Fahd Ayoubi

Real Application Testing - Database Replay

2011-09-30T16:14:00.002-05:00

Applies to:
Oracle Server - Enterprise Edition - Version: 10.1.0.2 and later [Release: 10.1 and later ]

Goal
To give a basic introduction to workload capture and replay

Solution
What is the workload capture/replay utility

Prior to 11G it was extremely difficult to test what effects any upgrades may have on workloads without great expense. Customers want to
see some confidence in any changes they may make to configuration before they go ahead an go production on any new implementations.
Some keys changes which would typically require proper testing are:-

o Hardware/Software Upgrades
o Implementation of new features

Using this new utility it is easy to confidentally predict the outcome of any changes on a given workload. Typically what would happenis that a typical workload (for instance a period of OLTP activity or a batch job) will be recorded with the 'capture' utility and then passed to a copy of the instance which has been upgraded and the workload replayed. Using existing features like AWR it is then easy to compare
the effect of any changes which have been made and then put into place corrective actions should that be required.

The workload capture/replay utility works by us being able to record the workload in the RDBMS and then replaying that workload by havingclients (WRC processes) consume the recorded information and replaying that to the RDBMS, so the replay is actually controlled from outside the database rather then inside it.

Before you begin

1) The Real Application Testing Option must be installed
2) The package dbms_workload_capture must be present and valid (created by dbmswrr.sql as part of the install)

Restrictions

The following will not be captured during a workload capture :-

o Direct path load of external files
o Shared Server requests
o Streams
o Advanced Replication streams
o Non PL/SQL AQ
o Flashback queries
o OCI based object navigations
o Non SQL based object access
o Distributed transactions
o Remote describe/commit operations

Steps:

Programmatic Method:

-Thanks

Resume OATM migration after errors

2010-04-01T10:37:00.001-05:00

Resume OATM migration after errors
OATM migration process details are stored in a table FND_TS_MIG_CMDS. This is the structure of the table:

SQL> desc fnd_ts_mig_cmds
Name Null? Type
----------------------------------------- -------- ----------------------------
LINENO NOT NULL NUMBER
SUBOBJECT_TYPE VARCHAR2(30)
START_DATE DATE
OWNER NOT NULL VARCHAR2(30)
OBJECT_TYPE VARCHAR2(30)
OBJECT_NAME VARCHAR2(80)
OLD_TABLESPACE VARCHAR2(30)
NEW_TABLESPACE VARCHAR2(30)
MIGRATION_CMD VARCHAR2(4000)
MIGRATION_STATUS VARCHAR2(30)
ERROR_TEXT VARCHAR2(4000)
LAST_UPDATE_DATE DATE
GENERATION_DATE DATE
END_DATE DATE
TOTAL_BLOCKS NUMBER(15)
INDEX_PARALLEL VARCHAR2(10)
PARENT_OBJECT_NAME VARCHAR2(30)
PARENT_LINENO NUMBER
EXECUTION_MODE VARCHAR2(1)
PARTITIONED VARCHAR2(3)
PARENT_OWNER VARCHAR2(30)

The MIGRATION_STATUS column stores the status of the object to be migrated. The valid values for MIGRATION_STATUS column are:

GENERATED: Migration command has been generated but not executed.
SUCCESS : Migration successfully completed.
ERROR : Migration errored out

You can check the details of error by querying the ERROR_TEXT column of the table.

To resume an OATM migration, you need to do the steps described in metalink note 369198.1:
1. Stop all services except the Database

2. Bounce DB to be sure locks are released

3. Restart migration with next steps :

3.1. Make sure OATM migration is stopped , running the following at the OS level :

ps -ef | grep fndtsmig

3.2. Stop the migration queue, running from sqlplus as the apps user :

exec dbms_aqadm.stop_queue('SYSTEM.TBLMIG_MESSAGEQUE');

3.3. Restart the OATM migration one more time :

perl fndtsmig.pl

You should also check Metalink Note 463271.1:

) Run the 'Migration Error Report' and correct the errors that cause the migration to fail.

2) Make sure that queue 'TBLMIG_MESSAGEQUE' is started

select NAME, ENQUEUE_ENABLED, DEQUEUE_ENABLED
from dba_queues
where owner ='SYSTEM'
and name = 'TBLMIG_MESSAGEQUE' ;
In case the queue is not started, run from sqlplus as the system user:

exec dbms_aqadm.start_queue('SYSTEM.TBLMIG_MESSAGEQUE');

3) Run the migration command again and the migration utility will try to move the objects which are still in the old tablespaces

About time to take Action !

2010-01-20T11:22:00.003-06:00

These kind of articles never see the light the coverage they need.
We ll wait and see if any Arabic News Network will cover this to possibly launch an investigation of Human Trafficking:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8468324.stm

Intersting Perspective on Cloud Computing

2009-04-10T14:29:00.000-05:00

Inside Oracle cloud Computing
Oracle Tips by Burleson Consulting

Cloud computing has been touted as a radical “paradigm shift”, where IT power is delivered to an application over the internet as you need it, rather than drawn from a centralized server.

What they don’t want you to know is that cloud computing is a new name for a feature that’s almost half a century old! Back in the olden-days of data processing, customers rented all of the resources they needed, software, disk, CPU and RAM, all under the umbrella of a MVS mainframe, and they were billed according to their actual usage.
Oracle cloud computing in plain English

These cloud computing announcements in the media are complete nonsense, and the idea of “cloud computing” is nothing new. Back in the 1980’s, companies regularly rented usage of mainframe computers to third parties, and the mechanisms for apportioning shared computing resources have been around for almost half a century.

Because computing resources depreciate regardless of use, part of the job of a data processing manager in the 1970’s was ensuring that their multi-million dollar mainframe was kept as busy as possible. Lost cycle meant lost revenues, and it was common for other companies to purchase computing cycles as-needed, just like today’s cloud computing.

Things have not changed. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said, "When people talk about cloud computing, they're talking just about taking some stuff, putting it outside the firewall, and perhaps putting it on servers that are also shared or storage systems."

Since the 1970’s, “cloud computing” has been known by a host of other names, including server sharing, client-server computing, ASP and “software as a service”. But just because cloud computing is an old idea does not mean that it does not make sense. In fact, Larry Ellison was a pioneer in personal cloud computing, back in the 1990’s.

Every cloud has silver lining

For personal applications, Larry Ellison pioneered this idea many years ahead if it’s time when he introduced an “Internet Appliance” back in the 1990’s. Ellison’s vision was that the PC of the future was nothing more than a Java-enabled web browser and that all of the disk, CPU and RAM were somewhere in cyberspace where it could be easily managed and controlled. Nothing wrong with that, cloud computing makes sense for non-confidential, non-critical data.

Back in the 1970’s we called these “dumb terminals”, the tried-and-true 3270’s.
Imagine the world of personal cloud computing. Your “PC” needs nothing but a browser, no software installations, no blue screens of death, just instant access to spreadsheets and documents, all managed and controlled in the cloud. That’s “real” cloud computing. It’ amazing that these large companies believe that cloud computing will ever be adopted for sensitive or mission-critical data.

However, personal cloud computing is not the nonsense that we are seeing from Google, Microsoft and Amazon with their bizarre “cloud computing” initiatives. While web 2.0 has people storing photographs and personal e-mail and Word documents on web servers, it’s a giant leap into insanity for corporations to move their mission-critical data into the wild world of cyberspace.
Clouding the waters
At Oracle OpenWorld 2008, Larry Ellison called these cloud computing initiatives "fashion-driven" and "complete gibberish". However, Oracle also announced that customers could run some Oracle products within Amazon's cloud platform, and there are also rumors that Oracle and Intel are working on a cloud computing initiative. I expect that if such an initiative were announced by Oracle it would not embrace moving corporate data out of house. Oracle tried this approach with their ASP offerings years ago, and customers did not want to lose physical control over their data.
Will the major vendors learn from their ASP fiascos? Evidently not. IBM is building a giant cloud computing center in China and Oracle is currently constructing a 200,000-square-foot data center in West Jordan Utah.
You don’t have to be a psychic to see that this is a very chancy gamble, especially since many of Oracle’s best customers are data-driven companies whose existence depends on their ability to manage their own information.

Keeping your head in the clouds
As someone who has been a database administrator for more than 25 years, I have found that it is absolutely imperative that a corporation keep all of their applications in-house, and it’s insanity to use cloud computing until such time as the Internet becomes completely secure (that would be “never”).
Let’s consider the rationale behind cloud computing:
Cloud computing means more efficient resource usage – While cloud computing delivers processing power on-demand, we forget that disk has become so cheap that it’s a commodity. And don’t forget that an industrial-strength server can now be had for under $10k.

Cloud computing means better management and control – While it may be true that web-based cloud server environments may use IT best practices, there is no guarantee, and today’s mirrored disk environments make the possibility of losing data very small.

Cloud computing saves you money - While it true that you can "rent" a Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Application Server for short durations, it remains to be seen if these saving will be meaningful to large shops.
Corporations aside, Google, Microsoft and Amazon are pushing forward their plans to deliver information and software over the net. This makes sense from a vendor’s perspective since they have complete control over licensing. It’s estimated that software companies lose ten of billions of dollars a year in lost software licensing revenues, so cloud computing makes sense for them, but NOT for their customers.
At the end of the day, Oracle cloud computing will be as quickly forgotten as the Oracle8 Oracle Universal Server, just another marketing concept gone mad. Until then, it will be fun to watch cloud computing emerge as the de-facto standard for personal computing.

