Microsoft SQL Server “Katmai” Builds on Proven Success of SQL Server 2005, Empowering Customers to Manage the Data Explosion
Vision for next release of SQL Server announced at Microsoft’s first Business Intelligence Conference.
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(Blogcritics.org , PhotographyToday, ATAEE)
by T. Michael Testi (Blogcritics.org , PhotographyToday, ATAEE)
Learning MySQL is geared toward those people who don't know a lot about deploying and using a database management system, or about developing applications that use a database. By using MySQL, the leader of open source database management systems, along with the PHP and Pearl programming languages and this book, the authors attempt to provide a readable introduction to managing data.
The book has 18 chapters divided into six parts. To work with this book you will need a computer that is running Window, Linux or the Mac OS X operating system; a web server, the one introduced here is the Apache web server; and the PHP and Pearl languages for programming specific tasks to MySQL. Each of these is available for free on the web, and described in the book in the introduction.
Part one provides the overview of the book's content and focus. The authors describe how MySQL fits into the realm of information management tools and technologies. They explain how to set up your system and how to configure the software on differing systems. Finally they introduce the text-based interface to MySQL Server and how you can use it to control almost every aspect of the program.
Part two, Using MySQL, begins with the how-to of proper database design. You will learn how to determine what features your database will need and how items relate to each other. You will learn how to read data from existing databases, how to create new databases, what queries are, how to use them and how to nest them. You will find out about importing and exporting data as well as internal information on how MySQL process a query. You will also be given an overview of how to prevent unauthorized access to your data.
Part three, Advanced Topics, will teach you how to back-up your data and how to recover from a loss if your hardware does crash. You will learn how to use configuration files to fine tune the behavior of your MySQL server. It is here that you will also discover performance tips that can improve your overall performance.
Part four, Web Database Applications with PHP, will explore the world of database applications beginning with an introduction of the PHP language and how it can be used to work with your MySQL database. Then the authors, by designing a wedding gift registry, will show you the basics of designing your application.
Part five, Interacting with MySQL Using Pearl, present an easy to use introduction to the Pearl programming language. By using the Pearl DBI module to connect to MySQL data, you can import, export as well as store and read information. They finish up by creating a Pearl CGI module to create dynamic web pages that can interface with a MySQL database.
Finally there is an appendix that contains the entire source for the wedding gift registry. You can also download the source as well as other items such as useful links, feedback and errata found in the book.
If you are wanting to learn how to work with databases and feel intimidated, Learning MySQL may be just the ticket. It is well written, easy to understand and develops in a logical, easy to follow manner. By the time you get through the book, you will have a good overview of SQL databases in general.
If like me, you are not a PGP/Pearl programmer and, don't really want to be, there is still almost 400 of the 560 non-appendix, non-index pages, that deal directly with setting up and running a MySQL server, and who knows, your eyes might drift and you may end up learning PGP or Pearl anyway.
If I had one complaint, it would be the appendix containing the source for the application. It is a personal pet peeve of computer books that I have had for almost 20 years. Put it on a disk, put it on the web, just don't put it in a book. I would have preferred to have a summary of commands as the appendix.
That being said, I think that if you want to get a good solid foundation into how to build MySQL server databases, manage and manipulate them, then Learning MySQL should be on your shelf.
by T. Michael Testi (Blogcritics.org , PhotographyToday, ATAEE)
Trying to create a web site can be a pretty daunting task, especially if you have never done it before. When my son's swim team asked me to do theirs, I was a bit intimidated. I was a application programmer and I had worked on some website stuff, but the web is a different beast. The questions were many: what tools do I need? how do I layout my pages? do I use tables? HTML tags to directly apply formatting?
One could use FrontPage or a similar product to automatically generate the web site, but that was never my style. I would have to go old-school. I wish I would have had Build Your Own Web Site The Right Way back then.
Build Your Own Web Site The Right Way is geared for the absolute beginner to web site design. However, you should be comfortable with a computer, you should use the web a lot, have seen a lot other sites, have a good grasp on what you want for your own site. HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language and it is the language that generates web pages. CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets and it is what is used to format those pages.
Build Your Own Web Site The Right Way is set up into eleven chapters and an appendix. Chapter 1, "Setting up Shop," explains what tools you will need to get going. While you can buy tools to use, the author shows you how you can also get them for free.
Chapter 2, "Your First Web Pages," will teach you what makes a web page. You will learn about XHTML — the latest version of HTML — and about the basic requirements for creating a properly formed web page.
Chapter 3, "Adding Some Style," will introduce you to CSS. You will learn how to apply CSS to add color, change fonts, and generally improve the appearance of your page.
Chapter 4, "Shaping up with CSS," builds on chapter three to teach you about border styles and more advanced page layouts. You will even learn how to position elements using CSS.
Chapter 5, "Picture this! Using Images on your Web Site," teaches you all about image. You will learn about inline images, background images, as well as learning how to make images accessible for your blind surfers.
Chapter 6, "Tables: Tools for Organizing Data," will show you when it is proper to use tables, and especially when they should not be used. You will learn how to use CSS to make your tables more visually appealing.
Chapter 7, "Forms: Interacting with your Audience," will teach you about the proper use of forms to collect data from your user. Lloyd also shows how to use a free service to have data emailed to you!
Chapter 8, "Getting your Web Site Online," is all about getting your site hosted, uploaded, and presenting it to the world. Here the pros and cons are examined to see what approach will be right for you.
