rant - does oracle know how to design a website?

#11

Op 8-2-2010 18:13, gs schreef:

Quote:

Shakespeare wrote:
Op 8-2-2010 17:06, gs schreef:
I think I see the method behind the new metalink, or "my oracle support"
for that matter. Make it as frustratingly clunky and user unfriendly as
humanly (or not) possible, and support calls will go down, along with
that "unsatisfied" support calls. I know for me it is a last resort
after I have exhausted all other avenues.

Case in point - we are installing 11G on a windows 2003 server, the
database is going to be spatial and the vendor doesn't support (for
reasons known only to them) windows 2008 yet. Anyway, thats not my
point.. I'm trying to find out if 11G R1 is certified on Windows 2003 64
bit R2, so I go to the 11G database page to view the certification
matrix like I always do (did) Ah, here is the link, on the downloads
page for the database, right where it says "Review the certification
matrix for this product here." But wait, clicking on the link brings up
a page saying all certification information is now on My Oracle Support
website.. Ok, go to my support page, enter in "11G windows certification
matrix" - what do I get? A list of 8 or so options, on about generic
connectivity on windows or linux 64 bit platforms, something about what
platforms oracle messaging gateway is available on, and a real relevant
one: "Oracle® Database on Unix AIX®,HP-UX®,Linux®,Mac OS®
X,Solaris®,Tru64 Unix® Operating Systems (Customer Recommended)"

So, play with search terms a bit, I get links on installing 8i on
windows NT, a windows 98/ME certification article, running 9i on windows
2000 etc etc etc..

Lot's of information on patchsets etc., but 10 minutes later I still
can't find an 11G windows certification matrix.

Who designs this infrastructure? Do they think all the cool
sliding/expanding/contracting menus and various error pages are what
people want??

Anyway, at least I feel better now, back to looking, give it another 5
minutes them I'm logging an SR..

Wish me luck

Enter the first 5 entries (database, database, database, enterprise
edition, 11gr2) and your platform (first enty only) and you get a
result ('planned')

Shakespeare

tried that, get page with 0 results, which means either they cant find
anything or 11GR1 isn't supported on windows 2003 64..

back to my original point - what was wrong with the old matrix you could
get on the download page while you were there? This new support page is
ok with SR's (finally) but if you are searching for something you get
the impression that the sites search engine was designed by someone that
just discovered the joys of flash and crystal meth - at the same time..

This is what I got:

Product Version Tier Platform Platform Version Status Tier Product Tier
Product Version
11gR1 Server Microsoft Windows x64 (64-bit) XP
11gR1 Server Microsoft Windows x64 (64-bit) Vista
11gR1 Server Microsoft Windows x64 (64-bit) 2008
11gR1 Server Microsoft Windows x64 (64-bit) 2003

all with status 'certified' (even the "copy table" function is
malfunctioning...)

Shakespeare

#12

"gs" <gs (AT) gs (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

I think I see the method behind the new metalink, or "my oracle support"
for that matter. Make it as frustratingly clunky and user unfriendly as
humanly (or not) possible, and support calls will go down, along with that
"unsatisfied" support calls. I know for me it is a last resort after I have
exhausted all other avenues.

Case in point - we are installing 11G on a windows 2003 server, the
database is going to be spatial and the vendor doesn't support (for
reasons known only to them) windows 2008 yet. Anyway, thats not my point..
I'm trying to find out if 11G R1 is certified on Windows 2003 64 bit R2,
so I go to the 11G database page to view the certification matrix like I
always do (did) Ah, here is the link, on the downloads page for the
database, right where it says "Review the certification matrix for this
product here." But wait, clicking on the link brings up a page saying all
certification information is now on My Oracle Support website.. Ok, go to
my support page, enter in "11G windows certification matrix" - what do I
get? A list of 8 or so options, on about generic connectivity on windows
or linux 64 bit platforms, something about what platforms oracle messaging
gateway is available on, and a real relevant one: "Oracle® Database on
Unix AIX®,HP-UX®,Linux®,Mac OS® X,Solaris®,Tru64 Unix® Operating Systems
(Customer Recommended)"

So, play with search terms a bit, I get links on installing 8i on windows
NT, a windows 98/ME certification article, running 9i on windows 2000 etc
etc etc..

Lot's of information on patchsets etc., but 10 minutes later I still can't
find an 11G windows certification matrix.

Who designs this infrastructure? Do they think all the cool
sliding/expanding/contracting menus and various error pages are what
people want??

Anyway, at least I feel better now, back to looking, give it another 5
minutes them I'm logging an SR..

Wish me luck

Recently I was looking for the latest patch set for APEX - but the search on
MOS always returned zero results.
Luckily, I could find the patch set number on a blog and I entered that one
directly - now the patch set did show up. Hail to the blogs!!!