10 reasons for Poor Oracle Performance

2009-02-04T16:15:00.001-06:00

I thought the following article was very interesting...

Burleson does a great job in the following article...

Burleson Lists 10 reasons for Poor Oracle Performance.

Again, thanks for reading.

Mideast Conflict Rules

2009-01-21T13:03:00.002-06:00

Here are the rules that everyone should be aware of when watching the news coverage of any middle east conflict. If you know these rules, everything becomes simple:

Rules number 1: In the middle east it is allways Arabs who attack first, and it is always Israel who defends itself.

Rule number 2: Arabes, Palestiniens or Libanese dont have the right to kill civilians. This is called terrorism.

Rule number 3: Israel has the right to kill arab civilians. This is called legitimate self defense.

Rule number 4: When Isreal kills lots of civilans, Western countries call for israel to be cautious and apply restraint in using force. This is called the reaction of the international community

Rule number 5: The Palestinians and Libanese dont have the right to
capture israelien soldiers even if it is a simgle soldier.

Rule number 6: The israelis have the right to kidnap any number of
Palestiniens they want (around 12,000 prisonners to this day).
There is no limit on the number they can capture, and no charges have to be pressed. You just have to claim they are terrorists.

Rule number 7: When you say the word Resistance, make sure you follow it by "with the suport of syria and iran"

Rule number 8: When you say Israel, you should never mention the unconditional support of the US, France or Europe, this may reflect an unbalanced conflict.

Rule number 9: Never talk about occupied territoriesnor UN resolutions nor violation of international law, and geneva conventions. This may raise questions in the mind of viewers.

Rule number 10: Israelis are more educated than arabs, they speak better and therefore they get more airtime. In addition, they can explain rules 1-9 to us. This is called being neutral.

Rule number 11: If you do not agree with these rules or think they favor one party vs the other in this conflict, then you should come to the conclusion that you are a dangerous antisemite.

Creating Java Stored Procedures

2009-01-21T12:55:00.000-06:00

CREATING JAVA STORED PROCEDURES

Introduction: Java Stored Procedures enable a programmer to load a java class into the Database directly and use it in any PL/SQL code or even call it from SQL*Plus. This is particulary helpful when you wish to do something which is not achievable using PL/SQL and especially OS related functions. Examples include calling a Host command from PL/SQL or using Java mail to email alerts etc and many more . Please note that Java is not preferred if you are doing Database related stuff like DML etc. PL/SQL handles it better as it is tightly integrated with the Oracle 8i databse server.

1) Have a java program ready. This should have no errors. If you don't have one you can use the ones attached below. FTP the *.java file to whatever directory you wish to.

2) cd to that directory and at the unix prompt type in the following loadjava -r -f -o -user apps/apps runOscmd.java. After you hit enter, if there are no errors the control returns to the unix prompt.

3) Login into SQL*Plus as apps execute runOscmd_wrapper.sql. This creates a wrapper PL/SQL function on the Java class.

4) Then set the server output and the java output on by doing the following:
SQL> set serveroutput on size 5000
SQL> call dbms_java.set_output(5000);
5) Then do a select host('date') from dual;

Also, remember that there are other ways to load a java program into the database. You can compile the java program on your pc and then load the .class file using the loadjava utility or using the
CREATE syntax.

Script attachments:

Backup Corruptions - DBV

2008-11-14T15:46:00.002-06:00

While getting a copy of a production DB to a test/dev box, you will need to rename the DB.
Obviously you will run something like the following:

RECOVER AUTOMATIC DATABASE USING BACKUP CONTROLFILE UNTIL CANCEL
ORA-00283: recovery session canceled due to errors
ORA-01115: IO error reading block from file 248 (block # 358418)
ORA-01110: data file 248: '/u03/oracledbf/dbsidnum/datafe12.dbf'
ORA-27063: skgfospo: number of bytes read/written is incorrect
SVR4 Error: 5: I/O error
Additional information: -1
Additional information: 8192

This hints to a Corruption... you can verify that using the following:
$ dbv file=/u03/oracledbf/dbsidnum/datafe12.dbf logfile=datasm_dbv.log feedback=100

If clean output would look like the following:
DBVERIFY - Verification complete

Total Pages Examined : 108800
Total Pages Processed (Data) : 79168
Total Pages Failing (Data) : 0
Total Pages Processed (Index): 24
Total Pages Failing (Index): 0
Total Pages Processed (Other): 11894
Total Pages Processed (Seg) : 0
Total Pages Failing (Seg) : 0
Total Pages Empty : 17714
Total Pages Marked Corrupt : 0 <<<--------------------
Total Pages Influx : 0
Highest block SCN : 474949797 (2250.474949797)

No ma'am he is a decent man not an arab !!!

2008-10-29T15:00:00.003-05:00

Finally someone raises a flag. Does it always have to be in humor though !!!

Taxes !!!

2008-10-24T11:21:00.002-05:00

I thought this piece was very interesting...
This is the kind of stuff that make economics so intreeging .
I thought I d Share this with everyone !

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.
'Since you are all such good customers,' he said,
'I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.'
Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected.
They would still drink for free.
But what about the other six men - the paying customers?
How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33..
But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.
So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%! savings) .
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before.
And the first four continued to drink for free.
But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

'I only got a dollar out of the $20,'declared the sixth man.
He pointed to the tenth man,' but he got $10!'
'Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man.
'I only saved a dollar, too.
It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!'
'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man.
'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two?
The wealthy get all the breaks!'

'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison.
'We didn't get anything at all.
The system exploits the poor!'

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him.
But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important.
They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works.
The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction.
Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore.
In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia

Oracle Concurrent Manager

2008-08-21T11:12:00.002-05:00

Background: Concurrent programs may be incompatible with other programs which means they cannot execute at the same time. If the stuck concurrent request has such rules defined, then programs it is incompatible with will not run until the problem is solved.

There are 2 ways to do this, update the table manually or run the Oracle provided cmclean.sql script. Depending on the method you choose, you'll need the request id.
Read the Article...

4 wks in Morocco - Summary

2008-08-20T15:17:00.007-05:00

If you want Peace, Work for Justice

I have been meaning to keep a daily if not a weekly blog on things in Morocco as my 3 and 1/2 weeks progressed in various cities of the country. Unfortunately, it is very easy to get sucked in the hectic lifestyle.
If I could summarize my trip to Morocco in 1 word, I would say: Progress.

One thing is clear as you get off the plane and take the first ride in Casablanca, there are signs of progress everywhere. Highway exits and ramps clearly wow you the first time. First here are the places where I actually spent sometime: Casablanca, Tetouan, El Jadida, Marrakech.
Most Impressive: Tanger Med Port work and progress, Highway through Tetouan, Highway to Marrakech, M'diq
Least Impressive:
Most Disappointing: PEOPLE

While the trip was highlited with fun moments with friends and memorable times with family, you could not help but notice some nuances and things that just did not feel right.
While economies across the world continue to hurt and consumer spending continue to plunge - including in the united states. Morocco does not seem to be affected. In fact, the country's economy is probably at its best shape.
This is great news !! But for whom ? Not to take a pessimistic view, but most of the major projects taking place do not seem to benefit the poor and underprivileged in anyway.
From a personal standpoint, this is disturbing.

Projects to uphaul infrastructures, ports, ground and air networks are without a doubt at the forefront of government priorities. In this aspect, I applaud the authorities responsible.

I met these south americans once in a private beach in Casablanca. After hours of discussion, one of them could not help but ask: "Where are all the women ?" - I simply answered: "It's Tuesday, everyone is at work".
It seems the government has given women many rights but failed to educated society to respect these rights. In fact most Moroccans are still at dismay that women can now file for divorce. So the outcome: Divorce rates are off the roof and prostitution is ever present.

The Human element in Morocco is broken and will not likely be fixed in the next few yeard. I fear that the work taking place to fix the country's economy will be gone in vain, given the ignorant and uneducated (and now unethical) population.
"Le development Humain" is not working !!!
So what s the solution ?
a Rigid yet Just Judgement. The Justice system is key to any development in Morocco.

If you want Peace, Work for Justice

Google Programming Contest

2008-06-24T14:09:00.000-05:00

http://code.google.com/codejam

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - June 17, 2008 - Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that registration is now open for Google Code Jam 2008. Programmers ready to use their coding skills, creativity, and ingenuity to solve a series of challenges can register at http://code.google.com/codejam. The top 500 contestants will win an all expenses paid trip to the semifinals at regional Google offices, with the top 100 advancing to the grand final at Google’s Mountain View headquarters.

“Google Code Jam is an incredible opportunity for the most talented computer scientists in the world to come together and compete on an international stage,” said Vic Gundotra, Vice President, Engineering. “Google is proud to support these coders as they take on some of the world’s most challenging programming problems, and we’re pleased to have the chance to introduce them to our research and offices around the world.”

This year marks the first year with regional semifinal playoffs in over ten countries. “It’s an incredible opportunity to introduce the best of the programming world to our offices across the globe and demonstrate the incredible diversity of experiences that Google offers engineers worldwide,” said Nelson Mattos, Vice President, Engineering, EMEA.

This year’s Google Code Jam will be powered by tools created by a 20%-time team that includes previous Code Jam winners, and will allow contestants to program in any language.

