September 4, 2005

Publishing in the BIT320 Remix Site

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This is our first post to the BIT320 class remix site. We will be using post categories to organize the conversations in the class. It is very important that you use a category on each post. That’s not hard to do because the wordpress blogging platform we are using allows you to create those on the fly.

Due to software limitations, you should only use one word categories. If you absolutely must use more than one word, then concatenate the two words using lower case. Here’s an example:

Class Issues -> classissues

my ideas -> myideas

In Blogonautic Solutions, 09/04/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

We have the remix engine set up

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I’ve set up all of the reBlog instances and the cron jobs.  The class should be set to automatically remix at this point.

 In case you are wondering, reBlog is a software that pulls RSS feeds from the web and allows us to collect their contents in our class site.  Cron jobs periodically fire off the machinery to make all of this happen.

In Blogonautic Solutions, 09/04/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

September 8, 2005

Till Kingdom Come

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Coldplay's song for Johnny Cash

In del.icio.us/zeenah, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive

Till Kingdom Come

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Comments on Coldplay's X&Y album

In del.icio.us/mridge, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive

Bigfoot's Payoff

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There goes Wilson flogging another one of his investments

In del.icio.us/fpgibson, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive

eBay and Skype?

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Free talking, yeay.

In del.icio.us/pinkfootsie, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive

Bigfoot's Payoff

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There goes Wilson blogging another one of his investments

In del.icio.us/kevlers, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive

Bigfoot's Payoff

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there goes wilson flogging another one of his investments

In del.icio.us/jbartko, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive

Bigfoot's Payoff

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This is my first post to del.icio.us

In del.icio.us/supermatt, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive

Bigfoot's Payoff

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Wilson's article

In del.icio.us/supriya, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive

Hello world!

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Welcome to High-octane-blogging.org. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

In The Blogstar, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

The first remix

Topics:

This is my first post in the BIT320 class blog. Accounts were created today, and fun was had by all. This should be interesting. So sit back, relax, and enjoy.

Here are the instructions I followed to do this.

In Matt's Musings, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Class remixing is starting.

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Students have delicious accounts. They have blog accounts. They are rearing to go. Can’t wait.

You can read how to do this here.

In zee124, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Class remixing is starting

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students have delicious accounts. They have blog accounts. They are rearing to go. Can’t wait.

You can read how to do this here

In Pink Footsie, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Options of the World Unite

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The numbers of differnt blog options is fasinating. They all seem to offer their own brand of loveliness but all with the same basic options. Look at the options that one can behold: Xanga, Blogger, Live Journal. Those are the major popular one. One should really surf before you decide, they all over different things.

And we can’t forget the one we are using currently: High Octane Blogging Which you can find instructions to sign up Here.

But really. If you can’t tell this was a test post. ;3

In Shady Waters, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

The Start of Remixing

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This is my blog for BIT 320 remixing. I will post here often with exciting opinions. I hope you all enjoy!

Read how to do this here

In Tigerlily's Blog, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

First post

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This is my first of many posts to the class remix blog. My del.icio.us account is located at the following URL: http://del.icio.us/kevlers. Stay tuned for further updates.

In Kevin's Blog, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

class remixing begins

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Today we created blog accounts and this is our very first post. We also created del.icio.us accounts. Soon we’ll be blogging and bookmarking on a weekly - sometimes daily - basis.

You can read how to do this here.

In jb's blog, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

My second first post

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Please visit my del.icio.us site http://del.icio.us/SuperMatt . On this site I have my bookmarks. I did not do this with my first site.

In SuperMatt, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

My first blog post

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This is my first post for the BIT 320 class. We are starting class remixing. I have my own delicious account.

I am excited for this to take off!!!

For instructions on creating a blog, click here.

In supriya, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Class remixing is starting

Topics:

Students have delicious accounts. They have blog accounts. They are rearing to go. Can’t wait.

You can read how to do this here.

In Blogonautic Solutions, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Class remixing is starting

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I am not the William H. from the movies.  I am another William H and will be blogging about this class.  But, I have much respect for his body of work and ability.

For a look at the ‘real’ William H.’s career. check out here.

