The Feature

10 Questions for Eddie Awad from Eddie Awad’s Blog

March 13, 2006 on 7:15 am | by Marian Crkon | In Conversations | |  Print |  Email

We continue in our 10 Questions series with Oracle users, consultants, and bloggers with ten questions for Eddie Awad, an Oracle programmer, active Oracle blogger and a creator of the Oracle News Aggregator, which aggregates all Oracle-related blogs and news into one convenient super-blog. Thank you Eddie!

How did come to learn Oracle?

Eddie AwadIt was in 1994. I was a COBOL programmer working in Saudi Arabia. The IT management decided to replace COBOL with Oracle. So, I had to learn SQL, PL/SQL, Oracle forms and reports. If I remember correctly, it was Oracle version 7 running on VAX/VMS. I have been developing Oracle applications since then and I do not regret it at all.

How are you involved with Oracle currently?

Currently, I work as a senior application developer. My main focus is Oracle SQL and PL/SQL in addition to web development and E-commerce using Macromedia ColdFusion and Microsoft BizTalk. No matter what tool I use, Oracle is always the backend database. We are also a big Oracle E-business suite customer, so I’m involved a little bit with that as well.

What inspired you to start blogging?

At first, I started a personal blog to share thoughts and pictures with my family and friends. After trying it for a while on a personal level, I felt that I would have a lot more topics to talk about that are related to what I do on a daily basis, and a lot more people to share my daily work experiences with. So, I moved my focus from personal to professional/technical blogging. I do, however, blog about anything I find interesting, which may or may not relate to Oracle.

Are there any special topics or issues that you enjoy covering?

Primarily, everything related to Oracle, specifically SQL and PL/SQL tips, tricks and, most importantly, forgotten features as well as new features. Usually my blog posts are a result of something I read in a book, stumbled on a website, blog or a forum, or something I researched at work or was the result of my own experiences.

What have you done to personalize your blog?

My blog’s title is Eddie Awad’s Blog. That’s the first personalization and the most obvious one. I use many plugins to personalize the look of my blog. I use plugins to fight spam, display related posts, give the ability to subscribe to comments and offer many other functions; Even the display theme of my blog is a plugin.

Do you have any favorite posts?

All my posts are my favorites, otherwise I won’t write them. However, if by favorite you mean the post that generated the most comments, that would be Char or Car. If by favorite you mean the post that generated the most inbound links, that would be the Oracle Firefox search plugin and Oracle Docs Firefox Extension.

What are some of your favorite blogs (Oracle or otherwise)?

I have created OraNA to keep track of all my favorite Oracle Blogs. They are too many to list here. For non-Oracle I read lifehacker.com, 43folders.com, and Creating Passionate Users among others.

What tools/websites do you find most helpful in putting together your blog?

My blog is powered by WorPress. I love WordPress. It is highly and easily customizable using themes and plugins found on wordpress.org and elsewhere on the net. As far as blog tips and tricks, I have found the following two blogs very helpful: problogger.net and performancing.com.

How does blogging fit into your job or your business?

Blogging does not actually fit into my job, rather it is the other way around, my job fits into my blogging. What I do for a living is often the subject matter of my blog.

What do you think business blogging will look like 3 years from now?

Just recently, Oracle officially launched blogs.oracle.com to host Oracle employees blogs. A lot of other companies, especially big ones, are trying to formalize the blogging activities of their employees and put procedures and policies in place to basically control what gets blogged about by employees. I believe that “business” blogging is still growing and will play a greater role in establishing a company’s image.

Thank you very much for your time, Eddie!

Find this and other similar articles in Conversations.