ISU, Moroccan businessman partner on proposed international university

2008-06-06T15:07:00.001-05:00

Indiana State University has taken its eight-year-old partnership with higher education in Morocco to a new level by signing an agreement with a leading businessman and philanthropist who envisions a new International University in Morocco.

The agreement calls for Indiana State and Group Chaabi YNNA Holding to conduct an in-depth feasibility study of a not-for-profit private university mid-way between Rabat and Casablanca.

“Indiana State’s rich history of collaboration in Morocco, by virtue of the work you all have done and the caliber of programs, has garnered a sense of trust and forms the basis upon which this significant new step can be taken,” Benjamin told ISU faculty and staff during a signing ceremony Tuesday (May 27).

The project will help Indiana State continue to internationalize its campus, increase enrollment, provide more study abroad opportunities for ISU students, enhance the university’s status internationally, broaden opportunities for faculty exchanges and collaborative research, and secure additional funding through grants, contracts and gifts, Benjamin said.

Morocco jails Facebook royal imposter

2008-02-25T10:17:00.001-06:00

CNN) -- A computer engineer accused of posing as a member of the Moroccan royal family on the social networking Web site, Facebook, has been sentenced to three years in prison.

Prince Moulay Rachid, center, is pictured with Jordan's King Abdallah, left, and Morocco's King Mohammed in Marrakech in January.

A court in Casablanca imposed the sentence on Fouad Mourtada, 26, on Friday, the state news agency said.

Mourtada was charged with stealing the identity of Prince Moulay Rachid, the younger brother of the Moroccan king, and of forging computer documents.

Lawyers for Mourtada, who said he created the profile as "a joke, a gag," said they would appeal the sentence.

Since Mourtada's arrest this month, bloggers in Morocco and across Europe have rallied behind him. At least seven fake profiles for the prince popped up on Facebook.

In a Web site that his family started, www.helpfouad.com, Mourtada is quoted as saying the following to relatives who visited him in jail: "I never thought that by creating a profile of his Highness Prince Moulay Rachid I am harming him in any way.

"I, as a matter of fact, did not send any message from that account to anyone. It was just a joke, a gag. ... I am not an evil doer; my ambition in the life was simply to have a stable job and a normal life."

Facebook, like Myspace.com, is a social networking site that allows users to create personal profiles. They can then connect with one another, upload photos and share links. The Web site boasts more than 60 million active users.

There are fake profiles galore on Facebook, with dozens for U.S. President George W. Bush and a handful for Mother Teresa.

Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land

2008-02-13T17:01:00.007-06:00

See Video Blow

Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This pivotal documentary exposes how the foreign policy interests of American political elites--oil, and a need to have a secure military base in the region, among others--work in combination with Israeli public relations strategies to exercise a powerful influence over how news from the region is reported.

Through the voices of scholars, media critics, peace activists, religious figures, and Middle East experts, Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land carefully analyzes and explains how--through the use of language, framing and context--the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza remains hidden in the news media, and Israeli colonization of the occupied terrorities appears to be a defensive move rather than an offensive one. The documentary also explores the ways that U.S. journalists, for reasons ranging from intimidation to a lack of thorough investigation, have become complicit in carrying out Israel's PR campaign. At its core, the documentary raises questions about the ethics and role of journalism, and the relationship between media and politics.

Watch the Video

Half-Marathon Run - Next up : full Monty

2008-02-12T13:24:00.002-06:00

These are the tired faces of 1/2 marathon runners. At least 2 of us are dead beat. Mr Haroufi Radwane on the other hand looks as if he is warmed up for a full marathon.

After an 8-week training program, I was able to pull it off. yay for me. Goal was set to 130 mins, which puts me right at 10 mins for every mile over a 13.1 mile distance.
But I was able to do better than anticipated and pull off a 2 hr and 5 min deal !
Best part is the winner of the whole shabang turned out to be Moroccan runner straight out of New Mexico. Mr Youssef Lahlou :) also pulled it off. With a very painful blister, he has learned not to change anything about shoes the night of the race :).
So Congrats to all 5200 runners who participated in the race.
and Congrats to Mr Harroufi who managed to run the race in 1 hr and 3 mins and win the whole thing. That s 2 steps foe every step I make :)
More pictures to come soon !

Next up in the Full Marathon in 2009, probably in February.
Winner:

What a Shame !

2008-02-07T09:47:00.000-06:00

A recent World Bank reports finds that the Arab World is falling behind other regions in terms of education. And the worst performers? More...

The region had not seen the increasing literacy and school enrollment witnessed in Asia and Latin America, they said.

Djibouti, Yemen, Iraq and Morocco were ranked the worst educational reformers.

Iraq had to contend with a U.S. military invasion. What, exactly, is Morocco's excuse?

National Instruments Named Among FORTUNE's '100 Best Companies to Work For' List for Ninth Consecutive Year

2008-02-01T15:50:00.001-06:00

FORTUNE magazine yesterday released its annual ranking of the nation's top 100 companies to work for, listing Austin-based National Instruments NATI as number 79. This is the ninth consecutive year National Instruments has made FORTUNE's "100 Best Companies to Work For" list. The annual survey polls employees from companies nationwide about the quality of their corporate cultures.

"We have built a successful business with a fun, challenging work environment that is truly improving everyday life," said Dr. James Truchard, NI president, CEO and co-founder. "With a collective focus on innovation, creativity, growth and continuous improvement, NI employees are truly inspired and driven by the impact we're having throughout science and engineering. Together with our customers, we're tackling some of the world's most challenging problems such as global climate change, energy dependence and aging populations. This is what makes me look forward to coming to work every day."

While National Instruments is best known for pioneering virtual instrumentation with its LabVIEW graphical system design platform, internal programs support the company's belief that well-rounded employees foster the NI community and provide inspiration to excel. Programs such as LEGO(R) MINDSTORMS(R) mentorships and the company's internal community relations department provide employees with volunteer opportunities to help them give back to the community. The Wellness Circuit program and on-site gym encourage a healthy lifestyle, and activities such as deck parties and company-wide meetings foster camaraderie and a sense of community within the corporate environment.

"It is an honor to be selected as one of FORTUNE's 100 Best Companies to Work For for nine consecutive years," said Mark Finger, NI vice president of human resources. "A key to our successful corporate culture over so many years has been our employees' commitment to both our work culture and the communities we live in. We continue to be grateful for their passion and dedication to both."

In addition to the FORTUNE "100 Best Companies to Work For" list, National Instruments has been named one of the best places to work in Germany (Best Workplaces in Germany 2004 and 2005; Great Places to Work Institute), Hungary (Best Employers in Europe 2004; Hewitt Associates), Italy (Best Workplaces in Italy 2007 and 2008; Great Places to Work Institute) and the United Kingdom (Best Workplaces in United Kingdom 2006 and 2007; Great Places to Work Institute).

How FORTUNE Chose the 100 Best

The Great Place to Work Institute compiles the list of best employers for FORTUNE each year. This year, more than 105,000 employees from 446 companies responded to the Institute's 57-question survey. Two-thirds of a company's score is based on the survey, which is sent to a minimum of 400 randomly selected employees from each company. The remainder of the score is based on the evaluation of company responses to several questions. For more information on the FORTUNE "100 Best Companies to Work For" list, visit www.fortune.com.

Pinning Objects in Oracle

2007-12-05T18:12:00.001-06:00

For those interested in Oracle Pinning, I posted a great tip (code) on how to increase your Oracle Database throughput and performance.

Read the Article

-Thanks.

AGLOCO: The Internet's First Economic Network

2007-12-05T17:37:00.000-06:00

Today’s hottest Internet businesses are all about the power of social networks. Companies like MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube have become worth billions because businesses have realized that these social networks are generating huge advertising and marketing opportunities. As these social networks grow, the economic potential for its owners – and the advertisers who target the site’s users – is remarkable.

AGLOCO asked a simple question: The users created the community, where’s their share of the profit?

It was from this question that AGLOCO set out to create the Internet’s first Economic Network, harnessing the power of Internet-based social networks to directly benefit the Members who help to create the community.

Becoming a member of AGLOCO is as simple as completing a brief sign-up page (name, age, location and email address.). Once you’re a Member, you will be asked to then download the Viewbar™ software. (Note: the Viewbar™ software is currently unavailable, as it is in closed testing. It will be ready for public download in a few weeks, and members will be notified when it is available.)

Very Interesting Concept !

Unix at command - very nice !

2007-12-04T15:01:00.000-06:00

My Coworker sent our croup an email about a very useful command and I wanted to share it with the rest of the world.
he Unix "at" command is very useful for taking care of things that you want to run only once, but at a specific time. Its essentially just way to schedule a command (or several commands) to execute at any given time without you actually having to interactively log into a shell and run the command(s) at said time.