In musings of william h, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

September 10, 2005

A brief email with James Farmer

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James Farmer is the person hosting these blogs down in Australia, and he is quite the entrepreneur. Basically, as near as I can work out, he’s interested in this class because he sees it as a potential prototype for professional blogging communities. My cut is that the chief aid to community building on the technology side is something like the remix page we have developed.

But, I think the real dynamics of these things comes from the fact that we are all engaged in this class around one purpose, trying to achieve the workplan laid out in BIT320.

So, James and I have emailed back and forth a bit with these things in mind.  At this stage, I think we are going to stick solid with the current version of the blogging software, warts and all.  It does the job, and upgrading during the semester could prove a painful diversion. 

In Blogonautic Solutions, 09/10/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

September 11, 2005

More mash-ups to come

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According to CNET news.com, Microsoft recently announced that they are going to embrace Web 2.0, a computing platform serving web applications to end users.  The software company plans to publish APIs (application programming interfaces) to MSN and other public web sites, thereby allowing developers to write new applications that build on these sites.  With these third party add-ons, MS hopes to drive increased traffic to their web properties.  Microsoft’s move mirrors the strategies at Google, Yahoo, Amazon, and a number of other sites.

In Kevin's Blog, 09/11/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

WebEx for Ross Students

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The Ross School of Business (RSB) is now offering students free access to WebEx, a provider of web conferencing services.  WebEx gives students powerful real-time collaborative tools including PowerPoint slide, application, document, and whiteboard sharing, integrated video, and VOIP audio.

It would be interesting to find out whether RSB is paying for this new service.  By providing the service to students at no cost, WexEx potentially could be evangelizing thousands of future business leaders to the power and benefits of web conferencing.  Then, once the students graduate, they will demand WebEx in their workplaces.

In Kevin's Blog, 09/11/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

The Face Book

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Social networking site for college students

In del.icio.us/kevlers, 09/11/2005 | Original | Archive

eMegaWeb.net Web Hosting

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My web site

In del.icio.us/kevlers, 09/11/2005 | Original | Archive

Kodakgallery.com Slideshow

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Amateur photo journal showing the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

In del.icio.us/kevlers, 09/11/2005 | Original | Archive

The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security

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Interesting article discussing computer security

In del.icio.us/kevlers, 09/11/2005 | Original | Archive

Duplicate posts

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When editing either a blog post or del.cio.us bookmark, the remix site seems to pick up a new copy of the post rather than modifying the existing one.  This causes duplicate entries to appear.  Is there a way around this?  Thanks.

In Kevin's Blog, 09/11/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Duplicate entries

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As Kevin rightly observes:

When editing either a blog post or del.cio.us bookmark, the remix site seems to pick up a new copy of the post rather than modifying the existing one.

Right now, there seems no way around it, but I will research it. It has to do with when a feed item is considered new and how you identify a feed item. There are some standards for this, but they are followed unevenly. There is even some debate as to whether items are, in fact, updateable. For now, just treat everything you write and publish as though it were sent, much like email.

In Blogonautic Solutions, 09/11/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Word Press - still dont use

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I’m excited to start a new Blog online however about worried about the stability of it. Word Press http://wordpress.org/ the site that is hosting us claims to be state-of-art yet it seems every time I try to post or play with the features, the are not yet activated or do not work properly. I just hope that none of us lose are hard work that we are putting into our blogs.

In SuperMatt, 09/11/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

September 12, 2005

Guardian Unlimited | Online | Remixing the blogosphere

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An article about the benefits of remixing as opposed to individual blogging

In del.icio.us/jbartko, 09/12/2005 | Original | Archive

craigslist | Katrina 2005

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Interesting: a section of Craig's List devoted to Hurricane Katrina resources

In del.icio.us/jbartko, 09/12/2005 | Original | Archive

BIT 320: new material

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What is remixing? What is a mash-up? What does it mean to trackback and what purpose does it serve? And, finally, what does the word delicious have to do with bookmarking?

Seven days ago, I had absolutely no answers to the above questions. Today, I can give you a vague response to most of them. But I still feel as though I have a lot to learn this semester. I don’t usually find myself so lost on terminology during the first week of class. I have never claimed to be an expert on the Internet, but I definitely never realized how much there is about it that I have never even heard of.

The upside is this: I enjoy technology and I love learning what else I can do with my PC. I’m looking forward to how much more I’ll know at the end of this semester. Take a look at what topics I’ll be exploring on the BIT 320 Syllabus.

