Monday: May 10, 2010
- Everything you wanted to know about the Facebook privacy war.
Wired goes into detail about all the recent privacy changes that Facebook has recently undergone and what they mean to you and your data. Long story short, make sure your privacy settings are all up to snuff (or cancel your account).
Tuesday: April 20, 2010
- NASA to send first humanoid robot out into space later this year.
The robotics aren't quite advanced enough yet to send an actual android that is advanced as the ones you've seen on Star Trek - but it's a start. As to when these robot astronauts will turn on their masters and decide to destory all of our satellites - anybody's guess.
Monday: April 12, 2010
- Google decides to acquire Plink, a visual search company.
The four month-old start-up provided visual search results based on artwork photography submitted to their PlinkArt application on your Android handset. The principle is simple: take a shot of a painting, run it through the Plink art database and get the details on the artwork and its author.
Tuesday: April 6, 2010
- A collection of three handy SQL Server cheat sheets just for you.
Do you have the the honor, no privilege, of working with SQL Server implementations for the better part of your work day? If you answered yes, then this post should come very handy. Print em up, tape to wall, continue on with your query, execute and enjoy.
Wednesday: March 24, 2010
- Security flaws over at the IRS could mean that your personal data might be at risk.
The Internal Revenue Service's failure to use strong passwords, install patches quickly, and adequately control access to computer systems and information makes the system vulnerable to insider threats and attacks from outside, a new government report concludes.
Tuesday: March 9, 2010
- Ten SQL tips you can use to speed up your beloved databases.
This is a great collection of tips for anyone who happens to deal with writing SQL queries on a daily basis (cough). And yes, I actually own the t-shirt contained in the attached thumbnail.
Tuesday: December 15, 2009
- Yes, it's quite possible to ring up $22,000 worth of charges on your cell phone.
The charges in question were actually caused by the data usage of a thirteen year old boy. The bright side to all of this is that Verizon has stepped in and made a promise to credit the entire amount of astronomical charges.
Thursday: October 15, 2009
- A list of the top seven technology disasters of the decade.
In what has been called the largest credit card crime of all time, earlier this year, Heartland Payment Systems announced that hackers had broken into the computers it uses to process about 100 million transactions each month for 175,000 merchants.
Wednesday: October 7, 2009
- NYC BigApps contest officially under way - start your programming.
The task is to create some sort of meaningful kind of application (be it for web, desktop, iPhone, etc) while utilizing at least one data source available on the NYC.gov Data Mine. There are cash prizes as well as chance to have dinner with New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg. Swanky.
Thursday: September 24, 2009
- Want to know the furthest distance between two McDonald's joints?
...McDonald’s cluster at the population centers and hug the highway grid. East of the Mississippi, there’s wall-to-wall coverage, except for a handful of meager gaps centered on the Adirondacks, inland Maine, the Everglades, and outlying West Virginia.
Monday: July 13, 2009
- Adobe looking to give ColdFusion a shot in the arm with new release.
Adobe went for three simple categories of improvement with this release: Increase user productivity, improve integration with popular enterprise software, and simplify the workflow between Adobe products.
Friday: July 10, 2009
- A graph depicting how the average U.S. consumer spends their paycheck.
An interesting visualization of a data survey provided by Department of Labor.
Thursday: July 9, 2009
- It's quite possible to steal data using only an electrical outlet and some cheap lasers.
...the attacker grabs the keyboard signals that are generated by hitting keys. Because the data wire within the keyboard cable is unshielded, the signals leak into the ground wire in the cable, and from there into the ground wire of the electrical system feeding the computer.
Thursday: July 2, 2009
- Anti-database movement forges ahead.
The movement's chief champions are Web and Java developers, many of whom learned to get by at their cash-strapped startups by building their own data storage solutions, emulating those being built by Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., and which they subsequently released as open source.
- Digitizing health records may ultimately save billions of dollars.
Analysts say an estimated $700 billion a year is wasted on unnecessary tests and mistakes that a computerized system could help avoid. Still, hospitals had been reluctant to change due to the up front costs. But industry professionals say the stimulus plan incentives are motivational factors.
Tuesday: June 30, 2009
- Bloomberg unveils 'Big Apps' contest for New York City data innovation.
For the first stage of the contest, which will be called Big Apps, the city will release what Bloomberg described as a “huge volume of data” from various city agencies. He gave the example of creating a mobile application out of the Health Department’s restaurant grades.
Tuesday: June 16, 2009
- Barcodes could be used to reveal extended information about your food's credentials.
Most manufacturers already use barcodes or RFID chips to track their products. But with the help of cheap cellphone and internet access it is becoming possible to collate data from remote locations around the world and make it available to the people who are actually going to eat the food.
Wednesday: May 6, 2009
- Thirty-seven data-ish blogs you should know about.
Read on, my fellow DBA nerds.
Friday: March 6, 2009
- Daily Grind: Overworked
Name: Vin (aka not at hampton)
Occupation: Webmaster / Procrastinator / Dad
How Vin feels today: Overworked @ 3:51:00 PM
What Vin really wants today: To not be at work and to continue following on all the Phish updates coming out of Hampton.Music Stuck in Head: The Cropper / Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood
This album was a little bit different from what I was expecting. If you dug A Go Go, this one may need some time to sink in.Stuff to do today:
- Debate going out to Best Buy to pick up the Clifford Ball box set
- Wait on this since there will be plenty to listen to tomorrow what with the band is giving out the mp3s for free
- Move on to other topics
- Figure out how to solve redesign problem involving media naming conventions for database ids that don't exist yet
- Keep a running tab of database ids (autonumber) in separate table
- Above item doesn't work and can be easily broken if a record is deleted thus causing the number to be out of sync
- Blllllaaaaaargggggh
- Use IDENTITY to properly assign id to media after insert to database has been made
- Problem is that most media upload scripts use form collection that puts the image in FIRST so getting the IDENTITY of a record that doesn't exist yet is not possible
- Move on to way (way) less geekier topics
- ...
- ...
- ...
- Can't think of anything
- Finish up work and go home