So supposed suppose you have this script that sqlplus as sysdba and then shutsdown your database etc...(maybe even your application tier i.e. 11i )
Script: $ORACLE_HOME/dba/scripts/shutdown.sh
So u have to take a db down at a certain time but being the dba that you are, u dont wanna have to remember, Hence th at command :).
also suppose your datase is the only db in a box called Fado.

this is how you do it:

---------------------------------------------------
[ root@fado- Wednesday, November 28, 2007 - 10:19:27 AM]
[ /home/fayoubi] at 1100
at> $ORACLE_HOME/dba/scripts/shutdown.sh stop > /tmp/fahd.txt
at> mailx -s "Fadois down." -r fayoubi@gmail.com fayoubi@gmail.com < /tmp/fahd.txt at> rm /tmp/fahd.txt
at>
commands will be executed using /bin/sh
job 1196269200.a at Wed Nov 28 11:00:00 2007
---------------------------------------------------

So in this example, I entered "at 1100" (time is in 24hour format)... this dumped me into an at> prompt. Here I entered the command(s) that I wanted to run. Once you've entered all of the commands that you want to happen, press CTRL+D to signal that you're done and it will give you a confirmation that the commands will be executed at the requested time and dump you back out into your shell. In this example, I used 3 commands to execute shutdown.sh and email me the output. First command executes shutdown.sh stop and redirects that output into /tmp/fahd.txt... second command emails me the contents of /tmp/fahd.txt (which will be the shutdown.sh output)... and finally the third command removes /tmp/fahd.txt . The "" is where I pressed CTRL+D to exit the at> prompt. The email that I received from this job can be seen at the end of this note.

Quick note: if it s allready 15:00 and you type at 13:00, the command will execute the next day !
Hope you found this very useful.
Again, thanks for reading

Swap monitoring Script

2007-11-27T14:50:00.000-06:00

The script below can be run from a crontab, It will grep the status of swap memory in a server and email it to you if the ratio of swap used exceeds 40%.
I think this is very useful !

FREE=`/usr/sbin/swap -s |awk '{print $11}'|cut -f1 -d 'k' `
USED=`/usr/sbin/swap -s |awk '{print $9}'|cut -f1 -d 'k' `
TOTAL=`expr $FREE + $USED`
LEFT=`expr $TOTAL - $USED`
RATIO=`expr $USED \* 100 / $TOTAL`
echo `date` > /tmp/swap.log
echo "Space left : $LEFT " >>/tmp/swap.log
echo "Total space : $TOTAL " >>/tmp/swap.log
echo "" >> /tmp/swap.log
echo "$RATIO% of the available swap space is utilized" >> /tmp/swap.log
echo "" >> /tmp/swap.log
ps -e -o user,pid,ppid,vsz,rss,time,comm | sort -k 4rn | head -15 >> /tmp/swap.log
echo "" >> /tmp/swap.log
/opt/freeware/bin/top >> /tmp/swap.log
#change the threshold here:
if [ $RATIO -ge 40 ]
then mailx -s "Swap issue on `hostname`" fayoubi@gmail.com < /tmp/swap.log
fi
rm /tmp/swap.log

-Thanks for reading

Le PDG de Intel en visite au Maroc

2007-10-30T10:37:00.000-05:00

Dans le cadre de sa tournée mondiale sous le thème "repousser le limites du possible", Barrett a prévu, le jeudi premier novembre de visiter le Maroc. Le président d'Intel Corporation abordera, lors de ses réunions avec les enseignants, les responsables de gouvernements et opérateurs en télécommunication, des sujets d'actualités dont figurent l'accès à haut débit, l'éducation et l'intégration d'une infrastructure numérique. Le tour que Barrett effectue à travers le monde reflète les efforts qu'il déploie, dans le cadre du programme Intel World Ahead, pour rendre la technologie disponible aux gens et reflète aussi son rôle comme directeur du groupe de travail des Nations Unies responsable des technologies d'informations.

"Intel vise à améliorer la vie des gens en régions éloignées et ce en élargissant l'accès à la technologie numérique ainsi qu'en concevant une technologie en fonction de leurs besoins locaux ; Intel vise aussi à promouvoir une connectivité critique, croître les possibilités locales
durables et fournir l'éducation requise susceptible de créer une différence significative dans leurs vies", a déclaré le directeur d'Intel en Egypte, en Orient et en Afrique du Nord, Khaled Elamrawi. "La visite de notre PDG au Maroc illustre notre engagement au développement des technologies de l'information et de communication en collaboration avec les enseignants, les responsables des gouvernements et les acteurs du marché local au Maroc", a-t-il ajouté.

Barrett se rendra aussi en visite au Nigeria et au Rwanda pour discuter des challenges de connectivité, l'accès à l'Internet et le besoin pour des programmes enrichissants d'intégration de technologie numérique. Barrett va s'entretenir avec les hommes d'affaires et les dirigeants des gouvernements afin de trouver les moyens qui seront en mesure de permettre au partenariat entre le secteur privé et le secteur public d’être utilisé efficacement dans ces régions.

En 2005, Barrett a visité le Maroc où il a fait l'éloge de la technologie de l'information et de la communication comme étant un moteur puissant de développement de l'économie. En outre, lors du Sommet Internationale de la société de l'information (WSIS) en Tunisie, Barrett, en tant que président de l'Alliance Globale pour le développement des technologies de l'information et de la communication des Nations Unis (UNCAID) a parlé de l'importance de l'intégration d'une infrastructure numérique.

The Call center

2007-10-20T22:50:00.000-05:00

This really shows the reality of customer service as of today...
Soon Morocco will be going that direction. Not sure about the gay hotline :)

http://goovideo.com/?2007/10/20/779-call-center-movie

$$$$ Problems

2007-10-18T17:48:00.000-05:00

Le dollar est-il en péril ? Première puissance économique mondiale, les États-Unis sont aussi le pays le plus endetté de la planète. Ce film enquête sur cette ardoise qui vaut aujourd'hui 8 000 milliards de dollars. «Le pays tout entier vit au-dessus de ses moyens», constate Nouriel Roubini, professeur d'économie à la New York University. Malgré une Bourse au sommet, les citoyens américains ne s'enrichissent pas. Ils multiplient les cartes de crédit, afin de consommer toujours plus. Interviewés dans ce documentaire, certains d'entre eux racontent cette vie à crédit ou expriment leur révolte face à l'absurdité du système.

The video gives a great perspective into what is happening:

http://goovideo.com/?2007/10/17/777-etats-unis-la-richesse-a-credit

Gets Even better ! LOL

2007-09-27T15:04:00.000-05:00

Funny Crap ! LOL

2007-09-27T15:01:00.000-05:00

Le Groupe Indien TATA va s'installer à CASANEARSHOREa société Tata Consultancy services (TCS) du conglomérat indien TATA, l'un des leaders mondiaux du

2007-08-28T10:33:00.000-05:00

a société Tata Consultancy services (TCS) du conglomérat indien TATA, l'un des leaders mondiaux du secteur des technologies de l'information et de l'offshoring, a signé en marge de la 4 ème édition des Intégrales de l'Investissement, une convention d'investissement avec l'Etat marocain portant sur la délocalisation de ses services. La convention qui fixe le cadre légal d'implantation du géant indien agira sur 5 volets fondamentaux:
la création d'un "delivery Center" au Maroc pour l'Europe francophone et hispanophone en développant des activités d'offshoring, l'engagement de déployer les efforts financiers et commerciaux nécessaires pour devenir un des trois leaders de l'offshoring et de la formation au Maroc, l'engagement de créer des activités de offshoring avec la création de 500 emplois directs pour les nationaux, l'engagement de contribuer à la réalisation du programme de formation dans les métiers de l'offshoring, dans le cadre du programme mis en place par le Gouvernement marocain, au profit de 25 000 personnes à l'horizon 2010, et, enfin, l'engagement de réaliser un programme de
formation de formateurs au profit de 100 personnes.

Décès de l'ancien ministre de l'interieur Driss Basri

2007-08-27T11:50:00.000-05:00

Natif de Settat, le 8 novembre 1938, l'ancien ministre de l'Intérieur avait commencé sa carrière dans la police, comme commissaire principal à la sûreté régionale de Rabat, avant de rejoindre le ministère de l'Intérieur, comme directeur des affaires générales et du personnel d'autorité.

Licencié en droit public, titulaire d'un doctorat de 3-ème cycle en 1975 et d'un doctorat d'Etat en droit public à l'université des sciences sociales de Grenoble (1987), Driss Basri avait été nommé le 12 janvier 1973 à la tête de la Direction générale de la surveillance du territoire, puis le 26 avril 1974, secrétaire d'Etat à l'Intérieur, poste qu'il avait conservé jusqu'en mars 1979.

Maroc Telecom câble la Méditerranée pour les centres d'appels

2007-08-20T10:06:00.000-05:00

Maroc Telecom, leader des télécommunications dans le Royaume et filiale à 51 % de "Vivendi", a mis en service un câble sous-marin en fibre optique reliant Asilah et Marseille en vue de satisfaire la demande croissante des centres d'appels téléphoniques, rapporte lundi le quotidien économique français "Les Echos".
Maroc Telecom câble la Méditerranée pour les centres dDans le cadre du contrat de près de 26 millions d'euros signé en juillet 2006 avec l'opérateur marocain, l'équipementier français "Alcatel-Lucent" était chargé de la conception, la fabrication, l'installation, la mise en service, l'intégration et les tests de l'ensemble du système "Atlas Offshore", rappelle le journal.

"Atlas Offshore" se propose de contribuer à développer l'interconnexion directe de "Maroc Telecom" avec les différents opérateurs européens présents à Marseille au moment où le secteur est en "plein boom sur fond de convergence de ses services fixes et mobiles", ajoute-t-il.

les Marocains sont les plus optimistes parmi les Arabes.

