http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&srchtype=discussedNews&gid=66190&item=84398212&type=member&trk=eml-anet_dig-b_pd-ttl-cn&ut=3WqS8A9VgVel41

To learn about all new cool features of this release please navigate to URL http://apex.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=52663:1

Here is a list of all the useful URLs on Salesforce.com.

As URLs change frequently, if any of the following URL is not working, please leave a comment with details and I will update the URL. Also if you come across any other URL that is useful for Salesforce.com, do let me know. I will include that URL in the list here.

Salesforce.com
http://www.salesforce.com

Salesforce.com Pricing & Editions
http://www.salesforce.com/ap/crm/editions-pricing.jsp

Salesforce.com – Salesforce Videos
http://www.salesforce.com/video/

Salesforce.com You Tube Channel
http://www.youtube.com/salesforce

AppExchnage
http://appexchange.salesforce.com/

Salesforce.com & Force.com Developer Resources
http://developer.force.com/

Force.com Technical Library
http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Wiki

Force.com Platform Fundamentals
http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/fundamentals/index.htm

Force.com Workbook
http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/workbook/index.htm

Force.com Cookbook
http://developer.force.com/cookbook/

Force.com Discussion Boards
http://boards.developerforce.com/sforce/?category.id=developers

Introduction to Apex
http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/An_Introduction_to_Apex

Apex Home Page
http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Apex

Force.com Apex Code Developers Guide
HTML – http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/apexcode/index.htm
PDF – http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/apexcode/salesforce_apex_language_reference.pdf

Apex Code Best Practices
http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Apex_Code_Best_Practices

VisualForce Home Page
http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Visualforce

VisualForce Developer’s Guide
HTML – http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/pages/index.htm
PDF – http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/pages/salesforce_pages_developers_guide.pdf

Web Services Home Page
http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Web_Services_API

Web Services API Developer’s Guide
HTML – http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api/index.htm
PDF – http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api/apex_api.pdf

Metadata API Developer’s Guide
HTML – http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api_meta/index.htm
PDF – http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api_meta/api_meta.pdf

Here is a list of all the useful URLs on Oracle Application Express. If you would like to see all the books available on Oracle Application Express please visit http://www.asagarwal.com/547/oracle/books-on-oracle-application-express/ .

As URLs constantly change, if any of the following URL is not working, please leave a comment with details and I will update the URL. Also if you come across any other URL that is useful for Oracle Application Express, do let me know. I will include that URL in the list here.

Oracle APEX Home Page
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/apex/overview/index.html

Oracle APEX Download Page
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/apex/documentation/index.html

Oracle APEX Manuals
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/apex/documentation/index.html

Oracle APEX Packaged Applications
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/apex/application-express/packaged-apps-090453.html

Oracle APEX 4.0 New Features
http://apex.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=34738:1:0

Oracle APEX Forum
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/forum.jspa?forumID=137

Get an Oracle APEX Workspace On Internet
http://apex.oracle.com/pls/apex

Oracle APEX Certification
http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=41&p_org_id=1001&lang=US&p_exam_id=1Z0_450

Oracle APEX Plug-Ins (By Oracle)
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/apex/application-express/apex-plug-ins-182042.html

Oracle APEX Plug-Ins (By Community)
http://www.apex-plugin.com

Oracle APEX Listener
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/apex-listener/overview/index.html

Oracle APEX Listener Forum
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/forum.jspa?forumID=858

Oracle APEX Live Online Training
http://www.dbcon.com/courses.html

Published : December 2008	Published : June 2010	Published : September 2008
Published : December 2010	Published : July 2009	Published : August 2009
Published : September 2009	Published : December 2009 (German)	Published : 2009 (French)

The following books on Oracle Application Express will be released soon. Click on the icon, if you would like to pre-order these books from Amazon.com

You can view all the features that will be incorporated in Salesforce Spring 11 release. The videos are classified under different sections, based on the products that Salesforce offers.

1. Overview (Duration : 59:19 minutes)

If you are not a able to view the video, watch it directly on YouTube by clicking here.

2. Sales Cloud (Duration : 2:59 minutes)

If you are not a able to view the video, watch it directly on YouTube by clicking here.

3. Service Cloud (Duration : 1:10 minutes)

If you are not a able to view the video, watch it directly on YouTube by clicking here.

4. Chatter (Duration : 2:39 minutes)

If you are not a able to view the video, watch it directly on YouTube by clicking here.

5. Jigsaw (Duration : 3:34 minutes)

If you are not a able to view the video, watch it directly on YouTube by clicking here.

5. Force.com (Duration : 0:54 minutes)

If you are not a able to view the video, watch it directly on YouTube by clicking here.

Salesforce allows you to create reports using wizards. And though this offers a lot of flexibility in the terms of creating customized reports, it wasn’t very intuitive. You had to follow a series of steps before you could actually see the output.

Salesforce has now come up with a new feature called “Report Builder” based on “WYSIWYG” (What you see is what you get).  Currently available as “Developer Preview” (available only in developer edition), report builder is expected to be available in Winter 2010 for production use.

With report builder you will actually be working on the output itself. Report builder is going to fetch the first 50 rows based on the filters that your specify and then you can use drag and drop and other features to customize it as per your requirement. View the following YouTube video to find out how exactly it works.

If you are not a able to view the video, watch it directly on YouTube by clicking here.

Gartner Global IT Council for Cloud Services has come up with six rights and one responsibility that you should have a customer when using cloud computing for your IT requirements. The full article is available here. Here is a brief snapshot of these rights & responsibilities.

• Right 1: The right to retain ownership, use and control one’s own data
• Right 2: The right to service-level agreements that address liabilities, remediation and business outcomes
• Right 3: The right to notification and choice about changes that affect the service consumers’ business processes
• Right 4: The right to understand the technical limitations or requirements of the service up front
• Right 5: The right to understand the legal requirements of jurisdictions in which the provider operates
• Right 6: The right to know what security processes the provider follows
• Responsibility: The responsibility to understand and adhere to software license requirements

Personally, I think this framework makes a lot of sense for the customers and service providers. With cloud computing slated to grow many-fold in coming years, it will be good to have these set of guidelines. Probably taking it a step further will be to certify the cloud computing service providers based on these basic parameters, i.e. something on the lines of ISO certification. This will ensure that the service provider is operating within a basic set of framework formulated by industry experts and will help customers in choosing the correct service provider.

Read the full article by James Harris and Steven Nunn where they highlight the benefits of cloud computing .

If you are not using cloud for your IT requirements you are missing something. Use IT in your business, minus its headaches with cloud computing.

And while we are waiting for Salesforce to come up with the solution, here is what you can do.

Create a data validation rule on Leads (Setup -> Customize -> Leads -> Validation Rules).

which will look something like this

Email = “maxim-1980@bk.ru” || CONTAINS(FirstName, “online”) || CONTAINS(LastName, “online”) || CONTAINS( Message__c, “http://”)

This validation condition has been created because most of the time the spam lead that I receive has one of the following characteristic

1. The e-mail address is the same (like “maxim-1980@bk.ru”) or
2. contains the keyword “online” in first name or last name
3. Has ” http:// ” in the message or description field.

If you can find a characteristic like this, you may want to create a data validation rule to disallow such leads. But you need to be careful to ensure that no genuine lead gets rejected by this validation rule.

Hope this helps. If anyone else has got any other idea, please feel free to share.