In jb's blog, 09/12/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Taking the big plunge

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jbartko makes some interesting observations:

Seven days ago, I had absolutely no answers to the above questions. Today, I can give you a vague response to most of them. But I still feel as though I have a lot to learn this semester. I don’t usually find myself so lost on terminology during the first week of class. I have never claimed to be an expert on the Internet, but I definitely never realized how much there is about it that I have never even heard of.

Hang in there, Jenny, the class is about exploring new topics. You get points for making blog posts like this one where you lay out the issues as you see them and start to try to address them.

In Blogonautic Solutions, 09/12/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

September 13, 2005

Pacific News Service

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A great nonprofit news source since 1969 and Vietnam

In del.icio.us/hiccups, 09/13/2005 | Original | Archive

Independent Media Center

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Network of media oulets from around the world for radical & accurate tellings of truth

In del.icio.us/hiccups, 09/13/2005 | Original | Archive

Webex

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My vision for the future of knowledge sharing definitely involves blogging because it is an easy way to share ideas. However blogging is not interactive in that people are not yet able to work on projects together through blogs. Webex however does just that, and it is available to Ross student for free. This will be a great help for Ross students as meetings consume the majority of our time. I’m excited to use this new service. Kevin had similar thoughts you can read them in his blog.

In SuperMatt, 09/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

tech.memeorandum

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The Web is humming with reports and opinions on technology. tech.memeorandum is page A1 for these discussions.

In del.icio.us/fpgibson, 09/13/2005 | Original | Archive

Interactive blogging

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Matt raises an interesting point:

My vision for the future of knowledge sharing definitely involves blogging because it is an easy way to share ideas. However blogging is not interactive in that people are not yet able to work on projects together through blogs.

I agree that you probably need more than blogging. However be careful of vendors offering you free services that are normally for pay. What are some alternatives to webex?

In Blogonautic Solutions, 09/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

NewsFire blocks RSS ads

Topics:

"Is NewsFire the first of what may be many aggregators to block advertisements in feeds?"

In del.icio.us/fpgibson, 09/13/2005 | Original | Archive

[no title]

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Matt might be mistaken when he says:

Webex however does just that, and it is available to Ross student for free. This will be a great help for Ross students as meetings consume the majority of our time.

We’ll see what he thinks at the end of the semester.

In Blogonautic Solutions, 09/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Katrina & The Racial Opinion Divide

Topics:

An article about polling difference between whites and black opinion on Katrina, the aftermath, and who's to blame

In del.icio.us/hiccups, 09/13/2005 | Original | Archive

Michigamua, UM's Secrect Society

Topics:

Contains information on one of UM's most prominent secret society, its ongoings, memebers, articles, and why it shouldn't be acceptable

In del.icio.us/hiccups, 09/13/2005 | Original | Archive

Experimental Tech

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Experimental Technology. Beta version software. The bleeding edge of the technological wave. Though these products often come with bugs, limitations, headaches, etc., some people (myself included) can not get enough of them.

For example, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), has a beta release out, Triton. Of course, upon my immediate installation of the new AIM, I’m graced with numerous upgrades (slicker user interface, tabbed IMs), and a nasty penchant to randomly disconnect. Yet I put up with it just to be on that bleeding edge.

Which brings me to the blogging software we’re using in this class, WordPress. The other Matt touched on this in his blog, but the version number of WordPress is at “1.6-ALPHA-2-still-dont-use.” Still don’t use, huh? This should be interesting to see how this all works in the end.

In Matt's Musings, 09/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

AOL Instant Messenger

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Social tool reinventing online/offline communication

In del.icio.us/mridge, 09/13/2005 | Original | Archive

MS Office 12

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First look at next MS Office with upgrades to the whole suite - including Access

In del.icio.us/mridge, 09/13/2005 | Original | Archive

September 14, 2005

A Web of secrets

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Blogging is a free way of connecting people all over the world. Granted that you have an access to a computer in some part of it, you can leave a diary that could possibly stay around for your grandkids. My friend Rachel blogged from Romania and my friend Mandy is currently blogging from Japan. Next year, I plan on blogging my experiences of Europe. The benefits lie in the fact that you no longer have to write letters or emails always forgetting about someone and feeling bad about it. Now people know, and those who care or are curious will log on to see what’s up. The only question is privacy. I’m still a bit weary of putting it all out there…

