Category Archives: General

General notes and comments

What happened in 1986?

Posted on July 21, 2011 by davidjmurray

I have been rather busy of late, doing a bit of reading and a lot of research regarding the NF² or The Nested Relational Model. While browsing my old Universities library last year, I discovered an old text book on … Continue reading →

Posted in General, mvdbs, Publications, RANT, SQL, Technologies | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Microsoft to standardize NoSQL?

Posted on April 26, 2011 by davidjmurray

An interesting news item from Computer World points to an article in the ACM magazine about Microsoft wanting to standardize NoSQL – similar to SQL (Structured Query Language) and how this gained traction for relational databases. This also leads to … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

Knuth Humor

Posted on March 4, 2011 by davidjmurray

I recently purchased Donald Knuth’s ‘The Art of Computer Programming: Volume 3: Sorting and Searching”.  It’s a heavy read, but has some rather good bits. Also Knuth has a sense of humor which lightens the reading a wee bit, so … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogroll, General | Tagged | Leave a comment

Cult of Excel

Posted on February 28, 2011 by davidjmurray

I have written about the use of MS-Excel before (see related posts at end), so an article on the weirder uses of MS-Excel is not out of order- http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9211699/Use_Microsoft_Excel_for_Nearly_Everything . As most IT people have found, I also repeatedly find … Continue reading →

Posted in General, Techniques | Tagged | Leave a comment

What type of programmer are you?

Posted on February 2, 2011 by davidjmurray

During the many years of programming and coding most people would have shared their fabric covered box with one of these types – http://stevenbenner.com/2010/07/the-5-types-of-programmers/. Of cause, as professionals, you and me are not really in the list… Good for a … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

Continuation of KISS

Posted on November 30, 2010 by davidjmurray

From an email today, I browsed this article regarding when to use the MS-Windows Power Shell. This is a continuation from my previous note on KISS and the Linux shell. So, there you go; maybe there is something in using … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Leave a comment

KISS

Posted on November 29, 2010 by davidjmurray

KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid. Yup, just revisited that one again. I recently purchased a HDHomeRun network TV tuner from Silicon Dust and after trying numerous TV media applications; MS-Windows and Linux, I decided to write my own.

Posted in General, Linux, Python, Techniques | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Open-source attitude with commercial software

Posted on September 15, 2010 by davidjmurray

I have noticed a strange change in the support of commercial consumer based software; using forums and such, where the moderation seems to by volunteers.

Posted in General, RANT | Leave a comment

Excel as a DBMS

Posted on June 15, 2010 by davidjmurray

Over the years, I have seen many organizations use MS-Excel as a database. I have also been tempted and joined the ‘Cult of Excel’ from time to time. This morning, I stumbled across this interesting article, regarding the use of … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Back again

Posted on June 8, 2010 by davidjmurray

Well, after 2 years to the day, I have decided to reactivate my IT blog. A lot has happened over the last 2 years; and also not that much. I am currently doing some university work; in the area of … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Leave a comment