I discovered this neat little open source application called Console that is effectively a shell for cmd.exe in Windows.  The reason I found this application was because SQL*PLUS that comes with the Oracle 11g client tools is command line/prompt only.  One of the rather annoying behaviors that cmd.exe has is the inability to easily copy and paste.  Console solves that problem and a whole lot more that I didn't realize I had.

Console's features are described as having "multiple tabs, text editor-like text selection, different background types, alpha and color-key transparency, configurable font, different window styles."  Now I have not utilized all these features yet, but the text editor-like text selection is very handy.  The multiple tabs feature is also quite nice.

Shortly after getting Console I created a shortcut to load Console and run SQL*PLUS.  First I opened Console's settings (Edit > Settings) and created a tab called SQLPLUS where I set the startup directory for my most common SQL script.  For the shortcut, I used the following:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Console2\Console.exe" -t SQLPLUS -r "/k sqlplus"
The command line arguments I used were -t which tells Console which tab to use and -r to run a command.  I wanted it to use the SQLPLUS tab that I had previously configured under Settings.  The -r argument was a little tricky because when you use cmd.exe as your shell for Console, running programs needs to be preceeded with a /k which is why you see it before sqlplus.

I also created a shortcut that loads Console, runs SQL*PLUS, logs into an instance, and runs a SQL script automatically.  To do this I added my login credentials and the path to the SQL script after the sqlplus command.  It looks something like this "/k sqlplus user/pass@instance @runme.sql".

I would like to offer a follow-up on my original review of Softsys Hosting.  In my initial review, Softsys got good marks for their current technology platforms, customer support, other customer reviews, and price.  They met or exceeded each of those criteria and I based my decision to switch on that.  It's been a little more than a month since I signed up and transferred all my domains to Softsys.  Time for a review update!

Their customer support remains good.  I have opened a couple of support requests inquiring about how certain things work and to gain additional access to email features.  All the support requests have been answered promptly and professionally.  On one or two occasions, the first level technical support was not able to answer my question and it had to be bumped to second level support.  On one occasion, first level support did not understand the issue and responded incorrectly.  After a little back and forth, I finally got the issue resolved.  Most issues are handled within 2-4 hours.  A few took a day or two.

Their servers have been reliable and responsive.  I have not noticed any issues with my sites.  No downtime or network issues to speak of.

Getting email setup and configured took a while because it was an entirely different system than the one I was used to.  To get access to the more advanced email configuration options, you need to have an email account setup as a primary admin.  That requires a support request, but it was very painless and quickly done.  You have to use the SmarterMail webmail interface to do all the configuration, but that's a good thing.  SmarterMail is by far the best webmail interface I have used.  Hands down it beats DWMail, SquirrelMail, IMP, and Zimba.  It has a very clean and uncluttered interface.  It is also visually appealing which is more than I can say about some interfaces (ahem Gmail).  I digress.  Anyways, the advanced email configuration options allow you to setup greylisting and spam filtering.  It took a little bit to tweak them, but I'm down to less than 1 spam message being delivered to my inbox a day.  For comparisions sake, if I turn off those features I would be getting more than 60-80 a day.

Softsys has also redesigned their website since I first signed up.  I like the new look, although it does look like the designed used a pre-built template.  As a web developer myself, I'm not a big fan of templated sites.

All in all, I'm happy with my decision to switch.  So far it has been a good ride and I hope it will continue to be.  If they stumble along the way, I'll be sure to post another update and discuss it.