Earlier today I was at an internal company presentation about MySQL 5. There seemed to be a lot of fuss made about new features like stored procedures, triggers and views. Features that I was using in Sybase in 1992. Without features like these you don’t have a database – you just have a few datafiles… Continue reading MySQL 5
Author: Dave Cross
Tagging Photos
Two scenarios. In the first you have spent a nice day out with a group of friends. Many of you took interesting photos which have all now been uploaded to Flickr. It would be nice to easily be able to find all of those photos and perhaps automatically create one URL that will show them… Continue reading Tagging Photos
New Yahoo! Slogan
Anyone from Yahoo! reading? I’ve got a new slogan for you. Yahoo! – the Swiftest search engine I just thought of that. I obviously missed my calling. I should have been in marketing. What do you mean, it’s too literary? You just don’t read enough!
EuroOSCON 2006
This years EuroOSCON has been announced. It’s on the 18th – 21st September in Brussels. Last year’s conference was great, so I hope to be there again. Oh, and there seems to be another similar conference taking place in the US in July.
iRiver/iPod/iAudio
It’s over six months since I got my iRiver H140 and I’m very happy with it. Unfortunately I can no longer recommend it to new buyers as it’s no longer available and I’m told that the replacement model (the H340) isn’t as good. But this afternoon someone mentioned the iAudio X5 to me. It has… Continue reading iRiver/iPod/iAudio
More Stupid People
The BBC is reporting new UK government findings about the impact of greenhouse gases. It makes chilling reading: The report, published by the UK government, says there is only a small chance of greenhouse gas emissions being kept below “dangerous” levels. It fears the Greenland ice sheet is likely to melt, leading sea levels to… Continue reading More Stupid People
Maps and Time
Dan Hill has a brilliant idea – adding a time slider to Google Earth so that you can trace the development of a map through time. This has to happen. Only possible downside would be the amount of time I’d spend exploring old maps.
First Direct Web Site
Here’s a good example of how not to design a user interface. Yesterday I realised that I needed to pay my tax bill. My accountants had filed the return, it was just up to me to actually stump up the money. The deadline for payment is January 31st so it was a bit late to… Continue reading First Direct Web Site
Bad Bulk Email From ft.com
Here’s a good example of how not to run a bulk email list. Some time ago I registered with the Financial Times web site. At that time I must have given them my email address. But I’m certain that I wouldn’t have ticked any boxes marked “send me email”. I never tick those boxes and… Continue reading Bad Bulk Email From ft.com
Google Web Survey
See, this is a good example of what you can do if you’re parsing every page you can find on the web. Google has been examining the HTML used in the pages that it trawls and has published its findings. The results are interesting but not altogether surprising. The executive summary seems to be “most… Continue reading Google Web Survey