how to insert bitmap into Oracle8i using java

hi all,
Is there anyone know how to insert a bitmap file size 596KB into oracle8i using Java via preapred statement?
I created a table with two BLOB columns and some other VARCHAR2 columns. But uncertain on how to insert bitmap in oracle via preparedStatement.
I used to insert the bitmap into PGSQL, bytea data type. How to do it in oracle8i?
BFILE is not advisable in my application. Because it required operating system i/o.

pls helps...
regards
elvis

Here is a proc of mine in which I use the PreparedStatement class:

private static void insertDB (String category, String subCategory, String action, String count,String percentage, String name, String timeZone, int begin, int end) throws java.sql.SQLException
{

String d = quotedString(extractDateFromFilename(inputFileName));

String s = "insert into Voice_Metrics values (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, to_date(" + d + ",'YYYYMMDD'), sysdate)";

PreparedStatement pstmt = conn.prepareStatement(s);


pstmt.setString(1,category);
pstmt.setString(2,subCategory);
pstmt.setString(3,action);
pstmt.setString(4,count);
pstmt.setString(5,percentage);
pstmt.setString(6,name);
pstmt.setString(7,timeZone);
pstmt.setInt(8,begin);
pstmt.setInt(9,end);
pstmt.setString(10,inputFile);

int r = pstmt.executeUpdate();

}



About the blob data type - I just tried:

create table myTable (
bb blob
);

insert into myTable (bb) values ('ff00123213ff00ffaa');

It seems that Oracle expects the blob value to be encoded as hex string, because when I tried:

insert into myTable (bb) values ('Q');

I got: ORA-01465: invalid hex number

Regards,
Dan