We are in the process of moving to Slack.

yeah i like it too. i wish they'd add code highlighting to inline code gates, though.

We're using slack, used to use hipchat, before that campfire.

Slack is nice, but I don't really get the hype.

Chat bots ARE awesome.

Not liking slack at all at least on Windows.

Trying to find out if there is an API for an Oracle Marketing Cloud product. The support number listed on Oracle.com for this product is disconnected. Their main support number doesn't list the product anywhere. Trying to get a generic support person on the phone to send me in the right location is impossible because I don't have a customer support ID.

It seems like the API was discontinued from what I can read online and even if it wasn't I'm sure it would be too difficult to include as part of this project anyway.

Looks like copy/paste is the solution for the client, thanks Oracle!

Ha ha good luck dealing with Oracle. We use the RightNow chat client, which was bought by Oracle. Had massive problems. Their support response was basically "**** you".

When the business comes to us wanting to customize even the tiniest little thing on it we just laugh at them. That will be 8 hours of development and 6 man-months dealing with Oracle to get it implemented.

And yet we still have new Oracle products shoved down our throats regularly. Kickbacks to executives >>>>> screams of "Please God no!" from lower employees.

The sad thing is I think the extent of the kickback is like a nice dinner or golf weekend or something. Does anyone know how that **** actually works at the C-level? I know something is going on because we get suboptimal products and partners shoved down our throats, w/o even asking our opinion, all the time. "You have to use this because we paid a lot of money for it." is a common refrain.

Oh, that's why we have non-functional anti-virus on our several thousand computers.

Yes, so John McAfee can have infinite resources to make bath salts and murder people in Belize. You're welcome.

Yes, I actually do know how this works.

99% of sales at that level is about FUD (Fear, uncertainty, doubt)

It truly is the "no one ever got fired for going with IBM" over and over and over. They will literally say anything and lie out of their ass that whatever executive they are speaking with will basically get cancer and die if they don't go with their product.

We are on a project right now (this same one I just mentioned) where Oracle sold them on the entire marketing cloud, and some C-level exec bought it because "an all-in one marketing solution is clearly a great way to modernize our digital marketing" and the products are really quite ****ty. Sure, there are some good parts, and I would be lying if I said the tools had no value, but overall for what you are paying for, you can find 4-5 small to medium sized tech companies that provide better software with great APIs and absolutely great customer service.

What I really don't get is that is exactly what the Oracle marketing cloud is anyway. They just literally bought 4-5 companies, "integrate them" using the APIs the companies were already providing, and call it a whole product suite.

The oracle rep on this deal went as far as to say that Oracle Webcenter was much more flexible than Drupal, and the client would never be able to get their requirements built in Drupal. Meanwhile, Eloqua (the core of the marketing cloud) told them that passing information such as "referring source" was "non-standard" functionality when a user goes from the main .com to an Eloqua landing page hosted on another subdomain. It also took them 2 weeks to create a form in Eloqua that used a 3rd party email verfication tool (that has an API that returns responses in microseconds) and just overall it was absolutely ridiculous. In the sales process they will tell you everything is possible and of course you can do that, and as soon as the implementation starts, things fall apart, but they already got you!

On a positive note, my searching led me to this

The feels when you work for Oracle

Oh I've never even considered this approach. I just have a VM with the Windows that came with my desktop but I recently wiped it. Isn't the problem usually that you don't just need raw Windows but also specific programs (often with strange licenses)?
I'd be curious to hear a bit more about your use case. Mine would basically be "doing taxes"

clowntable, you're German, right?
If so, check out elster again. I think I've seen that it now also works on OS X if you use Chrome.

Anyone ever seen this hacked thing before on Google?

https://support.google.com/websearch...ws_hacked&rd=1

lol

In Austin now.

The tech scene is pretty happening down here. Lot more variety of things happening than L.A. Lot of data science stuff (much larger than LA) and, from what I see, few social media companies.

And get this: if you walk into a meetup, you actually see women, like quite a few, and many of them are founders or in high positions of their companies.

You even see men talking to women and you see women talking to men, drinking the free beer together and talking heavy tech, and all of this happens without a screaming rant hitting the front page of HN every 20 minutes.

And yes, gaming_mouse, it is over 80 degrees with > 50% humidity and at midnight, so you can walk onto your porch wearing nothing but boxers.

What you doing out in Austin? But yea I heard only good things in Austin. Is it biggest tech city after Seattle, SF, LA?

LA is good for the women thing. They seem to be everywhere here. Even the hottest girl you knew in high school feels middle of the pack here.

with all that heat, inter-gender mingling, and strong, free-spirited women, the place seems ripe for a startup ready to disrupt "stress" -- a 21st century take on massage fronted by a lisp programmer so cool he even refuses to eat organic, artisanal tomatoes.

New yorks pretty big. Boston too.

I'd actually guess both of these are bigger than LAs tech scene.

Adtech is moving from SF to LA for their west coast show due to the growth in LA tech(probably also cheaper convention space).

I've only been involved in Toronto/Sydney the past 10 years though so no clue it was booming so much last I dealt with LA it was basically just Yahoo ads down there.

I just got sick of L.A. There's a time-limit to that place.

I really don't know how large it is since I haven't been here long, but it is much more compact, so getting people to show up is much easier, I suspect.

They also wear way too much makeup (except in the arts district where they don't wear any), stretch their lobes to their ankles, and... there is a reason there are more plastic surgeons than general practitioners in L.A.

The woman are very pretty here, and they actually smile, talk, joke, and ask how you are doing.

SF women (when you can find one, lol) are much easier going than L.A. women, which I found rather surprising, to be honest.

I lived in SF for 5 years. SF women sir, are no LA women.

There's a spectrum of hotness/crustiness that runs from LA to Seattle.

I'm binge watching Silicon Valley. Man they nail the ludicrousness of the whole startup scene.

Love this show, its so goofy. I call it Entourage for nerds