Managed ODP.NET v12.1.0.1.0 released!

ODP.NET is finally out of Beta and is now synced with the 12c client. Managed ODP.NET client v12.1.0.1.0 can be downloaded from the Oracle’s OTN site. Related OTN sections: Oracle Database 12c / Oracle Database 12c related downloads Oracle Data Provider for .NET Oracle .NET Developer Center Happy coding!

Memory Profiling with Chrome DevTools

Nice discussion on JavaScript memory management: Introduction to JavaScript memory management basics and a deeper dive into the Heap Profiler in Chrome DevTools with John McCutchan and Loreena Lee.

Bypassing YouTube stream throttling by ISPs [for Windows]

If you have a very decent internet connection (equal to or more than 4 mbps) but still not able to stream YouTube video’s without it waiting for buffering a lot, it maybe because your local ISP could be using a CDN for caching YouTube instead of loading from the main site. There is an easy way to bypass this throttling by asking your OS to block traffic from the caching CDN and loading the content directly from YouTube by simply providing the following command at elevated command prompt

World Backup Day

March 31st is world backup day! Signup for a cloud based backup service and save yourself a lot of regret later. I am singing up for Backblaze since they are providing an option for unlimited space and unlimited individual file size for $5/month (AED 19/month), which is a small amount to preserve all my important stuff. You can also check out Crashplan who have some really attractive annual and biannual plan.

An easier way to exporting your Google Reader feed (OPML) when Google Takeout is not helping

Tried exporting my links through Google Takeout, but was stuck with the following screen for a long time

Google Takeout being very helpful for exporting Reader feeds

Google Takeout being very helpful for exporting Reader feeds

Google Reader being retired as of July 1, 2013

As part of the second spring cleaning Google is retiring Google Reader from July 1, 2013. We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.

Working with .NET Boolean and Oracle along with ASP.NET MVC

Somethings that are straight forward in MS-SQL and .NET are bit convoluted when using Oracle and .NET. A good example for this case is when trying to map a database Boolean field to a .NET POCO. With MS-SQL we can straight away use bit which has a possible values of 1 or ``, but with Oracle since it does not have a built in Boolean type we would normally go with a single character field with a value of 'Y' or 'N'.