularly smaller ones and those in the retail, hospitality and manufacturing industries – should move at least some users to cloud office systems during the next two years," said Austin. "However, readiness varies by service provider, and caution is warranted."

While there are certain security concerns businesses must take into account, one major benefit of well-implemented cloud computing systems is cost savings. Webroot noted that these solutions help cut costs in several ways, including reducing companies' power bills. Because the cloud uses less electricity than legacy technologies, vendors are able to charge less money to keep them up and running. Additionally, firms that take advantage of offsite cloud tools have lower requirements for in-house IT staff.

Even though organizations do not necessarily need to keep a large number of IT employees on-site to support cloud office systems, they still need expert support. With the help of remote database services, enterprises can make a smooth transition to the cloud, leveraging all the advantages inherent to these emerging technologies.

RDX offers a full suite of cloud migration and administrative services that can be tailored to meet any customer's needs. To learn more our full suite of cloud migration and support services, please visit our Cloud DBA Service page or contact us.

Ruby Tuesday

Paul Gallagher - Tue, 2013-06-18 03:39

(blogarhythm ~ Ruby - Kaiser Chiefs)
@a_matsuda convinced us to dive into Ruby 2.0 at RedDotRubyConf, so I guess this must be the perfect day of the week for it!

Ruby 2.0.0 is currently at p195, and we heard at the conference how stable and compatible it is.

One change we learned that may catch us if we do much multilingual work that's not already unicode is the change that Ruby now assumes UTF-8 encoding for source files. So the special "encoding: utf-8" marker becomes redundant, but if we don't include it the behaviour in 2.0.0 can differ from earlier versions:

$ cat encoding_binary.rb 
s = "\xE3\x81\x82"
p str: s, size: s.size
$ ruby -v encoding_binary.rb 
ruby 2.0.0p195 (2013-05-14 revision 40734) [x86_64-darwin11.4.2]
{:str=>"あ", :size=>1}
$ ruby -v encoding_binary.rb 
ruby 1.9.3p429 (2013-05-15 revision 40747) [x86_64-darwin11.4.2]
{:str=>"\xE3\x81\x82", :size=>3}

Quickstart on MacOSX with RVMI use rvm to help manage various Ruby installs on my Mac, and trying out new releases is exactly the time you want it's assistance to prevent screwing up your machine. There were only two main things I needed to take care of to get Ruby 2 installed and running smoothly:

Update rvm so it knows about the latest Ruby releases
Update my OpenSSL installation (it seems 1.0.1e is required although I haven't found that specifically documented anywhere)

Here's a rundown of the procedure I used in case it helps (note, I am running MacOSX 10.7.5 with Xcode 4.6.2). First I updated rvm and attempted to install 2.0.0:

$ rvm get stable
# => updated ok
$ rvm install ruby-2.0.0
Searching for binary rubies, this might take some time.
No binary rubies available for: osx/10.7/x86_64/ruby-2.0.0-p195.
Continuing with compilation. Please read 'rvm mount' to get more information on binary rubies.
Installing requirements for osx, might require sudo password.
-bash: /usr/local/Cellar/openssl/1.0.1e/bin/openssl: No such file or directory
Updating certificates in ''.
mkdir: : No such file or directory
Password:
mkdir: : No such file or directory
Can not create directory '' for certificates.

Not good!!! What's all that about? Turns out to be just a very clumsy way of telling me I don't have OpenSSL 1.0.1e installed.

I already have OpenSSL 1.0.1c installed using brew (so it doesn't mess with the MacOSX system-installed OpenSSL), so updating is simply:

$ brew upgrade openssl
==> Summary
 /usr/local/Cellar/openssl/1.0.1e: 429 files, 15M, built in 5.0 minutes

So then I can try the Ruby 2 install again, starting with the "rvm requirements" command to first make sure all pre-requisites are installed:

$ rvm requirements
Installing requirements for osx, might require sudo password.
[...]
Tapped 41 formula
Installing required packages: apple-gcc42.................
Updating certificates in '/usr/local/etc/openssl/cert.pem'.
$ rvm install ruby-2.0.0
Searching for binary rubies, this might take some time.
No binary rubies available for: osx/10.7/x86_64/ruby-2.0.0-p195.
Continuing with compilation. Please read 'rvm mount' to get more information on binary rubies.
Installing requirements for osx, might require sudo password.
Certificates in '/usr/local/etc/openssl/cert.pem' already are up to date.
Installing Ruby from source to: /Users/paulgallagher/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p195, this may take a while depending on your cpu(s)
[...]
$

OK, this time it installed cleanly as I can quickly verify:

$ rvm use ruby-2.0.0
$ ruby -v
ruby 2.0.0p195 (2013-05-14 revision 40734) [x86_64-darwin11.4.2]
$ irb -r openssl
2.0.0p195 :001 > OpenSSL::VERSION
 => "1.1.0"
2.0.0p195 :002 > OpenSSL::OPENSSL_VERSION
 => "OpenSSL 1.0.1e 11 Feb 2013"