Blogs
Tags > databases
Four short links: 4 November 2009
By Nat TorkingtonNovember 3, 2009
ChipHacker -- collaborative FAQ site for electronics hacking. Based on the same StackExchange software as RedMonk's FOSS FAQ for open source software. Democracy Live -- BBC launch searchable coverage of parliamentary discussion, using speech-to-text. One aspect we're particularly proud of is that we've managed to deliver good results for speech-to-text in Welsh, which, we're told, is unique. I think...
Four short links: 18 August 2009
By Nat TorkingtonAugust 18, 2009
The Making of the NPR News iPhone App -- interesting behind-the-scenes look, with sketches and all. Station streams, however, presented a larger challenge. To begin with, NPR didn't have direct stream links for any of its stations, so we built a Web spider that identified and captured more than 300 iPhone-compatible station streams. After that first pass, we worked...
Four short links: 5 August 2009
By Nat TorkingtonAugust 6, 2009
Computers Unlock More Secrets of the Indus Valley Script -- Four-thousand years ago, an urban civilization lived and traded on what is now the border between Pakistan and India. During the past century, thousands of artifacts bearing hieroglyphics left by this prehistoric people have been discovered. Today, a team of Indian and American researchers are using mathematics and computer...
Relational databases as reality sandwiches: thoughts about C.J. Date's "SQL and Relational Theory"
By Andy OramJuly 15, 2009
I recently returned to SQL and Relational Theory: How to Write Accurate SQL Code by C.J. Date, a leading researcher in the field of relational databases, as I learned more about some of the alternative forms of data storage that are becoming popular for Web-based or text-heavy repositories.
Four short links: 29 May 2009
By Nat TorkingtonMay 28, 2009
Freedom for OS X -- Mac app that disables networking for up to eight hours so you can get work done without Internet distractions. Technology workarounds for meatware bugs. (via Joshua-Michèle Ross). iPhone Casts a Giant Shadow on the Web -- 43% of mobile web traffic is from iPhone users, as measured by "the world's largest purveyor of ads...
Four short links: 26 May 2009
By Nat TorkingtonMay 26, 2009
Flare -- dynamically partitioning and reconstructing key-value server. Currently built on Tokyo Cabinet, but backend is theoretically pluggable. (via joshua on delicious) Implantable Device Offers Continuous Cancer Monitoring -- the sensor network begins to extend into our bodies. The cylindrical, 5-millimeter implant contains magnetic nanoparticles coated with antibodies specific to the target molecules. Target molecules enter the implant through...
MySQL faster, better, and still unified: notes about Sun, Monty Widenius, Percona, and Drizzle
By Andy OramMay 22, 2009
It might have seemed last week, with the announcement of the Open Database Alliance, that MySQL is forking. The ODA promises a "central clearinghouse for MySQL development" and claims to improve on areas where criticism has historically been aimed at MySQL AB/Sun: bug-fixing, performance, and community responsiveness. But what's going on behind the scenes is much more subtle and promises a much better outcome for MySQL.
Four short links: 30 Apr 2009
By Nat TorkingtonApril 30, 2009
Ypulse Conference -- conference on marketing to youth with technology, from the very savvy Anastasia Goodstein who runs the interesting Ypulse blog on youth culture that I've raved about before. Register with the code RADAR for a 10% discount (thanks, Anastasia!). Government in the Global Village -- departing post by the NZ CIO (and Kiwi Foo Camper) Laurence Millar....
MySQL 2009 conference wrap-up: news flash about Flash and other notes from the experts
By Andy OramApril 24, 2009
MySQL conference wrap-up: Flash, cloud computing, managing large installations, the value of community, and how to fumble your way to winning the presidency.
MySQL conference begins: the resurgence of InnoDB and other current events
By Andy OramApril 22, 2009
I sense a bigger enterprise theme at the MySQL conference this year. The pride of putting up a PHP- or Rails-backed web site lies in the past; now people are concerned with scaling into the clouds (figuratively and literally) and ensuring absolute reliability.
Four short links: 22 Apr 2009
By Nat TorkingtonApril 21, 2009
Government, Bayes, SMS, and distributed keystores: Government Projects the Agile Way -- Can It Be Done? (NZ Government) -- notes and audio from a workshop at the New Zealand State Services Commission looking to merge agile and government. The pullquotes are mostly generic about agile, but the important thing is that there are agile projects within government and their numbers...
Four short links: 16 Apr 2009
By Nat TorkingtonApril 16, 2009
China, databases, storage, and git: China's Complicated Internet Culture (Ethan Zuckerman) -- summary of Rebecca McKinnon's talk at the Berkman Internet Center. Democracy is complex and hard to transition to, online democracy doubly so. Rebecca questions the widespread but unjustified belief that the Great Firewall of China is all that separates Chinese citizens from the empowered liberty of the West,...
