I received the following email reminder today about the Oracle on Windows Special Interest Group meeting at Oracle's Blythe Valley Park Offices in Solihull

Just to remind you that we are now 12 weeks out from the next SIG which
will be held on the 11 July 2007 at Blythe Valley Park.

If you have any speakers already lined up, please let me know so that I
may use them in the save the date email.

Naturally of course we have no speakers lined up as yet, so if you wish to be considered or just investigate the possibility, drop me a line

Scripting

Database Administrators and Systems Administrators both know that they have a large number of routine, repetitive tasks to perform that are subject to error, either simple typographical error or by omitting or repeating steps inadvertently. These categories of tasks are eminently suitable for scripting.
On Unix platforms such scripting is often performed by means of a shell script indeed job descriptions for database administrators often list shell scripting as a required skill. The windows platform shell (cmd.exe) is a relatively poor environment for shell scripting, largely due to its backwards compatibility with the MS-DOS PC environment common in the 1980s and 1990s.This is often leads Unix administrators to consider the Windows environment as lacking in facilities to script repetitive administration tasks. There are however a number of technologies available to the administrator on windows platforms that readily allow scripting of regular maintenance tasks.