Advice needed regarding learning path

Friends, I have completed my OCP certification in 11g recently. I want to do OCM in 11g in long run. I need to learn skill-sets named RAC and Performance tuning before preparing for OCM. So what learning can I do next after OCP- RAC or Performance tuning ,any inputs will be highly appreciated !!

921871 wrote:
Thanks for your suggestions. I am already working as a production DBA for last 1.5 years for a organization. My project has no scope of RAC and performance tuning as of now. But I am very eager to learn them. I am confused what I need to start learning first, hence asked. In the long run, my aim is to gain practical exposure, experience along with OCM certification.
I am confused what I need to start learning first
Too many people seem to think learning is linear. Yes, there are some things you have to learn before you can learn some other things. But "learning" Oracle never ends. Pick a subject area (RAC, or SQL, or Performance Tuning, or .. or ..). Doesn't matter which. Spend enough time with it to get a fundamental, working understanding of it. Then do the same with another subject while at the same time keep your eyes open for adding to your understanding of the first subject. "Rinse and repeat". Spend time on this and one or two other high-quality oracle forums. Participate and be willing to take your lumps and learn when you offer advice that is shot down. Build yourself a virtual test system (Opinion | Ed Stevens, DBA) and then break it. And then fix it using only the facilities you would have available to you in the real world.

Similar Messages

Advice needed regarding Dummy Learning Environment

Being a newbie, In VM I will install Oracle 11G/Oracle 10g and play in that environment , the aim is get thorough with Unix environment & basic tasks of DBA. So what combination of O/S will be most suitable for me?
Any advice from experts will be great for me.
Edited by: 916438 on Mar 31, 2012 5:59 PM

916438 wrote:
Being a newbie, In VM I will install Oracle 11G/Oracle 10g and play in that environment , the aim is get thorough with Unix environment & basic tasks of DBA. So what combination of O/S will be most suitable for me?
Any advice from experts will be great for me.
I would suggest that you use Virtualbox for creating the virtual machines and as a choice of O/S, use Oracle's Enterprise Linux. Both the products are from Oracle itself so are completely certified to run Oracle products and the biggest advantage, both are free!
You can download Virtualbox and OEL from the below links,
https://www.virtualbox.org/
http://edelivery.oracle.com/linux
Good luck!
Aman....

Advice needed regarding iPad 2 software upgrade

Hi,
I have a 64GB WiFi iPad 2 that is still running the original iOS 4.3.3 with which it came out of the factory as well as a 16GB iPhone 4 running iOS 4.3.5. My question is: Should I upgrade to iOS5? Or rather, is it safe to upgrade to iOS5?
My only iOS upgrade experience is with a 64GB 3rd generation iPod Touch which was ruined by iOS4 and made worse by iOS5. After the upgrade my video app no longer worked and the Touch was very laggy and glitchy. It would seem as if the the 64GB models react differently to iOS upgrades than the smaller capacity models. In the case of the Touch, the processor simply could not handle 59GB of content and a new version of iOS. The upgrade to iOS5 fixed the video app but then corrupted 2GB of the flash memory resulting in only 57GB now being available in stead of the usual 59GB. It is still just as laggy and glitchy as it was with iOS4.
My question is: Does anybody have a 64GB iPad 2 (that originally came out with iOS4) that was upgraded to iOS5, that is filled to capacity with apps, music & video's (music video's & TV shows)? If so, how is iOS 5.1.1 running on it? Is your iPad still as responsive and smooth running as it was with iOS4? I use my iPad extensively for video, and if the video app no longer works the iPad will be useless for me. What did iOS5 do to your battery life? Do you still get the same great battery life as with iOS4?
I would also like to hear from iPhone 4 owners now running iOS5.1.1. Is your iPhone still as smooth and responsive as with iOS4? What did iOS5 do to your battery life?
Any help, advice and suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Regards
Daniel