2007-07-27T14:28:00.000-05:00

Selon un sondage international publié récemment par le Pew Global Attitudes Project, un cercle de réflexion diplomatique basé à Washington, les Marocains sont de loin les plus optimistes parmi les Arabes. 67% des personnes interrogées au Maroc prédisaient en effet un avenir meilleur, contre seulement 13% qui s’attendaient à ce que leurs conditions empirent. Les Palestiniens demeurent pour leur part les plus pessimistes. 18% seulement d’entre eux croient que leur avenir sera meilleur.

Ainsi, et selon ce même sondage mené dans 47 pays et dont les résultats ont été diffusés récemment, l’opinion publique dans les pays les plus pauvres est significativement plus optimiste à propos de l’avenir de ses enfants, alors que l’opinion publique des pays plus développés paraît voir son avenir plutôt en gris.

Call My Email !?

2007-07-12T15:59:00.001-05:00

Startup Yoomba Thursday launched its namesake service that lets e-mailers place VOIP calls and exchange instant messages.

The year-old company positions its free, consumer-targeted service as an alternative to big portals, such as AOL, Google, Yahoo, and MSN, that offer free communications services, such as instant messaging, but only to registered users and only with other registered users, says Elad Hemar, Yoomba CEO.

In contrast, Yoomba operates a peer-to-peer service that lets any e-mail-address owner place a VOIP call or begin an IM session with any other e-mail address, whether or not the recipient also is a Yoomba user, Hemar says. Yoomba offers other features, such as presence -- letting users know who on their contact list is online -- and popularity -- resorting contact lists so those most often contacted rise to the top.

Oracle 11g is here !

2007-07-12T13:45:00.000-05:00

Oracle today introduced Oracle(r) Database 11g, the latest release of the world's most popular database. With more than 400 features, 15 million test hours, and 36,000 person-months of development, Oracle Database 11g is the most innovative and highest quality software product Oracle have ever announced.

"Oracle Database 11g, built on 30 years of design experience, delivers the next generation of enterprise information management," said Andy Mendelsohn, senior vice president of Database Server Technologies, Oracle. "More than ever, our customers are facing the challenges of, rapid data growth, increased data integration, and data connectivity IT cost pressures. Oracle Database 10g pioneered grid computing, and more than half of Oracle customers have moved to that release. Oracle Database 11g delivers the key features our customers have asked for to accelerate broad adoption and growth of Oracle grids; representing real innovation, that addresses real challenges, as told to us by real customers."

Oracle Database 11g can help organizations take control of their enterprise information, gain better business insight, and quickly and confidently adapt to an increasingly changing competitive environment. To do this, the new release extends Oracle's unique database clustering, data center automation, and workload management capabilities. With secure, highly available and scalable grids of low-cost servers and storage, Oracle customers can tackle the most demanding transaction processing, data warehousing, and content management applications.

Favorite Drummer ! enjoy

2007-06-30T14:06:00.001-05:00

Decouvrez votre pays !!!

2007-06-29T16:10:00.000-05:00

Haut Atlas Marocain sur Thalassa
Uploaded by hchicha

Say Hello to my little friend

2007-06-29T09:10:00.001-05:00

Employment Visas “Current” for July

2007-06-15T09:29:00.001-05:00

In a surprise development, the release yesterday of the Department of State’s July 2007 Visa Bulletin shows that visas will be Current for all employment based preference categories, except “Other Workers” beginning July 1, 2007. The “Other Worker” category is ‘Unavailable”, meaning that no adjustment of status application can be filed or immigrant visa issued at a consulate in this category regardless of how early the priority date. For all other employment based categories adjustment of status applications can be filed and consular immigrant visas can be issued for cases already processed regardless of priority date. Just two months ago the 3rd employment preference category showed backlogs of 3 to 6 years, and backlogs for 2nd preference for India and China were 2 to 4 years, so this is an unexpected surge forward. It is not known whether visas will remain current in August or retrogress once more. A full copy of the monthly Visa Bulletin can be found at http://travel.state.gov under “Visas”, “Frequently Requested Visa Information”.

It is anticipated that there will be a high volume of I-485 adjustment of status filings prior to July 31st because of the current priority dates and because of the substantial increases in the CIS filing fees effective July 30th.

Running out of LCD glass

2007-06-06T13:06:00.000-05:00

Dell is taking 16-24 days to fill an LCD screen order:

There is an industry wide shortage of LCD glass. This shortage mainly affects LCD monitors but could in the future affect laptops as well. This shortage was caused by the large adoption of LCD monitors, HD televisions and laptops in the past year while creation of new factories lagged demand.

Currently there is a 16 to 24 day delay in getting LCD monitors through Dell. While you may see other LCD monitors in the marketplace this is due to product already in stock at distributors and retail locations - it will start to be constrained in the near future. If you have a need for a new desktop and monitor the suggestion is to place two orders to separate the two products, this will allow the computer to ship without waiting for a monitor.

A Glimpse into the Future

2007-06-01T23:40:00.000-05:00

This is really amazing.

The learn more visit this link

Google Earth Censorship Campaign

2007-05-30T10:47:00.000-05:00

Maroc Telecom and Vivendi continue to block access to Google Earth for moroccan internet users for no reason. The censorship of Google Earth started in august 2006 and never stopped as of today. Morocco is the only country in the world to do that. I invite freedom and human rights defenders and the journalists all over the world to make this known to everybody! Inform the world about this absurd censorship that lasts for almost a year now and that is aimed only at Moroccans.

Ask the moroccan government, Maroc Telecom and Vivendi (who controls Maroc Telecom) for official statements about this matter.
-Thanks

More $$$ for INS

2007-05-29T12:01:00.002-05:00

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) announced today that major fee increases will take effect July 30, 2007. The rule implements most of the fee increases in the proposed rule issued February 1, 2007.

Examples of filing fee increases include:
I-129 petition for nonimmigrant worker (includes H-1Bs, L-1s, Es) fees go from $190 to $320
I-130 relative petition fees increase from $190 to $355
I-140 petition for immigrant worker fees go from $195 to $475
I-485 adjustment of status fees for those filing for adjustment of status to US permanent residence will jump from the current fee of $325 to $1010 per person, with fees of $600 for those under 14 filing with one parent. These fees include the costs of filing for renewals of employment authorization and advance parole travel authorization.
I-90 applications to replace /renew permanent residence card fees go from $190 to $370
N-400 applications for US naturalization (to become a US citizen) fees increase from $330 to $675

In a press release and question and answer notice also issued today, USCIS announced that with the new fees it expects to reduce processing times by 20% by the end of fiscal year 2008, September 30, 2008. It specifically said it intends to reduce processing times for I-90, I-140, I-485s and N-400 cases from 6 to 4 months. Past fee increases have not necessarily resulted in shorter processing times. We hope the USCIS keeps its promise to improve service and actually cut wait times for adjudication with these dramatic increases.

Maroc Telecom Blocks Youtube !!!!!!

2007-05-28T10:29:00.000-05:00

A Total Shoker:

Maroc Telecom has blocked all access to Youtube.
The Moroccan blogosphere (blogoma) is totally surprised by the move and angered.

There were no reasons given why Youtube was blocked. But the speculations are that it might have to do something with the presence of Polisario-clips (Polisario being the Western Sahara independence movement) or because of some videos that were criticized the king.

The block by Maroc Telecom means that the majority of the population has no access to Youtube. The majority that is. The other 2 internet-providers, Wana and Meditel, do provide access to Youtube.
The reason for this is that Morocco is blessed with commercial, private providers (not state-owned).
The Moroccan state is a major shareholder of Maroc Telecom and can do what it want with it.

Youtube is the 3rd example of how Morocco blocks access to major sites. Google Earth and Livejournal being the other 2 examples. Also blocked without a reason.
I would like to see the Moroccan television take the opportunity and bring a executive from Maroc Telecom and ask about the logic behind these actions.

Let s wait and see how many blocks it will take before anyone busts a move.

A sad, sad day.

Call Centers au Maroc

2007-05-22T10:30:00.000-05:00

Le Maroc héberge aujourd'hui trois fois plus de centres d'appel qu'il y a deux ans et ce secteur en pleine expansion emploie 17.500 personnes, affirme une étude que vient de publier l'Agence nationale de régulation des télécommunications (ANRT).

Fin 2006, il y avait 137 centres d'appel (CAP) opérationnels et 6 en cours de démarrage, contre 50 en 2004. Ils emploient 17.500 personnes contre 5.500 il y a deux ans, et la majorité de ceux qui travaillent dans ce secteur possèdent un bac+2 et une trés bonne maitrise des langues.

More details here

Paypal available in Morocco

2007-05-17T11:11:00.000-05:00

Le service de paiement en ligne PayPal prend de l’expansion dans 87 nouveaux marchés à travers le monde et est maintenant disponible dans près de 190 pays et dorénavant le Maroc.

PayPal, une propriété du site Internet de ventes aux enchères eBay, fait donc son entrée dans le Maroc.
Read More

We Bleed Maroon

2007-05-15T17:13:00.000-05:00

Pretty Cool Aggie Song :)

Listen to Song

Music Genome Project

2007-05-01T13:18:00.000-05:00

Check it out:

http://www.pandora.com

Define up to 100 stations with your favorite music and Pandora will randomly surpise you.
You as the user define Metadata for the music and that should be mined to reflect your taste of music :)
Is n't that a brilliant Idea.