In Pink Footsie, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Access my love of frustration

Topics:

Best Buy was awesome this summer. With all the acronyms I feel like I’ve learned a fourth language and I even made up my own: SDLI: systems don’t like Interns. What I hope to learn this semester is something we may or may not cover with SQL. BBY runs on several systems some of which don’t talk to each other so when I was trying to build databases, it was hard as the source DBs were designed differently and trying to link tables was a pain. So when you have data titles in a row in one Excel spsht and the same titles in a column with thousands of records, is there a quick way to arrange it in such a way as to integrate the data into a queried form? Oh and btw BBY is an awesome company to work for, I might be a tag in 8 months, ask me if you want to know more about the company.

In Pink Footsie, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Google Blog Search

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An extremely good blog searching tool by google. Search for LearningRemix

In del.icio.us/fpgibson, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive

John Battelle's Searchblog: Jeremy Asks: How Do You Learn to Search?

Topics:

Focuses on the human operator end of the search process, frequently ignored by technologists.

In del.icio.us/fpgibson, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive

findability.org | ambient findability + the design of findable objects | a blog by Peter Morville

Topics:

Peter Morville lives right in Ann Arbor and is interested in this class. Perhaps we should get him in.

In del.icio.us/fpgibson, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive

Editing the “Blogroll”

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Ever since we started blogging, I’ve been confused by the presence of the “Blogroll” in the right pane of everyone’s blog. As the professor explained to me in class, the Blogroll is simply a list of links to the blogs of WordPress users. A marketing ploy, if you will.

Turns out, this feature can be edited. In your site admin, click on Links. The first tab is Manage Links, where all the Blogroll links are listed with the option to delete. The next tab is Add Link, where you can add your own links to the Blogroll. Finally, since you’ve probably noticed by now that you only have one category for links (Blogroll), there is another tab called Link Categories where you can create new categories. Then just go back to Manage Links and edit which categories your links are in.

For example, check out my “Links” category instead of the “Blogroll.” I added a link to the BIT320 Community Engine.

In jb's blog, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Blogging Away Your Secrets

Topics:

Pink Footies mentions an interesting benefit and harm of blogging:

The benefits lie in the fact that you no longer have to write letters or emails always forgetting about someone and feeling bad about it. Now people know, and those who care or are curious will log on to see what’s up. The only question is privacy. I’m still a bit weary of putting it all out there…

I think that even though privacy is an issue that people like blogging just because there is no interaction, which seems to make it more private. After awhile sharing dirty secrets are nothing more than typing to yourself, because you never see the recievers reaction to the news. And even though as Matt eiws this lack of interaction as a negative factor. Many others see it as a bonus. Such as Post Secret.

Post Secret is at the same time a facinating yet horrifying example of secrets on blogs. People send in their darkest secrets on an index card to a guy and he scans them in for the world to read. Some of them are horrible to read but one just can’t seem to stop themselves from reading the actual desires and feelings of people just like you and me.

In Shady Waters, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Post Secrets

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A place to send your secrets on an index card and have them displayed to the world

In del.icio.us/hiccups, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive

Bzzzpeek

Topics:

Human replication noises by country of different animals, cars, and daily life

In del.icio.us/hiccups, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive

What are Repeating Groups?

Topics:

In our last session, we talked about normalization and removing repeating groups to achieve 1NF. I am still not sure what repeating groups are, and how to remove them. Could someone please explain repeating groups of fields as well as repeating groups within a field.

For reference, here are the class slides.

In supriya, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

SensiTile - A fascinating invention.

Topics:

SensiTile was invented by a recent U of M graduate, and is now creating sensations all over the world. The technologies used in SensiTile make the material sensitive to light intensity and color. SensiTile is on display in the School of Architecture, and I highly recommend that anyone who visits the Architecture School must see it. As you move your hand on the tiles, ripples are created on its surface. This product is indeed fascinating.

To read more on SensiTile, click here.

In supriya, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

What exactly is the superkey, and candidate key?