I have the same pad as you, and I have kept up with the upgrades, and I have had no problems. Zippo.
I have a friend who stayed where you are, and he is fine, but does not have the new stuff that is included in the upgrades, also, he cannot update any apps that need the new system, such as pages, keynote, numbers, I photo garage band etc.
If you take your time, the upgrade is relatively painless. I lost no apps, nor data. I needed to re enter my mail info one one account, and had to redo the wifi stuff for my home network.
With 5.0, other than the above capabilities, I did not notice any speed improvement nor worsening. With 5.1. I did notice that the machine is a little quicker. May be my imagination.
I did have a little battery issue initially, and found a couple of apps that we're trying to connect home and do something, and once I dumped them, the battery life is the same as it was.
So no issues here at all. I also have a phone 4, and can report the same thing, no issues, and a little snappier under 5.1.
If you are still at 4.xx you are a couple of generations behind. I don't know what you may have loaded, but it is possible that you have an that does not play well, and you may have issues, but I did not.
Before you update, back everything up. Photos, music and apps, and send a copy of any important days and spreadsheets to Dropbox or some where. Then , if it gets messed up, simply set it up as brand new, then restore from that backup. And if that fails, simply redownload the music, books, and apps from the store for free if you are using the same apple Id.

Help, advice needed for learning Action Script

I don't have any experience with programing and even scripting and I can't find tutorials for total beginners. I started to read this one
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ActionScript/3.0_ProgrammingAS3/WS5b3ccc516d4fbf351e63e3d118a9 b8cbfe-7ff7.html
but I have difficulties understanding the explanations.
If you have any advice and pointers to tutorials for total dummy beginners I will greatly appreciate it.

I’m 27 years old and one month ago I started study ActionScript 3.0. After red a lot of forums with recommendations about what need to do for study as3 I clear next things:
Try to visit forums about as3 and discus with people about your problems and also try to help other solve their problems (you can help a lot of people to solve their problems, you can find a lot answers to your questions, you can share your experience with others)
Try to read books about as3 (in books you can find all theory and some examples for this theory, so this info will be very helpful for you, because it’s a fundamental knowledge what you must to know)
Try to visit sites with tutorials (on the net you can find a lot sites with tutorials and there you step by step will study a lot of things)
Share your knowledge with others (create your blog or something else where you will show to people your examples of work, where you will write about as3 and will share your experiences and knowledge, this can give you chance to consolidate your knowledge and give opportunity other people study as3)
Try to separate big not understandable problem to smaller(after you find answer to all small problems you can find answer to big problem)
And the main what you must remember then YOU MUST CODING EVERY DAY! (I think without it you never been a as3 coder.)
I can recommend next sites witch can help you to study ActionScript 3.0:
Books:
<a href="http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ActionScript/3.0_ProgrammingAS3/">http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ActionScript/3.0_ProgrammingAS3/</a> 
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Essential-ActionScript-3-0-Colin-Moock/dp/0596526946">Essential ActionScript 3.0</a> 
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Learning-ActionScript-3-0-Beginners-Guide/dp/059652787X/ref=sr_1_2?i e=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261737552&sr=1-2">Learning ActionScript 3.0: A Beginner's Guide</a> 
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/ActionScript-Adobe-Flash-Professional-Classroom/dp/0321579216/ref=sr _1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261737552&sr=1-6">ActionScript 3.0 for Adobe Flash CS4 Professional Classroom in a Book</a> 
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/ActionScript-3-0-Game-Programming-University/dp/0789737027/ref=sr_1_ 7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261737552&sr=1-7">ActionScript 3.0 Game Programming University</a> 
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/ActionScript-3-0-Cookbook-Application-Developers/dp/0596526954/ref=s r_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261737552&sr=1-8">ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook: Solutions for Flash Platform and Flex Application Developers</a>
Forums:
<a href="http://forums.adobe.com/community/flash/flash_actionscript3">http://forums.adobe.com/community/flash/flash_actionscript3</a> 
<a href="http://www.actionscript.org/forums/forumdisplay.php3?f=75">http://www.actionscript.org/forums/forumdisplay.php3?f=75</a> 
<a href="http://www.flasher.ru/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=83">http://www.flasher.ru/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=83</a>
Blogs:
<a href="http://theflashblog.com/">http://theflashblog.com/</a> 
<a href="http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/">http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/</a> 
<a href="http://as3journal.blogspot.com/">http://as3journal.blogspot.com/</a> 
<a href="http://flash-templates-today.com/blog/">http://flash-templates-today.com/blog/</a> 
<a href="http://xitri.com/">http://xitri.com/</a> 
<a href="http://www.hamstersteam.com/">http://www.hamstersteam.com/</a> 
<a href="http://flash-animation.ru/">http://flash-animation.ru/</a> 
<a href="http://www.keyframer.com/">http://www.keyframer.com/</a>
Tutorials:
<a href="http://cookbooks.adobe.com/actionscript">http://cookbooks.adobe.com/actionscript</a> 
<a href="http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/30-free-flash-photo-galleries-and-tutorials/">http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/30-free-flash-photo-galleries-and-tutorials/</a> 
<a href="http://www.ilike2flash.com/">http://www.ilike2flash.com/</a> 
<a href="http://xuroqflash.com/">http://xuroqflash.com/</a> 
<a href="http://www.emanueleferonato.com/category/actionscript-3/">http://www.emanueleferonato.com/category/actionscript-3/</a> 
<a href="http://www.graphicmania.net/category/adobe-flash/">http://www.graphicmania.net/category/adobe-flash/</a> 
<a href="http://www.flashperfection.com/">http://www.flashperfection.com/</a> 
<a href="http://active.tutsplus.com/category/tutorials/">http://active.tutsplus.com/category/tutorials/</a>

Advice needed regarding Database design practice

OK, here is my situation. I've started working for a company about 6 months ago. I'm a .NET developer with 12+ years of experience. Most of my experience with databases is with SQL Server. Recently I've discovered an design change with our Oracle database that our DBA made that I completely disagree with.
We had a single Event table that holds records that pertain to all HTTP traffic on a network as HTTP Usage Event. There are multiple hardware units called 'Sensors' that monitor the network and report these HTTP events to the database. At some point not long ago, the table was holding just over a million records. Performance was suffering so the DBA decided to make a change to the database to accommodate. The change she made was to create a separate Event table for each sensor. Each sensor has an integer value as a unique identifier, so our database went from having a single Event table to now having Event_100, Event_101, Event_102, etc...
So, we now have over 200 Event tables in our database. Anytime a sensor is added to the system, we need to add another table (actually two as there is a 2nd table that was duplicated in this same fashion).
How do I present this to my boss and to the DBA in a way that I don't embarrass my boss (he approved the change) and without pissing off the DBA? I can't imagine that the table couldn't have been optimized as it was to take care of the issues with performance without so dramatic a change.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Edited by: jreddy on Dec 15, 2010 6:51 AM

There is a job to purge old data. Events are kept for 3 months. These jobs were actually part of the problem, as well as removing sensors from the system. In either of these cases, the deletion of the data (more so with the removal of a Sensor i.e. DELETE FROM EVENT WHERE SENSORID = X, was taking too long).
I'm surprised that there have been people agreeing to this design. So, now we have 208 sensors, so 208 Event tables and another table named DATA_HASH duplicated 208 times. There may be a time when our database will be handling data from over 1,000 sensor units. Maybe even double that. Can anyone argue that having 2,000 event tables is the way to go? What if we need to add a new field to the table? Do that 2000 times?
I've been looking at bit more at the data today. I found some event tables haven't got any data (0 rows) while others range in row counts of 2 million up to as much as 30 million? I've talked to SQL DBA's and they all think that Oracle should be able to handle billions of rows in a table.
Also, just out of curiosity, I looked up the max size for a table in Oracle 10. I know the number of rows isn't the determining factor for this, but size of the data. I was astounded to find out the max size for data storage for a single table. 127 TB (yeah, tera bytes). Based on this size, it seems our data could be handled by 1 table, but then maybe I'm wrong.

Advice needed regarding hands free ring tone

I own a curve 8520 & also use a Bluetooth Supertooth visor go hands free kit in the car.
When the two items are paired and i receive a call the ring tone from the hands free kit is not the same as the ring tone on the phone.
When this happened with my W810i i was told it was due to the phone not being a2dp compatible ? if i have the correct name for it.
Can you advise how i can make my ring tone play throught the hands free the same as the phone.

Thanks Russ. If I remember right, I have been following your advice regarding archiving of projects.
I do import using optimized media. I do not understand what you mean by trashing Pro Res files. Where are they located? I tried to find out by openeing up the one archived project and have found this:
I clicked open the 'info' for all the four icons and have found that the Render files had occupied the largest space. Upon clicking open the render files folder, I found this:
Can you guide me further? Where are the Pro Res files you have mentioned?

Advice needed regarding replacing the HD

Hi
I have bought a 160GB drive for my last generation Powerbook. When trying to remove the old drive the two outermost screws holding the actual HD in will not budge at all. I have removed all the other screws, and I'm not new to this, having happily replaced HDs in Titanium Powerbooks and recently in a MacBook Pro. But these two screws are completely stuck. I have the correct size screwdrivers and have actually already damaged the heads of two screwdrivers trying to get the screws loose, but have not damaged the screws at all. Do I have to admit defeat and hand it over to a workshop? And in that case can they do a better job than I can or will they just round the screws off?
Does anyone have any experience of such a problem?
Thanks
Matthew Whiting

You have gotten some excellent advice, and it will probably serve to get your screws out. But I wanted to add my 2¢ for some remedies of last resort just in case you need them. This does not come from any knowledge of powerbooks, just of getting out stuck screws.
If you can safely apply a little heat to the screw head without harming anything else, this could help. You could use a low power soldering iron and you don't want to heat it up more than about 200º. This can do several things. If there is Loctite on the screw, it will soften it. It will also help the WD-40 to penetrate. And because of the difference in the coefficient of expansion between steel and aluminum, it will make the screw very slightly looser in the hole.
And if all else fails and you do have to drill something out, you should be aware that there are such things as left-handed drill bits. You can get a set of 5 from Snap-on, the smallest of which is 1/8". You will also need a reversible drill motor. The thing about drilling out a screw with a left-handed drill bit is that it will sometimes bite into what's left of the screw head well enough to break it loose and back it out, since it is turning in the proper direction to do this. A regular right-handed drill bit rotates in a direction to tighten, not to loosen.
Hopefully you won't need any of this information, especially if you have already applied the tiny bit of oil to be soaking into the threads for a few days while you attend to your baby daughter. But wanted you to have it just in case.
Good luck!

Advice needed regarding best practice

Hi - curious as to if what i have setup now should be changed to best utilize Time Machine. I have iMac with 750GB drive (a small chunk is partitioned for Vista) - lets assume I have 600 GB dedicated for the mac.
I havetwo firewire external drives - a 160GB and a 300GB.
Currently, I have my itunes library on the 300GB drive as well as a few FCE files. I have made the 160GB the Time Machine drive. Would I be better off moving my iTunes library to the internal HD and then using the 300GB drive as the Time Machine drive? As I have it now, I don't think my iTunes library is getting backed up. In an ideal situation, is it safe to assume your Time MAchine disk should be at leasta s large if not larger than the internal HD? Thanks.
Steve

Steve,
I would recommend using a drive that is 2x the size of the files you are going to back up. This is specifcally in the event that you make changes to the files and Time Machine starts backing up the new files that you have created. It will back up once every hour and it will only make a back-up copy of files that you have modified. If you are backing up your home folder, and you are using FCE, I would say back up to the 160Gb drive would be sufficient. If you were planning on backing up your home folder & your iTunes library, I would recommend the 300Gb drive. The only reason that you would need a backup drive 2x the size of your HD is if you were backing up your entire drive.

Advice needed regarding 865PE Neo2 FISR

I intend to order this motherboard either tomorow or Monday morning (depends if I'll find the VGA card I'm looking after). However I heard some disturbing rumors form some friends and so I thought this is the place to ask for advice:
1) which BIOS is the best to use? I heard the 1,3 BIOS causes a lot of problems regardign stability and that it had being pulled from MSI's site.. which is a lie as I can see it here!
Is anyone suing it and what's your experience with it?
Should I use the 1.2 version instead ? Because I've heard that 1.2 does not allow you to disable the auto-overclockign feature... which might causde lock-ups if I chose to fine-tune the OC myself.
2) I intend to run a RAId array . Can I boot from this array or I 'll ahve to buy a PATa disk as well?
More so... can I boot from either the INTEL controlled RAID or from the Promise RAID as well??? (because documentation on the Promise RAID controller is very thin... I'ver read the manuals and they are NOT at all informative on the matter. So I'm wondering: how do you set up the system so that it'll boot from the Promise RAIDs?? And ..is it better to boot from the Promise raids or from the ICH5R ones?
Because I think the Promise controller routs the data through the PCI so there is a theoretical limit of 133MB/s where as the ICH5R goes directly through the Northbridge chip so this is not a problem!
3) Is it true that this board has some trouble cooperationg with an ATI 9700PRo based VGA card? I've reas of a few cases of malfunctions especially in overclocked systems.
Thanks in advance for any answers.

koumooo,
I´ll give you my experience after just a couple of days with my new 865PE Neo2FIS2R board.
What I´ve found is that it´s a good Board with high potential, but also that it requires quite a bit of work to get there and fully get reveny of that potential.
However, My main interest is to get a stable system, not only with default values but with OC as well.
To be honest I don´t really care so much about PAT and DOT
since I only can reach to "Fast" and "Captain levels right now with PAT and DOT, but What was important for me was that when OC to 250FSB it was possible to lower AGP/PCI
values ( otherwise system crash) ) to 67/33 which made it possible to run a stable system at 3.01GHz and a mem.speed
at 4910 in Sisoft Sandra.
Thats good enough for me..........
Maybe I give more attention to PAT and DOT when I get high
performance mem and a High Perf. VGA card and hopefully a 1.4 bios-update.
So again, I think it´s a good board if you use it this way.

Advice needed regarding a - Adobe Photoshop Image 15 (.psd) - I can't open them correctly?

Hi folks,
I recently agreed to work on some art for a friend, he sent me some files that appear on my PC as Adobe Photoshop Image 15 (.psd) - Only when i open them in my Photoshop CC (All updates installed that are available from the time this was posted) they don;t appear to be the correct images? I have Google'd the phrase above but nothing appear on my searches that would enlighten me to what i may need to open these files correctly? can anyone let me know if the file type above is meant for Photoshop or one of the many additional programs within adobe's CC? If it is a Photoshop format then i apologies for time wasting and it may be that the file was corrupted possible before being sent?
Thank you for your time.

Does you friend also use Photoshop CC or does he use Photoshop CC 2014. There may be some incompatibilities is some layers if he uses CC 2014.. However CC should be able to open .PSD file. And Adobe Photoshop Image 5 type files like PSD, PDD extensions should be associated with Photoshop.

Advice needed regarding TC set-up

Dear Gang,
I want to have a pure 802.11n network using the 5 ghz spectrum and the wide array setting. However, I have one desktop computer that is 802.11g. I'd like to run a 25 ft. Cat 5 cable to one of the LAN ports on the TimeCapsule and then shut-off the WiFi on this computer. However, strangely enough, I've always had all my computers (even desktops) networked via WiFi so I don't know how well using the LAN works.
What are the thoughts of the group?
I know that ethernet should give me greater speeds to the TC's hard drive and should solve my problem with bringing a non-802.11n machine in to a "pure" network, but I don't want to do so if the set-up is arduous or if doing so makes me lose a lot of features that I get in an all WiFi network.
TIA,
Mark