Matthias

#13

Matthias Hoys wrote:

Quote:

"gs" <gs (AT) gs (DOT) com> wrote

I think I see the method behind the new metalink, or "my oracle support"
for that matter. Make it as frustratingly clunky and user unfriendly as
humanly (or not) possible, and support calls will go down, along with that
"unsatisfied" support calls. I know for me it is a last resort after I have
exhausted all other avenues.

Case in point - we are installing 11G on a windows 2003 server, the
database is going to be spatial and the vendor doesn't support (for
reasons known only to them) windows 2008 yet. Anyway, thats not my point..
I'm trying to find out if 11G R1 is certified on Windows 2003 64 bit R2,
so I go to the 11G database page to view the certification matrix like I
always do (did) Ah, here is the link, on the downloads page for the
database, right where it says "Review the certification matrix for this
product here." But wait, clicking on the link brings up a page saying all
certification information is now on My Oracle Support website.. Ok, go to
my support page, enter in "11G windows certification matrix" - what do I
get? A list of 8 or so options, on about generic connectivity on windows
or linux 64 bit platforms, something about what platforms oracle messaging
gateway is available on, and a real relevant one: "Oracle® Database on
Unix AIX®,HP-UX®,Linux®,Mac OS® X,Solaris®,Tru64 Unix® Operating Systems
(Customer Recommended)"

So, play with search terms a bit, I get links on installing 8i on windows
NT, a windows 98/ME certification article, running 9i on windows 2000 etc
etc etc..

Lot's of information on patchsets etc., but 10 minutes later I still can't
find an 11G windows certification matrix.

Who designs this infrastructure? Do they think all the cool
sliding/expanding/contracting menus and various error pages are what
people want??

Anyway, at least I feel better now, back to looking, give it another 5
minutes them I'm logging an SR..

Wish me luck

Recently I was looking for the latest patch set for APEX - but the search on
MOS always returned zero results.
Luckily, I could find the patch set number on a blog and I entered that one
directly - now the patch set did show up. Hail to the blogs!!!

Matthias

I wasn't trying to imply that the info I needed wasn't there, but the
hoops one has to jump through to find something simple is simply
ridiculous IMHO - for example filling out the first x number of fields
in a search box and ignoring the rest, because even filling them out
correctly yields 0 rows returned.

I was looking for apex download last week, I got tired of searching
Oracle's site and googled it instead and had it in one hit, it pointed
me straight to oracles download page whereas a search from within
Oracle.com for "apex download" brought up pages and pages of documents
and other things that had nothing to do with what I wanted.

#14

Yes, the page is awful, my metalink usage is 5% of what it used to be

#15

Op 9-2-2010 7:02, vsevolod afanassiev schreef:

Quote:

Yes, the page is awful, my metalink usage is 5% of what it used to be

I agree. Even the "back" key does't work like it should.
By the way (bit off topic): did anyone notice the emerging usage of
"'" on websites? And how IE8 does not understand this?

Shakespeare

#16

Quote:

By the way (bit off topic): did anyone notice the emerging usage of
"'" on websites? And how IE8 does not understand this?

Shakespeare

I was not really aware of this problem until now (mainly using
Firefox) but indeed, I could reproduce this on IE8.
It appears that this was already a problem in IE7. This is what I
found as explanation:

"The named character reference ' (the apostrophe, U+0027) was
introduced in XML 1.0 but does not appear in HTML. Authors should
therefore use ' instead of ' to work as expected in HTML 4
user agents."

So, Internet Exploder is more correct than Firefox?

Matthias

#17

Op 9-2-2010 11:17, mhoys schreef:

Quote:

By the way (bit off topic): did anyone notice the emerging usage of
"'" on websites? And how IE8 does not understand this?

Shakespeare

I was not really aware of this problem until now (mainly using
Firefox) but indeed, I could reproduce this on IE8.
It appears that this was already a problem in IE7. This is what I
found as explanation:

"The named character reference' (the apostrophe, U+0027) was
introduced in XML 1.0 but does not appear in HTML. Authors should
therefore use' instead of' to work as expected in HTML 4
user agents."

So, Internet Exploder is more correct than Firefox?

Matthias

This time it is more strict. Unforunately, I use dbms_xmlparser to parse
some RSS feeds and they contain a lot of these codes. Replacing them via
an XSLT does not work, they get back in again, because this package
translates ' back to "'". If I use ` in the xslt, it works fine
(but shows all apostrophes like this, which is hardly noticeable for end
users).