Aggie Joke

2007-05-01T12:58:00.000-05:00

Three Texans go down to Mexico one night,
get arrested, and wake up in jail only to find
out that they are to be executed in the morning,
though none of them can remember what they
did the night before.

The first one is strapped in the electric chair
and is asked if he has any last words. He says,
"I am from the Baylor school of divinity and
I believe in the almighty power of God to
intervene on behalf of the innocent."

They throw the switch and nothing happens,
so they figure God must not want this guy to die
and they let him go.

The second one is strapped in and gives his
last words, "I am from the University of Texas
School of Law and I believe in the power of
justice to intervene on the part of the
innocent."

They throw the switch and again nothing happens.
They figure that the law is on this guy's side,
so they let him go too.

The last one is strapped in and says, "Well, I'm
a Texas Aggie Electrical Engineer, and I'll tell
you right now you ain't gonna electrocute nobody if
you don't connect them two wires."

Lawmakers urge Bush to put U.S. support behind Moroccan offer in Western Sahara conflict

2007-04-27T11:47:00.000-05:00

WASHINGTON: Almost half the members of the U.S. House of Representatives appealed to President George W. Bush on Thursday to support Morocco's proposed settlement of its long struggle with Polisario guerrillas over the Western Sahara.

In a letter to Bush, 180 of the 435 members described the long-festering dispute over the former Spanish territory as having major national security ramifications for the United States.

Morocco offered two weeks ago a plan that would give autonomy to the Sarawis, as residents of the desert are known, while ensuring that Moroccan sovereignty is guaranteed. Since the offer, Morocco has said the plan is open for negotiation.

"The United States has a major national security interest in the stablity and economic prosperity of North Africa," the letter said. "With al-Qaida and other terrorist groups expanding their presence into North Africa, we are concerned that the failure to resolve this conflict of more than 30 years poses a danger to U.S. and regional security."

It said the Moroccan offer "is a breakthrough opportunity to find an enduring political solution, and U.S. support is critical to its successful implementation."

Moroccan Initiative to Solve Western sahara Problem

2007-04-18T15:10:00.000-05:00

The initiative is the product of a year long internal and foreign Moroccan consultation process. All sectors of the Sahrawi population were included in the consultations and the views of foreign governments and expert international authorities were sought before the plan was finalized for presentation to the United Nations.

This information has been produced by The Moroccan American Center for Policy (MACP), a registered agent of the Government of Morocco. Additional information is available at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C.

The plan itself represents an outline for a political solution that traces what Morocco considers to be the broad scope of an autonomy arrangement for the Western Sahara. It does not go into extensive detail on its various aspects on the assumption that such specific arrangements should be the result of direct negotiations rather than the imposition of only one of the parties to the dispute.

The plan provides for a local elected legislature that would subsequently elect an executive authority. It also would establish a separate judiciary for the autonomous region with competence to render justice on matters specific to the autonomous status of the region. The legislature would elect a chief executive.

The formula proposed by Morocco would ensure majority representation in the legislature for Sahrawi inhabitants of the autonomous region, while also ensuring credible legislative representation for non-Sahrawis who have been long-time residents in the territory. Residents of the autonomous region would also continue to elect representatives to the national legislature.

The government of the autonomous region would have exclusive authorities on some issues, shared authority with the central government of Morocco on others and consultative rights on authorities that remain reserved to the central government and that effect the region.

The autonomous government would control local administration, local police, education, cultural development, economic development, regional planning, tourism, investment, trade, public works and transportation, housing, health, sports and social welfare. It would have taxing authorities to support these functions and would continue to receive funding from the central budget as well. It would be able to establish foreign regional trade relations offices and would have consultative rights on other sovereign foreign agreements affecting the region.

The central government would retain exclusive jurisdiction over the normal elements of sovereign authority: national defense, currency, postal, and foreign affairs and religion, over which the Monarchy has a special status in Morocco.

The chief executive of the autonomous region would be elected by the legislature, but would be invested by and serve in the name of the Monarchy.

The initiative also envisages transitional bodies to guide the central government and the autonomous authority through the initial stages of implementation of the plan.

All individual rights guaranteed under the Moroccan Constitution would continue to apply to all residents of the autonomous region.

Visa Bulletin Jumps Forward for Some in Employment-Based Third Preference Category

2007-04-16T13:29:00.000-05:00

The May 2007 Visa Bulletin shows priority dates will move forward a full year, from August 1, 2002 to August 1, 2003 in the employment-bases third preference category for all countries other than China, India and Mexico. The State Department, in advancing the priority dates, explained that that both the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) and the US Department of Labor have a significant amount of backlogged cases. The Department of Labor alone recently announced it has over 96,000 labor certification cases pending As such, demand for visas was not as great as anticipated and the State Department moved up its current processing dates.

To file for adjustment of status in the US or to consular process, the visa bulletin must show the priority date for the individual as current. Therefore, an I-485 can not be filed until May 1, 2007 for those whose priority date will become current. The priority date must be current at the time an adjustment of status case is filed and at the time the USCIS or Consul adjudicates the case.

Priority dates in the Family based preference categories have moved forward slightly or remained the same, except for FB 1 and FB 2A for Mexico, which retrogressed significantly.

Here is a link to the current Visa Bulletin. http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bulletin/bulletin_3219.html
Those with current priority dates should contact their attorney about proceeding to the next step of their case, either adjustment of status or consular processing.

Fnaire- Touches pas a mon pays

2007-04-13T15:16:00.000-05:00

Arab World Competitiveness

2007-04-11T15:30:00.000-05:00

Morocco has improved its position in the Global Competitiveness Index from 76th to the 70th rank in the last edition of the Global Competitiveness Report. Reasons behind this improvement are reflected in its macroeconomic indicators. One of Morocco’s advantages lies in its infrastructure facilities, particularly
the supply of energy, transport, and telecommunications. The liberalization policies adopted since the 1980s contribute to these positive results—in particular, the telecommunications provider was privatized and the distribution of electricity was delegated to private companies. The fairly dynamic private sector
benefits from high demand resulting from demographic growth and the increase in the number of households where members are employed or entrepreneurs in either the formal or the—very efficient— informal economy.
You can read more view interviews about this here:

http://www.weforum.org/en/media/Latest%20Press%20Releases/Doha2007

Un deuxième terroriste se fait exploser au quartier El Fida à Casablanca

2007-04-10T14:04:00.000-05:00

Un deuxième terroriste s'est fait exploser mardi après-midi au quartier El Fida à Casablanca, sur les lieux où la police avait engagé , quelques heures plus tôt, une course poursuite contre un groupe de trois terroristes, en possession d'explosifs, dont l'un s'était fait exploser, le deuxième avait été blessé, avant de succomber à ses blessures, alors que le troisième avait pris la fuite.

Les services de sécurité avaient encerclé le quartier El Fida, dans la matinée, et procédé à une opération de ratissage pour retrouver le troisième terroriste.

Les investigations menées par la police ont permis l'identification du terroriste qui s'était fait exploser le matin. Il s'agit de Mohamed Rachidi. L'identification du troisième terroriste est en cours.

La nouvelle déflagration a provoqué la mort d'un policier et touché légèrement un autre.
L'inspecteur de police, Zindiba Mohamed, grièvement blessé a succombé à ses blessures lors de son transfert à l'hôpital.
Le deuxième policier a été évacué à l'hôpital.

H-1B Cap Reached

2007-04-03T14:51:00.000-05:00

The U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) announced today that it has reached the 2008 fiscal year 65,000 H-1B cap.

As of late Monday, April 2, the Service received approximately 150,000 cap-subject petitions. Pursuant to its regulations, when the H-1B cap is reached the first day, the Service must include filings on the “final receipt date” and the following day.
All cap-subject filings received on April 2, 2007, and April 3, 2007, will be subject to a computer-generated random selection process by USCIS. Those petitions that are not randomly selected will be rejected and returned with applicable filing fees. All petitions received on or after Wednesday, April 4, 2007, will be rejected.

For all filings received April 2nd and 3rd, USCIS must perform data entry before the random selection process is conducted. The Service has announced that because of the high volume of filings, they will not be able to conduct the random selection for several weeks.
At this time, USCIS does not know how many of the 20,000 cap-exempt H-1B petitions filed on behalf of aliens with U.S. Masters or higher degrees have been received as these cases are mixed with the cap-subject cases. A later announcement from USCIS will follow concerning the final receipt date for these petitions.

Centres d’appels: L’offshoring en vogue au Maroc

2007-04-03T11:33:00.000-05:00

Bel engouement. Les centres d’appels continuent sur leur lancée. Près de 200 centres sont opérationnels dans de nombreuses villes du Maroc. Cette activité génère 22.000 emplois et est appelée à se développer encore plus. D’autant plus que l’offre offshoring crée un environnement propice, a indiqué Mohamed El Ouahdoudi, directeur général de Maghreb Centres de contacts et organisateur de l’événement, lors d’une conférence le 30 mars dernier à Casablanca.
Hormis les opérateurs nationaux, le Maroc est devenu en moins de six ans une destination privilégiée de l’offshoring. Le marché marocain occuperait ainsi la première place en Afrique et au sud de la Méditerranée. Chaque année, plus de 25 nouveaux sites sont ouverts en moyenne par des opérateurs locaux ou internationaux. A préciser que l’activité des centres d’appels s’est structurée en quatre catégories: industriels, semi-industriels, de type PME ou encore à taille humaine (cf. www.leconomiste.com).