Smokerz and Hopaki,
Thank you for your responses. That's reassuring as it means that my dual G5 will get a little more life out of it by connecting it in to my "pure" system via ethernet.
Two other quick questions:
-should I connect my new iMac via ethernet to the router, too, even though it's capable of going on my system in 802.11n 5ghz?
-also, as an aside, I'm trying to figure out if my new 802.11n network will equal my current 802.11g network in terms of distance as I have an Apple TV that's a few rooms over. That Apple TV gets about 4 bars of signal from my current network. Do you think that 802.11n at 5 ghz will have an equivocal range?
Mark

Advice needed regarding massive system F***

K,?So I wanted to install a new fan on gladys, my machine. I built her in september and she's worked fine since then till now. When i opened her up, i realised that i'd not plugged in certain lights from the front of my case etc, so to do this i took out the the two graphics cards and my Platinum sound card and kept them on a static bag whilst i plugged everything in. After assembling everything again and turning her on, The graphics card was showing vertical dashes and dots all over teh screen, eventually crashing; One card down. After testing the card to make sure it wasn't a driver issue, I then swapped it with the other card and removed the busted one. After 3 days, my X-Fi has now started making a high pitched whining as soon as i start Gladys up. I've done the usual driver re-install etc but to no effect. Now I'm positi've that i grounded myself and everything before i touched gladys' insides, and i didn't use a magnetised screwdriver, so someone please tell me how the hell this happened!?! I'm posting this on all three forums, Creative, Nvidia, and Asus. System Specs below:?AMD Athlon64 X2 4200+Asus A8N32-SLI DeluxeSilverstone 600w SLI power supply2 X Nvidia Geforce 7600GTsX-Fi Platinum2 GB corsair ram?

have you tried disconnecting the lights you plugged in?

Need Guidance on Oracle SCM functional learning paths

Hi,
I've just started understanding Oracle EBS SCM functionalities & used to the EBS system in terms of usage. Need help and learning paths on SCM modules to start off. Any information regarding knowledge base would be highly appreciated. Thank you.
Regards,
MK

Will you have access to both arrays at the same time? In that case, this could be your plan:
- move ocr and voting disk to new volumes according to metalink note 428681.1
you can replace the ocr with the system up and running but you'll have to shut down the clusterware for moving the voting disk
- migrate asm (online)
create the new volumes on the new array, then perform an 'alter diskgroup DGNAME add disk '/dev/dsk/newdevice'', wait until the rebalancing is done, then do 'alter diskgroup DGNAME drop disk /dev/dsk/olddisc''. Do this with both diskgroups, wait until the rebalancing is over and unplug the old array
Bjoern
edit: in 11g you can even move the voting disk online, you only have to shut down the clusterware on 10g rac
Edited by: Bjoern Rost on Sep 18, 2009 2:18 PM

Help needed in learning the basics of Java Smart Card and implementation?

Hello every body,
I am trying to develop the applications on java contactless smart cards technology.
Can any body give me the details like how to start?
What are the required softwares and installation procedure and path settings and etc.?
I am the beginner in java smart card application development.
plz help me out

Dear Friend,
I would advice to divide learning into two main parts: JavaCard technology and contactless RFID cards. For JavaCard technology you can find useful articles on Sun web-site (developers.sun.com/mobility/javacard/articles/javacard1/). For contactless RFID you can find few useful books at Amazon. Regarding software you need JC development kit. How to install it there is an instrunction in JCDK user guide.
If it is not a secret what a javacard contactless card you are going to use in your work?
Yours
Dmitri