Chapter 9, "Adding a Blog to your Web Site," will show you how to do just that: create your own blog. You probably have an idea of what a blog is; a way to interact with other people. Whatever you think about this review, you can tell me in the comments. If you think I should have said more, or didn't like something that I said, you can tell me. I can then turn around and respond. Neat stuff!
Chapter 10, "Pimp my Site: Cool Stuff you can Add for Free," will have you spicing up your site with carefully executed cosmetic touches that won't break the bank.
Chapter 11, "Where to Now? What you Can Learn Next," will summarize the skills that you have learned as well as to provide a listing of sites that can take you to the next level.
The Appendix is an XHTML Reference guide that provides information on the elements that you are likely to use.
What I like about Build Your Own Web Site The Right Way is its quick and easy pacing, subtle humor, and straightforward manner. While this may be a beginners book, even the more seasoned of us learned, or perhaps I should say un-learned, quite a number of things along the way.
by T. Michael Testi (Blogcritics.org , PhotographyToday, ATAEE)
SQL Hacks works well because of the fact that it does what it says. It hacks. It gets in to SQL and shows you how to do things that you would have to, in many cases, search for hours to find out how to accomplish. This is not for the beginner, rather these books target more experienced users.
It is a collection of 100 hacks that, according to the authors, will help you to “get the job done”. They are not concerned with good database design or sticking to the rules. Their goal is to give you a better understanding of the breath of SQL and how different approaches to a solution can result in simple and elegant solutions.
This is titled SQL Hacks, because the authors have worked to make this volume and vendor/platform independent as possible. When there are differences, they take the time to reference back to SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL and MS-Access when applicable.
While it would be time-consuming to list more than a few hacks, to give you an idea of the scope of the book, I will illustrate a few. There are some simple ones such as number 15 "Search for Keywords Without LIKE". Using the keyword LIKE will give you matches where an exact match is found. But what if you wanted to search for partial matches with a resulted weighting for the matches? Hack number 15 gives it to you. Since each of the major SQL systems do it differently, the authors show you how to do it with each of them.
A more complex Hack is number 41; "Copy Web Pages into a Table". Here the authors spend almost seven pages showing you how to use XSLT processing to take a web page and extract the data you require and insert it into a SQL Database.
The book is broken in to 12 chapters as listed below.
Chapter 1, SQL Fundamentals (6 hacks)
Chapter 2, Joins, Unions, and Views (8 hacks)
Chapter 3, Text Handling (4 hacks)
Chapter 4, Date Handling (5 hacks)
Chapter 5, Number Crunching (17 hacks)
Chapter 6, Online Applications (8 hacks)
Chapter 7, Organizing Data (9 hacks)
Chapter 8, Storing Small Amounts of Data (6 hacks)
Chapter 9, Locking and Performance (13 hacks)
Chapter 10, Reporting (13 hacks)
Chapter 11, Users and Administration (7 hacks)
Chapter 12, Wider Access (4 hacks)
To me, SQL Hacks is the classic reference book that you need to keep on the shelf, close at hand for those little jobs that come up and just need to get done. It also serves the purpose of giving you new ideas for solutions that perhaps, you may have thought could not be done.
by T. Michael Testi (Blogcritics.org , PhotographyToday, ATAEE)
As increasing amounts of data are stored, processed and exchanged using XML, the ability to access that data in an efficient, organized, and streamlined manner becomes ever so necessary. In the traditional data world, the standard is by using a SQL query, and as of January 2007 in the XML world, we officially have XQuery.
Written by Priscilla Walmsley, XQuery is for query writers who are familiar with XML basics, but perhaps not skilled in other XML-related technologies. It is both a tutorial as well as a reference book. It covers namespaces, schemas, built-in types and regular expressions. It also covers XQuery's support for filtering, sorting, and grouping data as well as how to use FLWOR expressions, XPath and XQuery tools for extracting and combining information.
While the book breaks out into 25 chapters and three appendixes, I will break it down in to its six functional areas. The book is approximately two-thirds's tutorial and one-third reference. It uses a running example that reflects many XML structures.
Chapters 1-2 are a high level overview of XQuery. In these chapters the author goes through what XQuery is, what it can do and lays out the example structures that will be used thought the book. She explains the design of the language as well as the data model.
Chapters 3-9 explore how to write fairly sophisticated queries with out using namespaces and schemas. Here she gets in to the building blocks that will be used to create your queries; that is, things like keywords, whitespace, function calls, and variables. You will learn to navigate input documents using paths, adding elements and attributes to results, selecting and joining using FLWOR's expressions, sorting and grouping, as well as advance queries.
Chapters 10-15 provide advanced concepts for those who want to take advantage of modularity. You will also look at XML namespaces, types, nodes and atomic values as well as learning about queries, prologs, and modules. You will get into schemas, static typing and the overall principles of query design.
Chapters 16-23 introduce advanced concepts for those who want to work with specific types of data, like numbers, strings, dates, URI's and processing instructions. There is discussion on working with other XML components such as documents, text nodes and CDATA as well as implementation -specific features such as serialization parameters.
Chapters 24-25 describe XQuery's relationship to SQL and XSLT by comparing SQL syntax with XQuery syntax and showing how to combine the two when it would be advantageous. The author also goes into XPath and XSLT and how they compare to XQuery.
There are three Appendixes; A which contains a built-in function reference, B covers the built-in types, and C provides a listing of error messages.
There is a lot of information contained in XQuery and it is obvious that Priscilla Walmsley both knows her topic, and is quite clear, concise and well versed on presenting the information in a logical style. While the book is aimed at the XQuery novice, it's usefulness as a desk reference makes it one of those books that you get to learn the topic, but keep forever.
