Say it ain’t so: Oracle crashed, but does not clean up after its behind. It does not rollback the installation! Therefore you cannot just restart or reinstall. Great. That’s what they mean by a mature product? The JVM has been in the database since, what is it, Oracle 8i?

1) Remove JVM: ?/javavm/install/rmjvm.sql
2) Bounce the database (if you forget to bounce, you will get an ORA-00028)
3) Start dbca and install jvm (and the rest)

Driving in a traffic jam is a breeze with the automatic gearbox (which is not so common in the Netherlands), and I can even switch to semi-automatic so I need to change gear by moving the stick to + or to -, or by using the flippers on my steering wheel just like in a race car. When driving semi-automatic, I prefer the flippers.

The car came with Blue&Me, a voicecontrolled carkit. I’ve heard stories of voicecontrolled carkits in other carbrands and the stories were not happy stories. So I was a bit afraid I would have the same experience. But without any glitch I coupled my private and my business phone (you can register several users) and both of them work flawlessly. The voicecontrol is brilliant, and works when talking loud or soft of even when you’re mumbling a bit. Compliments to Fiat for such a good system.

1) rename/delete ${ORACLE_HOME}/database/PWD{ORACLE_SID}.ora
2) enter the command: orapwd file=${ORACLE_HOME}/database/PWD{ORACLE_SID}.ora password=newpassword
3) start “sqlplus /nolog”
4) login with sys and the newpassword (SQL> connect sys/newpassword as sysdba)
5) now reset other passwords or just be done

Thanks to this post I was able get Oracle to install properly, basically because the list of prerequisite packages in Oracle’s installation guide is to short. This list (at least on CentOS 5.4) should do the trick:

binutils-2.17.50.0.6-2.el5
compat-gcc-34-3.4.6-4
compat-gcc-34-c++-3.4.6-4
compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-61
compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-61(i386)
control-center-2.16.0-14.el5
gcc-4.1.1-52.el5
gcc-c++-4.1.1-52.el5
gdbm-1.8.0-26.2.1
glibc-2.5-12
glibc-common-2.5-12
glibc-devel-2.5-12
glibc-devel-2.5-12(i386)
libgcc-4.1.1-52.el5(i386)
libgcc-4.1.1-52.el5(x86_64)
libgnome-2.16.0-6.el5
libstdc++-devel-3.4.3-22.1
libXp-1.0.0-8.i386
libXp-1.0.0-8.x64
make-3.81-1.1
sysstat-7.0.0-3.el5.x86_64.rpm
util-linux-2.13-0.44.e15.x86_64

You don’t need the exact versions. Just do a “yum install compat-gcc-34″ for instance, and if the installed version is higher, you’re safe.

HTC sues Apple to block iPad, iPod and iPhone in the US

HTC is the second company to sue Apple, following Nokia who claims that Apple infringes some of Nokia’s patents in their iPad.

Here’s some (free) software I would like to recommend to you.

1) K-9 Mail. This is how a mailclient should work.

2) Dolphin Browser. The best browser. Period. Forget Opera Mini. Don’t even think about Fennec. Install Dolphin and be happy. It has tabs and gestures. It knows RSS. It has theme-support (but there are none yet). It can switch User Agent to fool those braindead IE-only websites. And most of all: its cache is stored on SD (configurable, but why would anyone not want that?).

3) Jorte. Great calendar app. Has widget support.

4) Air Horn. Just for fun. Download and annoy the others!

I also have paid software. One is Navigon (navigation software). The other is PDANet to tether to my laptop. I could have choosen for the non-paid version, but that doesn’t support secure-connections, so I paid for it.

What I don’t like about Android, is that silent-mode also disables the vibration-mode. You have to enable it by hand. How annoying. Other than that it nothing but gooooood! Buy Android, forget about the rest. No, you don’t need Outlook.