Boredom leads to adventures…

So I’ve been pretty bored of late.  Over at work I’m working on eCommerce issues – mostly dealing with the various choices vendors have in linking to our network and they all involve XML based products.  You’d be surprised how many top notch IT departments have grown so reliant on tools by Oracle and others for their procurement solutions they literally click buttons and fill in forms without knowing how their tool really works. 

Not that I’m an expert on procurement (well actually I suppose technically I am) but it seems to me that any time you’ve sufficiently automated yourself to the point that you don’t know what kind of XML you’re pumping out, how it gets to the other guy and what kind of an output you need to put out… your over adapted to your technology and now dependant on it.  Which is never a good thing.

So naturally – since I handle a lot of post-production troubleshooting these days… I automated things with a few tools.  I’ll detail these out in a future blog since I’m pretty sure most people have never had to deal with cXML or understand the difference between it and standard XML, and I’ve encountered several “Oracle Gurus” who keep insisting that what Oracle pumps out is “XML”… it is – but not in the classical sense anyone else would expect.

So I’ve started a couple projects there to make it easier for people and those are forth coming…

I also… decided to do a bit of video fun and that… is how I fought off boredom this weekend.  Did two bits you can find here

 

and here…