Iraqi-American Rap on the War

2007-03-27T09:50:00.000-05:00

Iraqi-American rapper TIMZ responds to the war with this video, simply titled “Iraq.” The first verse is meant to be from the perspective of an Iraqi, the second from an American. Both have the intensity that has made the genre such an effective avenue for political and social commentary.

MIT sponsoring contest to solve Israeli-Palestinian conflict

2007-03-23T13:36:00.000-05:00

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts_The Massachusetts Institute of Technology hopes to
mobilize the world's brainpower to solve one of its most troubling problems:
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

MIT officials are inviting individuals or teams from any country to
participate in its "Just Jerusalem" competition. The contest aims to find a
way to make Jerusalem "just, peaceful and sustainable" by 2050 so that
Palestinians and Israelis can live side by side in a city both consider
their capital.

The school will accept entries between March 31 and Dec. 31, The Boston
Globe reported. MIT will announce the winners next March.

Diane Davis, co-director of the project and associate dean of MIT's School
of Architecture and Planning, said inquiries about entering the competition
have come from the Palestinian city of Ramallah and from Israel, Ecuador,
Greece and the United States.

MIT can bring a "veneer of neutrality" to the issue, Davis said.

"We have a reputation for using serious, scholarly methods to solve
problems," she said. "We're a science and technology institution, and
there's a sense that science stands above politics."

Israel named West Jerusalem its capital in 1950 and annexed Arab East
Jerusalem after capturing it from Jordan in the Six Day War in 1967. In
1980, Israel passed a law declaring Jerusalem to be its "eternal, undivided"
capital. Palestinians view East Jerusalem as the capital of their future
state.

Dennis Ross, a U.S. envoy to the peace process during the Clinton
administration, said in previous negotiations the two sides were close to an
agreement on Jerusalem. Ross said the chief problem has long been what to do
about governing and sovereignty in the complex that Muslims call al-Haram
al-Sharif and Jews call the Temple Mount.

"These are problems that should be solved, and I believe can be solved," he
said.

"The main value of a contest like this is to show that people care enough to
try to find solutions," he said.

The competition's nine-member jury includes a Palestinian scholar and a
former deputy mayor of Jerusalem.

Winners of four categories on the rebuilding of Jerusalem, from renovating
buildings to revamping its economy, and a fifth floating category will each
receive a $50,000 (?37,450) MIT fellowship.

MIT's Just Jerusalem contest: http://web.mit.edu/justjerusalem/

Oracle - Tip of the Day

2007-03-22T15:52:00.000-05:00

Let me ask you a legitimate question:
How does your organization control code versioning ?

IT departments will often struggle with this unless of course your organization writes software in which case a versionning software is a must and more likely the IT department will tag along and use a Depot. Among the bunch in the market the most famous are : Perforce, CVS, OldVersion.

So most likely, the last version in your release branch will exist on your production system. Suppose however that you have some doubt there could be discrepencies between your Version software and what s on production. How do u go about getting that code from production ???

Read the Full Article

Blondes :) LOL

2007-03-22T15:26:00.000-05:00

SICK LEAVE

> > > I urgently needed a few days off work, but I knew the Boss would not allow me to take a leave. I thought that maybe if I acted "CRAZY" then he would tell me to take a few days off. So I hung upside down from the ceiling and made funny noises.

> > > My coworker (who's blonde) asked me what I was doing. I told her that I was pretending to be a light bulb so that the Boss would think I was “CRAZY" and give me a few days off.

> > > A few minutes later the Boss came into the office and asked "What are you doing?" I told him I was a light bulb. He said "You are clearly stressed out. Go home and recuperate for a couple of days."

> > > I jumped down and walked out of the office. When my coworker (the blonde) followed me, the Boss said to her, "And where do you think you're going?"

> > > She said, "I'm going home too, I can't work in the dark!"

M&S supplier in dispute over Moroccan workers

2007-03-19T14:05:00.001-05:00

One of Marks & Spencer's main overseas clothes suppliers is embroiled in a recognition battle with a trade union affiliated to an opposition Islamist party in Morocco. The dispute is disrupting production and has led to a spate of sit-ins and arrests of its workforce.

The British company Dewhirst, which closed factories in the UK and transferred production of womenswear to Tangier in Morocco in 2002, is in dispute over conditions, pay and claims that it discriminates against unionists.

Read the whole thing

Geeks needs

2007-03-18T10:59:00.000-05:00

I thought this article got most of it right...

But, I also thought they missed the most important item.

* Give them useful, meaningful, important things to do

I hated writing shelf-ware in a former life. Nothing was worse then working on a project you knew no one would probably use. I would rather work on a small, no fame/no glory project - that would get used; way before I worked on something big, huge, but useless.

Give me something meaningful - that is perhaps the most important thing.

More than their 8, but their 8 are important too mostly.....

Maroc Telecom baisse de 40 à 57% les tarifs Fixe de la téléphonie publique

2007-03-16T10:17:00.000-05:00

A ce propos , s'il s'avérait , un tant soit peu qu'après vérification qu'il y a une fausse
réduction ...qui utilse par exemple la "Loi pareto" : les vingt % représentant la population
significative , peu ou prou concernée par la baisse annoncée :le cas tomberait-il sous le coup
de la loi sur la "publicité mensongère"?
Voir le Daloz par exemple !
Et de ce fait l'organe de régulation lui-même serait en porte à faux !
ce problème relève totalement de la protection du consommateur
où l'état lui même est défaillant !...
à suivre donc par la publication des nouveaux tarifs par pays ...à titre d'exemple...
pour ne pas aller à une diffamation .

Attentat a Casablanca - Mat kish Bladi

2007-03-12T11:07:00.000-05:00

Une personne a été tuée et quatre autres ont été blessées dans une explosion dimanche soir dans un cybercafé au quartier Sidi Moumen à Casablanca, apprend-on auprès de la direction générale de la sûreté nationale (DGSN).

Dimanche 11 mars 2007 vers 22h, deux personnes se sont introduites dans un cybercafé sis au quartier Sidi Moumen, avenue Al Adarissa, à Casablanca, pour essayer de consulter des sites internet faisant l'apologie du terrorisme", indique la même source.

"Empêchés par le fils du propriétaire du cybercafé, l'un des deux individus a été emporté par une charge explosive dissimulée sous ses vêtements et est décédé sur le champ tandis que l'autre, légèrement blessé, a pris la fuite avant d'être arrêté par les services de sécurité", précise-t-on de même source.

"Le fils du propriétaire et deux autres personnes qui se trouvaient à l'intérieur du cybercafé ont été légèrement blessés et évacués sur les urgences", conclut la même source.
Une enquête a été ouverte pour déterminer les circonstances de l'explosion.

First Muslim Effort to outreach

2007-03-06T14:07:00.000-06:00

Someone shared this with me and I really got excited. This is the first "true" english show that bridges culture and religion (islam). Of course this is not something that will end up on FOX someday But Imagine the traffic this is getting on YouTube !

Tell me what you think (comments) once you are done watching the episode.

-Thanks

Find Offensive SQL

2007-03-05T16:10:00.000-06:00

Supporting a Database really boils down to one of two things: Proactive and Reactive.
You could wait until something goes wrong and fix it.
Or you could adopt some measure to prevent bad things from happening to the DB.

The number one cause of degrading performance on DB is offensive SQL. That is Code written to run against the DB, but taking ages to complete and release
ressources for other process to use.
Read the Full article:

Never Loose a technical argument ...

2007-03-05T09:52:00.001-06:00

Don't you just love sitting in a technical meeting and hearing all the jargon that flies by :) ?
Well, sometimes some of the sentences mentioned are heard over and over. I wanted to capture the most common ones and see how you can address them properly :).

That won't scale. - In other words, We' ll need to spend more money to make this happen. It's pretty easy to win that one. Just say "Why?"
Unfortunately, the license would contaminate our product. - Managers will attempt this all the time :).
How is that going to impact the schedule? - Just say "this has been acounted for in the project plan".
I like your idea. Why don't you write up a white paper and we'll review it at the next staff meeting? You only fall for that trap once or twice :).
Have you LOOKED at the number of I/O requests that will create? Always respond with - so I presume you have, save us the time - how many are we talking about and why?
Let's table this for now, and we'll talk about it one-on-one off-line. Now you know what they really mean....

Please let me know if you heard other ones :)
-Thanks for reading

Oracle Shared pool Pinning Techniques

2007-03-02T15:22:00.000-06:00

Concept:

The oracle Shared pool is the area where things (objects) are loaded for execution compilation (all database operations).
Pinning refers to the concept of keeping an object in the shared pool area.
The main reason to keep objects in shared memory is to improve system performance.
If the object is a code object such as a procedure, package, etc., you can pin the code in the cache to stop it from being removed.

How about you try to find out which objects are being loaded way to many times into the shared pool ?