Shakespeare

#18

"gs" <gs (AT) gs (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

Matthias Hoys wrote:
"gs" <gs (AT) gs (DOT) com> wrote

I think I see the method behind the new metalink, or "my oracle support"
for that matter. Make it as frustratingly clunky and user unfriendly as
humanly (or not) possible, and support calls will go down, along with
that "unsatisfied" support calls. I know for me it is a last resort
after I have exhausted all other avenues.

Case in point - we are installing 11G on a windows 2003 server, the
database is going to be spatial and the vendor doesn't support (for
reasons known only to them) windows 2008 yet. Anyway, thats not my
point.. I'm trying to find out if 11G R1 is certified on Windows 2003 64
bit R2, so I go to the 11G database page to view the certification
matrix like I always do (did) Ah, here is the link, on the downloads
page for the database, right where it says "Review the certification
matrix for this product here." But wait, clicking on the link brings up
a page saying all certification information is now on My Oracle Support
website.. Ok, go to my support page, enter in "11G windows certification
matrix" - what do I get? A list of 8 or so options, on about generic
connectivity on windows or linux 64 bit platforms, something about what
platforms oracle messaging gateway is available on, and a real relevant
one: "Oracle® Database on Unix AIX®,HP-UX®,Linux®,Mac OS®
X,Solaris®,Tru64 Unix® Operating Systems (Customer Recommended)"

So, play with search terms a bit, I get links on installing 8i on
windows NT, a windows 98/ME certification article, running 9i on windows
2000 etc etc etc..

Lot's of information on patchsets etc., but 10 minutes later I still
can't find an 11G windows certification matrix.

Who designs this infrastructure? Do they think all the cool
sliding/expanding/contracting menus and various error pages are what
people want??

Anyway, at least I feel better now, back to looking, give it another 5
minutes them I'm logging an SR..

Wish me luck

Recently I was looking for the latest patch set for APEX - but the search
on MOS always returned zero results.
Luckily, I could find the patch set number on a blog and I entered that
one directly - now the patch set did show up. Hail to the blogs!!!

Matthias

I wasn't trying to imply that the info I needed wasn't there, but the
hoops one has to jump through to find something simple is simply
ridiculous IMHO - for example filling out the first x number of fields in
a search box and ignoring the rest, because even filling them out
correctly yields 0 rows returned.

I was looking for apex download last week, I got tired of searching
Oracle's site and googled it instead and had it in one hit, it pointed me
straight to oracles download page whereas a search from within Oracle.com
for "apex download" brought up pages and pages of documents and other
things that had nothing to do with what I wanted.

I am surprised it took you that long to realize that. The new Metalink has
sucked for a while. It is slower and sometimes hangs or just gives an error
pop-up.

They should just go back to classic Metalink. It is easier to navigate and
less confusing.

#19

On Feb 10, 4:25*am, "Bob Jones" <em... (AT) me (DOT) not> wrote:

Quote:

"gs" <g... (AT) gs (DOT) com> wrote in messagenews:Vg1cn.63008$Db2.46115 (AT) edtnps83 (DOT) ..
Matthias Hoys wrote:
"gs" <g... (AT) gs (DOT) com> wrote in messagenews:SDWbn.62938$Db2.43303 (AT) edtnps83 (DOT) ...
I think I see the method behind the new metalink, or "my oracle support"
for that matter. Make it as frustratingly clunky and user unfriendly as
humanly (or not) possible, and support calls will go down, along with
that "unsatisfied" support calls. I know for me it is a last resort
after I have exhausted all other avenues.

Case in point - we are installing 11G on a windows 2003 server, the
database is going to be spatial and the vendor doesn't support (for
reasons known only to them) windows 2008 yet. Anyway, thats not my
point.. I'm trying to find out if 11G R1 is certified on Windows 200364
bit R2, so I go to the 11G database page to view the certification
matrix like I always do (did) Ah, here is the link, on the downloads
page for the database, right where it says "Review the certification
matrix for this product here." But wait, clicking on the link brings up
a page saying all certification information is now on My Oracle Support
website.. Ok, go to my support page, enter in "11G windows certification
matrix" *- what do I get? A list of 8 or so options, on about generic
connectivity on windows or linux 64 bit platforms, something about what
platforms oracle messaging gateway is available on, and a real relevant
one: "Oracle® Database on Unix AIX®,HP-UX®,Linux®,Mac OS®
X,Solaris®,Tru64 Unix® Operating Systems (Customer Recommended)"

So, play with search terms a bit, I get links on installing 8i on
windows NT, a windows 98/ME certification article, running 9i on windows
2000 etc etc etc..

Lot's of information on patchsets etc., but 10 minutes later I still
can't find an 11G windows certification matrix.

Who designs this infrastructure? Do they think all the cool
sliding/expanding/contracting menus and various error pages are what
people want??