Unicode/glyph/font advice needed for porting WinForms app to Macintosh using AIR

I've written an application in WinForms/.NET that I'd like to port to the Macintosh platform. I have never developed for the Mac but it seems as though AIR might be a good choice. I'm totally new to AIR. Some advice and info would be much appreciated!
Can an app be developed in AIR on a PC running Windows and then later be deployed transparently on a Macintosh? Or do I need to be developing on a Mac?
The app is a search interface for use against text-bases comprised of texts composed in ancient European languages. I pre-index the text-base and store it in SQLite as a fully-normalized (1NF) set of relations: TITLES, WORDS, WORDOCCURRENCES. So the app is really nothing more than a (query-only) database application with some specialized glyph-rendering requirements.
In the WinForms app, I used a custom third-party edit control with extensive support for the RTF specification, in combination with some third-party fonts that contain the necessary glyphs for rendering the Unicode characters corresponding to RUNES and to some abbreviations found in medieval manuscripts. BTW, these special non-ASCII characters are represented in the database not as unicode codepoints but as entities that can be represented in standard ASCII (e.g. "þ" ); when rendered to screen, the correct glyph has to be substituted when the Unicode codepoint for the entity supplied -- in this example the codepoint would be [U+00DE] and a thorn glyph ( Þ) should be rendered.
Since it might not be possible to find a single omnibus Unicode font that contains a glyph for every codepoint I need to render (what are the most glyph-rich freeware Unicode fonts for Macintosh, btw?) the text widget must let the programmer "wrap" a Unicode character or series of Unicode characters in whatever font may be required at that point in the text. Is there a rich-text widget for AIR that can do this? A widget that can render HTML and supports CSS stylesheets would be ideal (inline-CSS-only would be OK too). If the widget had CSS stylesheet support, the string of Unicode codepoints could be wrapped with a ..... and the font-name for the .rune class could be specified in the CSS stylesheet.
Thanks very much if you've taken the time to read through this tedious stuff !

Flash Professional started as an animation tool and was expanded with a programming language that became ActionScript (now ActionScript 3.0). Content creators began using Flash to develop applications rather than just animation, so a lot of developer-centric and application-centric functionality was added to Flash, including pre-built user interface components (written in ActionScript). All that functionality and those components are still available in Flash Pro today. However, many developers who came from a traditional programming background had trouble getting into Flash Pro because it is really an animation design tool -- so it uses a timeline, layers, visual drawing canvas, and it required some figuring out to learn how to structure an application in that type of tool.
In response to this, Macromedia (now Adobe of course) created Flex. Flex uses ActionScript just like Flash Pro. Flex also includes numerous user interface controls, written in ActionScript. Flex also adds advanced, flexible layout control and many utilities for common programming tasks like loading data from or sending data to a server, formatting values, validating user input, and more. With Flex, you can define your user interface using an XML markup language (MXML); the compiler then turns the MXML into ActionScript code before turning it into your compiled application. As far as tooling, an eclipse-based IDE called Flex Builder was created that gives you a code editor, a workable but not designer-oriented design view, and other developer tools like debugging and profiling. (Note that Flex Builder has been renamed to Flash Builder for the next release, which is currently in public beta.)
So to generalize, Flash Pro favors a more visual design and animation type of working style, whereas Flex favors a more text-based, code-centric working style. (But that's just a generalization -- many people, especially people who "grew up" with Flash before Flex, still prefer Flash Pro even though they're heavy coders.)
Also, if you want to write everything in code with no pre-drawn visuals (i.e. Flash Pro) and without using MXML or Flex components, you can create your application entirely in ActionScript code. Flex Builder supports ActionScript-only projects for that purpose.
Here are a few links for getting started with Flex, which I would personally recommend if you haven't used either one and you're building something that's more "application" focused rather than media or animation focused:
Flex "Quick Starts" -- short articles focused on specific tasks in Flex
Flex "Getting Started Experience" -- designed as a set of training courses, intended to take 12+ hours to complete (but you can skip around of course)
"Flex in a week" video training -- a free 5-day video tutorial series on Flex
Flex Developer Center "Learning Paths"
As a side note, the link you included actually goes to the JavaScript version of the documentation, which is what you would want if you are going to use HTML/Ajax to build your app. However, if you're wanting to use Flex you would want to use the Flex version of the documentation:
http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/langref/mx/controls/HTML.html
http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/langref/flash/html/HTMLLoader.html
And if you're wanting to use Flash, you can use the Flash Pro version of the documentation:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AS3LCR/Flash_10.0/flash/html/HTMLLoader.html
Yes, it's somewhat confusing and overwhelming. We're definitely working on improving things in that regard.

Advice needed regarding learning path

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