Oracle Now On Intel Mac OSX

The Oracle Instant Client has now arrived for MacOSX Intel. Although I couldn’t find any mention of it on the Oracle site, it does appear to be OSX Leopard only. So Tiger users are out of luck unfortunately. You can download the client, free of charge, here, and below you can see a successful SQLPlus connection from my OSX Terminal :-)



There is a couple of hoops to jump through to get it running, but it’s really quite straightforward. I will blog the steps required if anybody requests. Interestingly it support database from 8i onwards, which is good news for those who have legacy databases to deal with.

What this long awaited download gives us is native, direct access from our Mac applications on our Intel boxes, no need for ODBC drivers any more :-) I’m looking forward to giving it a bit of a workout, unfortunately I have some Windows C# programming and a couple of other things to finish first :-(

"Do definite good; first of all to yourself, then to definite persons." - John Lancaster Spalding

Unix 'Man Pages' Widget

It’s not always easy to remember the parameters and format of each Unix command, especially when you don’t often need to use them. Each Unix system is documented by ‘Man Pages’, each page representing the complete details for a single Unix command. I’ve found a freely available Dashboard Widget that installs on your Mac and gives you the necessary information within seconds: http://www.interdimensionmedia.com/widgets/nixmanual/index.html
Try it, its great ☺

"Change is the process by which the future invades our lives." - Alvin Toffler

New Mac Pro :-)

It was time to invest in some new hardware. Dual core is all well and good but I was becoming increasing frustrated by a lack of Memory and CPU when attempting to run multiple VM’s, especially whilst querying large databases and running everyday applications at the same time. I decided to upgrade my main Workstation to something powerful enough to fulfill my needs for the next three years and that could be upgraded easily. I settled on one of the new Mac Pro’s with the following spec:

Two Quad Core Intel Xeon ‘Harpertown’ 2.8Ghz Processors
6 Gb RAM
500Gb 7200 SATA Primary Drive
1 Tb 7200 SATA Secondary Drive
30’‘ Apple Cinema LCD Monitor
16 x Dual Layer DVD Writer
Airport Extreme WiFi Card
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256Mb Graphics Card
Applecare Protection Plan

The immediate benefit of this specification is that I can run several Windows Virtual Machines at the same time without any performance or memory issues, this saves time and frustration as it allows me to do more simultaneously. Have a look at the screenshot, it shows a Windows XP VM (itself running an IP Camera Application) and a Windows 2003 Server VM with Oracle running at the same time as several native Mac applications including a Digital TV Application, iTunes, Mail, Firefox Etc. As you can see from the Activity Monitor and the Menu Meters at the top of the screen it manages all this without breaking a sweat.



I can see this configuration providing a significant productivity boost ☺

"Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: You don't give up." - Anne Lamott

OSX / Realbasic and Oracle

Despite the Intel Macs having been around for a couple of years of so, it seems Oracle have not yet got around to creating a native Oracle DB client for OSX on Intel. Apparently it is due ‘soon’ according to Oracle. There are a couple of work-arounds fortunately and the one that seems to be working well for me so far, is creating a Universal Binary Macintosh application running against Universal Binary ODBC Drivers from Actual.

The Oracle ODBC Drivers are $29, seem to work well and are easy to install. An advantage of using these is that your other Mac applications such as Word, Excel and Filemaker can also access Oracle through these drivers.

I’ve yet to use them for any ‘heavy duty’ work however so time will tell just how suitable they are for me.

Actual also make ODBC drivers for the other popular SQL Databases.

"Don't let the bastards grind you down." - General Joseph W Stillwell

OSX Leopard - Why Not ?

PC Magazine’s Edward Mendelson muses that “Leopard again raises the question of whether to switch from Windows to a Mac. I’ve found Vista to be a major disappointment that tends to look worse the more I use it.” Mac OS X Leopard, on the other hand, “is easier to manage and maintain and I vastly prefer OS X to Windows for Web-browsing, mail, and especially for any task that involves graphics, music, or video. Leopard performs all such tasks even better than previous versions did—and Leopard is the only OS on the planet that works effortlessly and intuitively in today’s world of networked computers and peripherals.” In fact Mendelson believes “it’s getting harder and harder to find good reasons to use anything else.”

See the full article here.

The only reason I *need* to use the Windows O/S is for certain kinds of software development. Everything else, for me personally, is better done in Mac OSX. For my software development I use Parallels or VMWare Fusion and run the Windows O/S virtualised. For me it is the perfect solution.

Apple’s computers are sexy, beautiful and a joy to use, as is OSX. When I need Windows it’s there within a window on the OSX desktop. The best of both worlds.

Even my ASP.Net based website runs within a virtualised Windows 2003 server hosted on a Mac Mini !

"Money was never a big motivation for me, except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game." - Donald Trump

Command Line FTP on OSX

I’m going to describe the usage of the ‘ftp’ command under Unix on the Mac. Most people at some point need the use of the ftp protocol, even if they are just uploading new content to their home page. A GUI ftp client does not come with Mac but there are a few available, although most are not free.

Besides, why clutter your OS with another utility program when everything you need is available within the Terminal window and the bash shell ? You will probably also find it is quicker than most GUI solutions when you have learnt the few basic commands needed.

For this example we will assume that you wish to transfer a document invoice666.pdf to the ftp site ftp.steve.org

Start your Terminal, and at the prompt type:

ftp ftp.steve.org

You will see a response similar to this:

Connected to ftp.steve.org.
220 SJC_BIGR5 FTP server ready
Name (ftp.steve.org:stevecholerton):

Enter your logon name and press enter, you will see something similar to this:

331 Password required for bilbobaggins.
Password:

Enter your password and press enter. You will see something similar to this:

230 User bilbobaggins logged in.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp>

You now need to copy your file to the server. Note that you may change directories in the normal manner using the chdir command. To copy your file enter the following:

put invoice666.pdf

You will see a response similar to this:

local: invoice666.pdf remote: invoice666.pdf
229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||1670|)
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for invoice666.pdf
100% |*********************************************| 26 0.30 KB/s 00:00
226 Transfer complete.
26 bytes sent in 00:00 (0.29 KB/s)
ftp>

Thats it. To quit the ftp program type ‘exit’ at the prompt.

If you wished to retrieve a file from the remote server you would need to use the command ‘get’ rather than ‘put’. To delete a remote file use ‘delete’. That’s all there is to it. If in doubt type a ? at the ftp prompt and all the ftp options will be listed for you. If you need further help you can type ‘man ftp’ at the command prompt ($) and the manual for the ftp command will be displayed.

"Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before." - Mae West

MacDrive 6

If you own one of the latest Intel Macs you have (almost) the best of both worlds, a Mac that dual boots into either MacOSX or Windows XP. The downside is that to have a shared area that both operating systems can read from and write to, you need to format the PC partition as FAT32. This has repercussions for size of partition, speed and security.

Alternatively, you can format your PC partition as NTFS (with all the advantages that implies) and then install a product called Macdrive6 on your NTFS partition. This will then give you access to the Mac partition from the XP partition. An excellent solution and a real killer application.

You are rapidly running out of reasons not to have a Macbook Pro ☺

Marge: Homer, is this how you pictured married life?
Homer: Yeah, pretty much, except we drove around in a van solving mysteries.