Four short links: 15 Apr 2009
By Nat TorkingtonApril 15, 2009
Computer archaeology, Unix, mad science, and data mining: NASA Images Saved By Volunteers -- Pictures from the mid-1960s Lunar Orbiter program lay forgotten for decades. But one woman was determined to see them restored. One woman and some keen hardware hackers who built Frankenstein's tape reader to recover the images. Not just a reminder of how ephemeral our media, but...
Four short links: 17 Mar 2009
By Nat TorkingtonMarch 17, 2009
Startups, databases, iPhone app marketplace, and how to launch: Weary of Looking for Work, Some Create Their Own (NY Times) -- a story about a new tide of entrepreneurs forced into it by the economic times. The goal for many entrepreneurs nowadays is not to create a company that will someday make billions but to come up with an idea...
XProc: XML Pipelines and RESTful Services
By Kurt CagleMarch 11, 2009
Anyone who has used languages such as XSLT should have a pretty fair idea about the complexities involved in treating XML as a programming language itself - it's verbose, forces thinking into a declarative model that can be at odds with the C-based languages currently used by most programmers, can be difficult to read, and as a syntax it doesn't always fit well with the requirements in establishing parameter signatures and related structures.
XProc: XML Pipelines and RESTful Services
By Kurt CagleMarch 11, 2009
Anyone who has used languages such as XSLT should have a pretty fair idea about the complexities involved in treating XML as a programming language itself - it's verbose, forces thinking into a declarative model that can be at odds with the C-based languages currently used by most programmers, can be difficult to read, and as a syntax it doesn't always fit well with the requirements in establishing parameter signatures and related structures.
Analysis 2009: XForms and XML-enabled clients gain traction with XQuery databases
By Kurt CagleJanuary 6, 2009
I'm beginning to despair about XForms, which is perhaps a good sign. XForms is perhaps the oldest of the W3C technologies that has yet to either die completely or really dramatically take off, and for all that it has...
New MySQL Query Analyzer for enterprise customers
By Andy OramNovember 19, 2008
MySQL AB (now Sun's Database group) established a multi-pronged business model long ago: support contracts, dual licensing, and proprietary add-ons all play a role in making them one of the biggest success stories in the area of open source business. Today their MySQL Query Analyzer adds another brick to that edifice. The analyzer can do simple things such as tell you how long a recent query took and how the optimizer handled it (the results of EXPLAIN statements). But it can also give historical information such as how the current runs of a query compare to earlier runs.
Considerations in Building Web Applications for the Amazon Cloud
By George ReeseOctober 18, 2008
I have been helping a number of clients lately migrate part or all of their infrastructure over into the Amazon Cloud. The biggest concern I am seeing relates to whether or not their existing web applications will work OK in...
Perl's Persistant Library: DBD Creator Tim Bunce at OSCON 2008
By James TurnerSeptember 2, 2008
The DBD and DBD libraries are among the oldest and most successful perl libraries and existence, pretty much any perl program that talks to a database uses them. The creator of DBD, Tim Bunce, spent some time at OSCON 2008 talking to O'Reilly News about the history of DBD and how Tim has managed such a large and critical project.
Mapping Python to Databases
August 14, 2008
Essential SQLAlchemy introduces a high-level open-source code library that makes it easier for Python programmers to access relational databases such as Oracle, DB2, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite. SQLAlchemy has become increasingly popular since its release, but it still lacks good documentation. This practical book fills the gap, and because a developer wrote it, you get an objective look at SQLAlchemy's tools rather than an advocate's description of all the "cool" features. Learn more.
Optimization, Backups, Replication, and more
August 14, 2008
High Performance MySQL, Second Edition is the definitive guide to building fast, reliable systems with MySQL. Written by noted experts with years of real-world experience building very large systems, this book covers every aspect of MySQL performance in detail, and focuses on robustness, security, and data integrity. Learn advanced techniques in depth so you can bring out MySQL's full power. The second edition is completely revised and greatly expanded, with deeper coverage in all areas. Learn more.
Neo4J: A Different Database (+ Expect More Bad Java News)
By Timothy M. O'BrienJuly 12, 2008
Foocamp attendees, beware, we're covering you from afar. Peter Neubauer twittered about Neo4J this morning and it caught my eye. "Neo is a graph database. It is an embedded, disk-based, fully transactional Java persistence engine that stores data structured in graphs rather than in tables." Is this to be believed? Something interesting happening in Java?
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