Anyway, at least I feel better now, back to looking, give it another 5
minutes them I'm logging an SR..

Wish me luck

Recently I was looking for the latest patch set for APEX - but the search
on MOS always returned zero results.
Luckily, I could find the patch set number on a blog and I entered that
one directly - now the patch set did show up. Hail to the blogs!!!

Matthias

I wasn't trying to imply that the info I needed wasn't there, but the
hoops one has to jump through to find something simple is simply
ridiculous IMHO - for example filling out the first x number of fields in
a search box and ignoring the rest, because even filling them out
correctly yields 0 rows returned.

I was looking for apex download last week, I got tired of searching
Oracle's site and googled it instead and had it in one hit, it pointed me
straight to oracles download page whereas a search from within Oracle.com
for "apex download" brought up pages and pages of documents and other
things that had nothing to do with what I wanted.

I am surprised it took you that long to realize that. The new Metalink has
sucked for a while. It is slower and sometimes hangs or just gives an error
pop-up.

They should just go back to classic Metalink. It is easier to navigate and
less confusing.

Hehe. Expected reaction to exemplary violation of the KISS
principle.

Too bad software designers seem to have forgotten (or
simply didn't learn) it...

Regards,
Bob

#20

On Feb 10, 12:54*am, "Vladimir M. Zakharychev"
<vladimir.zakharyc... (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Quote:

On Feb 10, 4:25*am, "Bob Jones" <em... (AT) me (DOT) not> wrote:

"gs" <g... (AT) gs (DOT) com> wrote in messagenews:Vg1cn.63008$Db2.46115 (AT) edtnps83 (DOT) ...
Matthias Hoys wrote:
"gs" <g... (AT) gs (DOT) com> wrote in messagenews:SDWbn.62938$Db2.43303 (AT) edtnps83 (DOT) ..
I think I see the method behind the new metalink, or "my oracle support"
for that matter. Make it as frustratingly clunky and user unfriendly as
humanly (or not) possible, and support calls will go down, along with
that "unsatisfied" support calls. I know for me it is a last resort
after I have exhausted all other avenues.

Case in point - we are installing 11G on a windows 2003 server, the
database is going to be spatial and the vendor doesn't support (for
reasons known only to them) windows 2008 yet. Anyway, thats not my
point.. I'm trying to find out if 11G R1 is certified on Windows 2003 64
bit R2, so I go to the 11G database page to view the certification
matrix like I always do (did) Ah, here is the link, on the downloads
page for the database, right where it says "Review the certification
matrix for this product here." But wait, clicking on the link brings up
a page saying all certification information is now on My Oracle Support
website.. Ok, go to my support page, enter in "11G windows certification
matrix" *- what do I get? A list of 8 or so options, on about generic
connectivity on windows or linux 64 bit platforms, something about what
platforms oracle messaging gateway is available on, and a real relevant
one: "Oracle® Database on Unix AIX®,HP-UX®,Linux®,Mac OS®
X,Solaris®,Tru64 Unix® Operating Systems (Customer Recommended)"

So, play with search terms a bit, I get links on installing 8i on
windows NT, a windows 98/ME certification article, running 9i on windows
2000 etc etc etc..

Lot's of information on patchsets etc., but 10 minutes later I still
can't find an 11G windows certification matrix.

Who designs this infrastructure? Do they think all the cool
sliding/expanding/contracting menus and various error pages are what
people want??

Anyway, at least I feel better now, back to looking, give it another 5
minutes them I'm logging an SR..

Wish me luck

Recently I was looking for the latest patch set for APEX - but the search
on MOS always returned zero results.
Luckily, I could find the patch set number on a blog and I entered that
one directly - now the patch set did show up. Hail to the blogs!!!

Matthias

I wasn't trying to imply that the info I needed wasn't there, but the
hoops one has to jump through to find something simple is simply
ridiculous IMHO - for example filling out the first x number of fields in
a search box and ignoring the rest, because even filling them out
correctly yields 0 rows returned.

I was looking for apex download last week, I got tired of searching
Oracle's site and googled it instead and had it in one hit, it pointed me
straight to oracles download page whereas a search from within Oracle..com
for "apex download" brought up pages and pages of documents and other
things that had nothing to do with what I wanted.

I am surprised it took you that long to realize that. The new Metalink has
sucked for a while. It is slower and sometimes hangs or just gives an error
pop-up.

They should just go back to classic Metalink. It is easier to navigate and
less confusing.

Hehe. Expected reaction to exemplary violation of the KISS
principle.

Too bad software designers seem to have forgotten (or
simply didn't learn) it...

Regards,
* *Bob

Maybe if using flash borked the sail on Larry's boat he would notice.

jg
--
@home.com is bogus.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2...d-lose-or-awe/