Read Full Article
-thanks for reading

Oracle Gather Table Stats - dbms_stats

2007-02-28T16:52:00.000-06:00

Oracle Applications 11i utilizes the Cost-Based optimizer, so it is important that the database has current statistics for all tables and indexes. Oracle provides a set of utilities to be used to gather statistics on a regular basis. These tools are:

Concurrent Programs: “Gather Schema Stats” and “Gather Table Stats”
Package: FND_STATS

The concurrent programs call the FND_STATS package to gather statistics...
Read the full article

Naissance de SAR la Princesse Lalla Khadija

2007-02-28T16:22:00.000-06:00

Rabat, 28/02/07 - Voici la traduction du Communiqué du Ministère de la Maison Royale, du Protocole et de la Chancellerie, lu par M. Abdelhak Lamrini annonçant l'heureux événement :

"Au nom de Dieu le clément et le miséricordieux, il m'est agréable d'annoncer au peuple marocain généreux l'heureuse nouvelle de la naissance d'une princesse, dont la venue au monde a illuminé la Maison Royale, à 20 heures de ce béni mercredi ,10 Safar Al Khair 1428, correspondant au 28 février 2007 et que l'heureux nouveau-né et sa mère, SAR la Princesse Lalla Salma, sont en parfaite santé.
Sa Majesté le Roi a baptisé l'heureux nouveau-né du nom de Son Altesse Royale la Princesse Lalla Khadija. Tout en présentant ses chaleureuses félicitations et ses meilleurs voeux à Sa Majesté le Roi Mohammed VI, que Dieu L'assiste, à l'illustre Famille Royale et au peuple marocain, le ministère de la Maison Royale, du Protocole et de la Chancellerie implore le Très Haut de faire de cette naissance un heureux présage, de combler son père vénéré, Sa Majesté le Roi, que Dieu L'assiste.

Congrats :)

Corruption au maroc - Un vrai challenge

2007-02-28T11:13:00.000-06:00

L'histoire actuelle du Maroc est incontestablement marquée par la réalisation des grands chantiers aussi bien sur le plan politique, économique que social ouvrant la voie à de nombreuses perspectives dans la consécration de l'Etat du progrès, de la modernité et de démocratie. Néanmoins, la société pâtit encore de nombreux phénomènes comme l'analphabétisme, la pauvreté, le chômage, le clientélisme et la corruption qui continuent de nourrir les idées rétrogrades et les gens de mauvaise foi.

Les conséquences de la dépravation politique
La dépravation politique se définit comme étant l'abus d'autorité à des fins illicites, voire personnelles, qui touche toutes les organisations politiques sous différentes formes dont notamment le clientélisme, la corruption et l'abus de pouvoir.

Les conséquences économiques de la corruption
- Détérioration de la croissance économique et provocation de déficits énormes. Les experts de la Banque Mondiale estiment que la chute des taux de croissance en Afrique et certains pays d'Asie est due à la corruption politique qui entraîne un manque à ganger de plus de 2% du PIB par an;
- hausse du coût de l'activité commerciale et des dépenses administratives suite à la complicité entre les responsables dans le secteur privé ;
- complexité et blocages dans la concrétisation des affaires ;
- la corruption déforme le paysage économique et commercial ;
- fuite des capitaux/cerveaux a l etranger.

Les conséquences de la corruption sur la politique et les institutions
A côté des effets néfastes sur l'activité économique, la corruption donne un coup dur au processus de la démocratie et de bonne gouvernance :
- Ce phénomène use les capacités financières des institutions gouvernementales (vente et achet des postes de responsabilité) et limite leur légitimité ;
- la corruption juridique met en danger la suprématie de loi et frappe de plein fouet la garantie de validité des contrats

Death Toll rises in Angfou

2007-02-27T11:39:00.000-06:00

I have recently tried to quickly pop on 2M tv and see if anything related to the misterious deaths taking place in the Angfou regions are being reported. And the answer is no ! This subject has been the highlight of every blog and non-profit organization.

But the fact that the Authorities are not covering this story and not investigating what is happening raises a lots of questions as the nature of the plague ??? could it be bird flu ?
In any case, We as good citizens will continue to help the region, We are delivering blankets, sox, warm shoes (some purchased from the US) and others in Morocco.

Please help kids & your fellow citizens: Morocco Foundation

WFMI Rallies in US Market +13.90%

2007-02-22T13:24:00.000-06:00

Whole Foods Market and Wild Oats Markets Announce Merger to Create Stronger Natural and Organic Foods Retailer. Rather calling it Merger, I d rather refer to it as Acquisition. Yes after being stuck at 46 for so long, WFMI rallied today to gain 13.90% on the market today.
We all know how much Wall street loves growth and this is just pure proof of that.
Whole foods is an Austin based company. The Company conducts its business through various wholly owned subsidiaries. Whole Foods Market has a product selection of perishable foods and most of its products are from natural food vendors Read more...

C'est le Moment de faire une carriere au maroc !?

2007-02-21T15:49:00.000-06:00

« En quinze jours, j'ai recruté 16 personnes. Et ce n'est pas fini. Nous serons une cinquantaine à la fin du mois de mars. Il faut faire vite, car nous ne savons pas ce qu'il adviendra du marché de l'emploi au printemps ! » Hassan Abdellaoui est le patron de la nouvelle filiale marocaine de la petite SSII française Telys. Ce Franco-marocain de 43 ans a effectué toute sa carrière en France.

Son diplôme de l'Ecole centrale en poche en 1986, il travaille d'abord en SSII, puis dans le secteur de l'assurance et de la banque. En 2004, il rejoint Telys en tant que directeur associé, avec la ferme intention de créer une offre offshore . Après quelques mois de test avec une société marocaine, il participe à la création d'un joint-venture local. « C'est pour moi une excellente opportunité, se félicite-t-il. Le Maroc se développe si vite ! Quand on vit à Casa (Casablanca), on a envie de participer à la dynamique. C'est un chantier extraordinaire. Du coup, j'ai atteint mon objectif : revenir au Maroc, tout en gardant un pied en France. »

Aujourd'hui, il sait que le temps presse : les mastodontes du service, notamment français, se ruent au Maroc. En particulier à Casablanca, la capitale économique.

« La Bangalore des pays francophones »
Les SSII sont incitées par la stratégie volontariste du gouvernement et, surtout, du roi Mohammed VI, visant à faire du Maroc une grande destination offshore. « Casa deviendra la Bangalore des pays francophones », prédit Hassan Bernoussi, le directeur d'Investir au Maroc, une organisation gouvernementale de promotion économique, lors de sa tournée de communication en France. Capgemini vient d'ailleurs d'arriver.

Après de longs mois de palabres et de tergiversations, le géant français loue des locaux en attendant la livraison, prévue pour juillet prochain, de la plate-forme flambant neuve du fameux Casashore. L'objectif annoncé est clair : monter une équipe de 500 personnes dans les trois prochaines années. Rien à voir, bien sûr, avec les 10 000 ingénieurs de la SSII en Inde. Mais, toutes proportions gardées, l'arrivée du leader français risque fort d'assécher le marché de l'emploi. C'est là que le bât aurait pu blesser. « Le point crucial qui a déterminé notre décision d'implantation au Maroc est l'engagement du Royaume de tout faire pour accroître la quantité d'ingénieurs disponibles dans le pays », poursuit Philippe Donche-Gay, le directeur général de Capgemini France.

Alors Qu'attendez vous ? Rentrez chez vous ! :)

A True Role Model

2007-02-19T21:49:00.000-06:00

Video : Israel-Palestine

2007-02-18T19:57:00.000-06:00

Oracle & Global Warming !

2007-02-14T22:26:00.000-06:00

If you think politics does not impact IT. Think again !

Under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, passed by US Congress and then signed into law by President George W. Bush on August 8 2005, the start and end dates of Daylight Saving Time (DST) in the US havbeen changed, starting in 2007. so What ?
Think again, it s the database stupid. How about your timestamps ?

Read the full article

SAP left behind again

2007-02-13T00:59:00.000-06:00

Last quarter, license sales of Oracle Applications grew more than twice as fast as SAP . It's easy to see why. The applications industry is shifting to open standards, but SAP is still using a closed, proprietary programming language that's 25 years old. Their technology leaves customers struggling with complicated systems, lengthy implementations, and costly upgrades. Independent analysts are even questioning whether SAP has the ability to deliver SOA-enabled technology.

You have a better choice when it comes to business applications. Oracle lets you choose the standards-based applications that are right for your business without locking you into a single product line.

Matel goes public in CSE

2007-02-12T15:19:00.000-06:00

Few weeks after Mr. Fahd Iraqi talked about the Hysteria in Casablanca Stock Exchance, Matel signs up to join it. why not ! After all, there is money to be made in those markets.
Matel is a distributor of PCs and IT equipment in Morocco. The company has merged with PC Market and is planning on going public in the next few days. The brokage company Upline is in charge of the process.
The operation highlights listed below:
-Expected to take place during the following dates: 12-18 February.
-Should sell for 370 Dhs - Not for long.
-For Full details download PDF

Earthquake felt in Major Moroccan cities

2007-02-12T10:19:00.000-06:00

This is one of the worst things anyone living abroad can wake up to.
Reading the Press and not getting a full picture of what is happening just makes things even worse.
Thankfully, there were no victims or damages to the infrastructure. An infrastructure subject to danger even without earthquakes.
I thank you god for pretecting everyone from a sure tragedy.

Here is how I first found out.

Details of the EarthQuake are here

Welcome

2007-01-31T14:47:00.000-06:00

I have been blogging elsewhere but was limited to Oracle .
Hopefully, this blog will reflect personal experiences, political and current events as they happen around the world.

Welcome :)