The module to access an Oracle database with Python is cx_Oracle. This works for all versions from 8i to 11g. To compile you need to have Oracle libraries, but luckily you do not need the full installation — the “instant client” with OCI is enough. (Thanks for pointing that out in this article.)
When using the [...]

It really is the most important skill one can and should learn nowadays. How to fit all the things one has to or wants to do in the timeframe a single day or week provides. The new apartment was and is a lot of work over the last few months, but things are finally, slowly [...]

So I had to go to Antwerp that Sunday a few weeks ago. My tickets should have been at the airport, but they were not. I had to buy new ones for a flight later that day. Went back home, got a beer in a pub, extra money to pay the ticket and went back [...]

The last two and a half weeks were pretty eventful for me.
First I was in Rum near Innsbruck, Tirol to talk about the Harmonic IPTV Headend Telekom Austria is using for a group of TA employees. It was my first sort of public speed for the job and I was very motivated and I am [...]

Ahh, holidays, Christmas, time to shelf all work related for a few days. I have had a pretty nasty cough for a week and at work always new things come up. I was planning to be in for just an hour or so on Friday, but in the end it became six hours. At least [...]

It’s been nearly three months, since I started my current job at Alcatel Austria AG. My first contact with the project happened there over a year ago during my internship. A lot has happened since then and finally at the begin of this month Telekom Austria started their big promotion campaign for the product: http://aondigital.tv
Though, [...]

Two weeks ago I went there to do work related stuff, but also had the chance to take some pictures. I have never been there before, but thought it would be a nice place to take pictures. I was not disappointed: big white dishes, the deep, green woods and meadows combined with blue sky and [...]

Holidays are over. As of September 1st I work at Alcatel Austria on the IPTV project I was in during my internship and when I was working on my diploma thesis — in short, everything worked out as planned. A lot of new things are going on and extensions of the current installation are being [...]

Not THE end ;), but my diploma exams are next Thursday afternoon. While preparing my thesis presentation, I wondered what useful tips the internet has to offer for presentations. I found a few articles/sites of interest.

How to Get a Standing Ovation (guykawasaki.com)… interesting person, interesting blog
Presentation Zen… very informative blog about presenting
8 mistakes when creating [...]

I just sent a first “final” version of my thesis to my academic tutor. It includes some preview pictures and the index is not included, but its complete for now. Pictures need some more work. I want them all to look equal in style, colors, line thickness and stuff. Also some bitmaps have to be [...]