An Amusing Thing Happened On The Way In Tonight…

In my role, I’m the defacto tools librarian; I’m the guy who sucks down the latest and greatest copies of everything so that other people don’t have to. Or more accurately, I’m the guy who sticks the files up on the intranet share so that other people can look there first…

Anyway, I noticed that Oracle JDeveloper 10g is now out, so I thought I’d grab a copy from home and bring it in to work the next day. I surf on over to the Oracle site, and go to sign in. Now, I’m not sure if I had an account there or not, but I knew if I did, it would be my standard low-value username and password. Sure enough, that lets me in.

Anyway, I go to check out my account details, and I notice that they’re really old… like four years old at least. Heck, I’m two jobs on since then, and even for that job, the address was out-of-date. So I correct those details, and then I hunt around for how to change my email address.

I couldn’t.

The Oracle Technology Network doesn’t allow you to edit your email address in anyway. Obviously, it forms part of the account key. However, this now means that my primary contact details there (which are for their benefit, not mine) are wrong.

The lesson behind this? Don’t use data that can change for a purpose that shouldn’t. It’s not really a hard thing to remember, and I would have thought that the world’s premier database company would have been able to work that one out…

Anyway, I’ve got Oracle JDeveloper 10g downloading now; it’s a whopper at 249.9MB (and I thought that Eclipse was getting on the heavy side!). If I feel like it later, I’ll post an initial review.

Author: Robert Watkins

My name is Robert Watkins. I am a software developer and have been for over 20 years now. I currently work for people, but my opinions here are in no way endorsed by them (which is cool; their opinions aren’t endorsed by me either). My main professional interests are in Java development, using Agile methods, with a historical focus on building web based applications. I’m also a Mac-fan and love my iPhone, which I’m currently learning how to code for. I live and work in Brisbane, Australia, but I grew up in the Northern Territory, and still find Brisbane too cold (after 22 years here). I’m married, with two children and one cat. My politics are socialist in tendency, my religious affiliation is atheist (aka “none of the above”), my attitude is condescending and my moral standing is lying down. View all posts by Robert Watkins