Topics:

Ok, now I know the article said to read the following definitions a couple times in order to get the idea but I still don’t.  I understand the idea behind the primary key but can someone please elaborate more on the definitions of the superkey, and candidate key.  Thanks

In The Blogstar, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Expectations of BIT 320

Topics:

Coming into this class, I had a small idea of what to expect. I had a taste of databases in our core BIT class, but having taken it in the Spring, I didn’t get to learn much about them. For some reason, I was fascinated by the topic of databases. It may have been the overlapping themes in marketing and bit which got me interested in them. I just hope that I am able to keep up with what I learn this semester and am able to apply it once I graduate.

In zee124, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

SensiTile - A recent invention by a Michigan Graduate

Topics:

I was fascinated looking at this site. The wonders of technology...

In del.icio.us/supriya, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive

Your Blog May Show Up!

Topics:

 

 Google has unveiled a website that lets people search web journals or blogs.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4244944.stm

 

Google is in on the blogging action.  They are allowing users to search for weblogs that are written not only in their own blogging service, Blogger, but on all kinds of blogging sites.  You can search through blogs for a certain subject.  Google also will alert you when blogs have been updated.  Apparantly this is similar to the service Technorati (which we briefly talked about in class).  Be careful what you write! Someone may be searching for it. 

In zee124, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Can you make fuel out of cats?

Topics:

This article talks about a German inventor making fuel out of dead cats. Indeed, some technologial inventions can be distubing.

In del.icio.us/supriya, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive

The Japanese Anime

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Anime is gaining more and more popularity in the American market, and is competing with the American video games

In del.icio.us/supriya, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive

BBC NEWS | Magazine | When fake blogs attack

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The extent of fake blogs on the internet

In del.icio.us/zeenah, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive

BBC NEWS | Technology | One blog created 'every second'

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Stats on Blogging according to Technorati

In del.icio.us/zeenah, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive

What are Repeating Groups?

Topics:

Repeating groups occur when you have mutiple columns of the same attributes. For example if you’re looking at data regarding a parent and their children it should be a ROW for each child as opposed to putting the parent in the first column, the 1st child in the second, the 2nd child in the third column etc. This would be an example of a RG  similiar to the one given in the coursepack. Hopefully this helps.

 Emp ID   Ch1    Ch2     Ch3      Ch4       

   002      Nan         Pat        Lee         Todd      

In The Blogstar, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Whole lotta posting going on

Topics:

A lot of different themes in the class. Let me hit one of the major ones. Head on, Zee124 notes:

For some reason, I was fascinated by the topic of databases. It may have been the overlapping themes in marketing and bit which got me interested in them. I just hope that I am able to keep up with what I learn this semester and am able to apply it once I graduate.

I think PinkFootsie has a similar concern, and jb mentioned it in her first blog post. It’s a combination of “Gee, there’s a lot of topics here,” and “Am I actually going to be able to use this stuff?”

Well, I can sympathize. We’re doing a lot of new things right now. However, let me offer the following reassurance. On Thursday, tomorrow, as we dig into Normalization, you should start to see the applications. We’ll look more in detail at 1NF; it’s one of the more valuable steps. It’s where you clean the data and understand what it is all about.

Next, remember that in two weeks, the Senior VP of Marketing for Denali Flavors will be coming. He is coming because this is an applied class, and he is interested in what we are doing.

In Blogonautic Solutions, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Alittle Confused

Topics:

This is something that I think will get touched upon again in class, but since I was confused about it, I thought I would see what some of you had to say. I am having some difficultly understanding exactly what a superkey is accord to the Article. A superkey is “is any set of attributes (that is some subset of S) that functionally determine all the attributes in S.” But I am not sure exactly what that means. I understand the basic idea, but it can get confusing.

In SuperMatt, 09/14/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

September 15, 2005

Thoughts on Normalization

Topics:

I think of normalization as a way of minimizing the amount of duplicate data in a database.  In the end there may be more tables, but it certainly makes retrieving records and updating databases much easier and also helps manage the accuracy and consistency of the data.  I’m starting to realize the importance of normalization and how crucial it is in laying the foundation for optimal database and application performance.

Btw… is there ever a need to denormalize a database?  It seems that with especially large amounts of data, performance would be better with fewer tables and links.  Let me know your thoughts on this.

In Kevin's Blog, 09/15/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati