OracleBlog

Today, August 4th, shortly after lunch, ThinkOracle had it's one millionth visitor. Care for a stroll down memory lane?

I started this site May 16, 2005, shortly after starting a new position with a company that made financial software. The idea was to make my own contribution to the growing Oracle community, expand my knowledge, improve my technical writing, and it never hurts to establish a good reputation.

I actually started a sister site for Sybase that same day, wrote for about a year (consistently at first, then sporadically), and it's not even at 42,000 hits. There just isn't as big a community for Sybase as there is for Oracle.

As for the Oracle site, I posted regularly for over two years, when I changed jobs again. Unfortunately my new position didn't involve nearly as much Oracle work, so my contributions started to fade off.

Surprisingly, the number of visitors I was getting didn't fade off, and Google dutifully sent a number of Oracle professionals to my archives. It was always a thrill when someone in the office would swing by my desk and tell me a story about how they were Googling a solution to a problem, and came across my site.

Unfortunately, being a good blogger is a big investment of time. It's not just the writing, you have to keep your knowledge up to date, follow other blogs, participate in forums and other user groups - it's a lot of work, especially if it's not a central part of what you do for a living. I wish I had the time to post more than a few times a year, but I don't.

A lot of my favourite fellow bloggers have come and go in this time, although I'm amazed at those that are still going strong, like Tom, Eddie, Doug, Pete, Mark, Laurent and Tim, to name just a few. I remember all the great bloggers that were there when I started and have since faded just like I have, especially David, Niall and Howard. I also see a brand new generation of Oracle bloggers, and as lucky as we were back then, I think everyone is luckier today.

Thinking back, there have been a lot of highlights over the years (all of which you can find in my archives):

1. Tom Kyte following my blog and commenting regularly to help me get going. This site might not be here without him, and oh what a spike in traffic when he first linked to it.

2. Oracle started including my blog in their aggregator, August, 2005.

3. My first milestone: 60 posts and 10,000 visitors by November, 2005.

4. Computerworld recognising ThinkOracle as one of the best IT blogs, December 2005.

5. Oracle publishing one of my articles on their site, February 2006.

6. Meeting Tom Kyte, June 2006.

7. My next milestone: 107 posts and 100,000 visitors November, 2006.

8. Almost winning Oracle Blogger of the year in 2006 (Damn you Eddie!)

9. Being asked to be Technical Editor on Alice Rischert's SQL book, February-March 2009.

10. One million!

Even before I was a blogger, I would visit Oracle discussion forums, and marvel at how people like Laurent would tirelessly assist anyone in need of Oracle expertise. Once I started blogging, I understood how addictive and contagious it can be.

I have very fond memories of my time as a regular blogger. I'm still here, I haven't given up, and you can definitely expect as much new content as I can muster.

And if you're a fan of my writing and you like hockey, keep your eyes peeled for the 2010-11 Puck Prospectus Annual, which is coming out in September and on which I'm an author. You can also check out my stuff on ESPN.com. If comedy is more your style, my personal blog, which pre-dates this one, is still going strong.