Databases, what can I say? Since getting drawn into computers and programming while using dBase III Plus, I’ve used many a database. Starting with the xBase family of databases (Clipper, FoxPro and others), then on to a mainframe hierarchical database I’d prefer not to name, then onto SQL.

For those who have not heard the term “xBase“, “xBase is the generic term for all programming languages that derive from the original dBASE (Ashton-Tate) programming language and database formats” according to this article in Wikipedia

One database I’ve worked with since version 1.0 was Microsoft Access. It is such an easy to use database it can be addictive in itself. I’ve often had to rewrite applications using Access as a database to use SQL Server. Otherwise Access is a good database management tool.

FileMaker is supposed to be the easiest database to use, but I haven’t had an opportunity to try it.

Then there are the big boys, the “SQL” Servers. Confusingly, only one is called “SQL Server”, and that is Microsoft SQL Server. The others are MySQL, Sybase SQL Anywhere, Oracle, PostgreSQl and DB2 (of course this is far from a complete list).

Naturally a database is preferable to a spreadsheet when the number of rows is more than 65k, or relationships are required.

Figures and charts, the things which warm the hearts of accountants and managers, these are the things in which Excel excels.

Excel is Microsoft’s spreadsheet, and users of other spreadsheets like Lotus 123 may well disagree that Excel is good.

To expand on my last blog entry, which had definitions of what spreadsheets and databases are and what they do, I’ll concentrate on spreadsheets.

Currently the top-selling commercial spreadsheet is Microsoft Excel. There are other spreadsheets available, like the aforementioned Lotus, or Calc, which is the spreadsheet program in the free OpenOffice.org office suite.

Although some of my first experience with computers revolved around databases, the first time I saw a spreadsheet I was really impressed at what it could do. Spreadsheets are easy to set up. It doesn’t take much to have a spreadsheet up and running to track or calculate small amounts of data. Often I use a spreadsheet just for tabular information which is going to be formatted and printed.

I’ve been trying to think of some rules of thumb as to when you should use a spreadsheet instead of a database. While researching this question I came across a very interesting article online called “Spreadsheet Addiction“, in which it is claimed that the overuse of spreadsheets is a major problem. It makes for interesting reading…

What is a spreadsheet and what is a database and what’s the difference? When would you use a database, and when would you use a spreadsheet? These are perplexing questions to the uninitiated.

One way to find out is to go on a general database course, then an Excel course. In the absence of that I’ll trying to explain the best I can…

The definition of a database from WhatIs.com is “A database is a collection of information that is organized so that it can easily be accessed, managed, and updated. In one view, databases can be classified according to types of content: bibliographic, full-text, numeric, and images.”

The Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing has a fairly good definition of a database:
“One or more large structured sets of persistent data, usually associated with software to update and query the data. A simple database might be a single file containing many records, each of which contains the same set of fields where each field is a certain fixed width. A database is one component of a database management system.”

The main point is that a database stores data, and software is required to retrieve the data from a database. Microsoft Access 2007 is a database.

The Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing also has a fairly good definition of a spreadsheet:
“A type of application program which manipulates numerical and string data in rows and columns of cells. The value in a cell can be calculated from a formula which can involve other cells. A value is recalculated automatically whenever a value on which it depends changes. Different cells may be displayed with different formats.”

Another simpler definition, from TekMom is “A spreadsheet is a document which helps you organize data in rows and columns of cells.”

So a spreadsheet contains data in columns and rows, as well as formulas which manipulate that data.

That’s right, I haven’t finished with the new Mobile Computing Platform yet, specifically software for this platform. The platform is available on the Apple iPod Touch, iPhone and iPhone 3G.

I was trying to find a reference to most of the Apple iPhone App store applications being priced around $9.99. Instead I came across the following interesting information. Developers cannot charge more than $999 for a single application, and the maximum size of a single application is 2GB (see Mobile Magazine.com). I’m trying to imagine an application which would run on the iPhone and cost $999, it would have to be a very specialized vertical market application.

According to Techcrunch.com, when “iPhone App Store launched last Friday” (Friday July 11, 2008) “along with the new 3G iPhone, free apps made up 24 percent of the 552 apps available“. The article is bemoaning the low availability of free (or freeware) applications, but that isn’t a bad percentage, considering that the majority of the applications seem to be priced at or below $9.99.

If you had to look at a website selling mobile applications for Windows Mobile or Palm, the prices would be generally higher, as these are more mature platforms. In the case of Palm, which is unfortunately in decline, a number of shareware (not free) applications have simply been discontinued.

Development for Palm devices has been in the doldrums for several years now. The success of the Palm Centro smartphone is relatively small in comparison with Palm’s previous market domination. Developers who could rewrote their software for Windows Mobile and other platforms. Developers of development software had a harder time, some of them closing shop altogether.

Now the Apple iPhone/Touch has become a platform worth targeting for mobile applications. With 6 million first generation and 1 million 3G iPhones shipped it is already a customer base to be reckoned with.

There is a catch though. Although the iPhone SDK (Software Developer’s Kit) costs $99 a year, there is another cost. The SDK requires an Intel Mac running Mac OS X Leopard. For software developers who have been focusing on Palm and Windows Mobile development, this almost certainly means buying new hardware. Fortunately with Boot Camp (included with Apple Inc.’s Mac OS X v10.5) developer’s can dual boot their Mac’s into Windows XP or Vista, which makes it more of a multi-purpose development machine. Parallels Desktop for Mac allows running of Windows XP or Vista in a window on a Mac.

There are a couple of companies which have announced software for the iPhone. They already have their software running on numerous other mobile platforms.

On the second Tuesday of each month, Microsoft releases security patches (see Security updates). This is known as “Patch Tuesday“. Depending on the settings on your home PC you may not even notice this. Updates on business PCs may be handled totally differently.

There are several settings for Windows Update (I’m referring to Windows XP only, I haven’t seen how patches are handled in Windows Vista).
The recommended one is “Automatically download and install“.
I tend to choose one of the next two options:
“Download updates for me, but let me choose when to install them” or “Notify me, but don’t automatically download or install them“.
The last option, “Turn off Automatic updates“, is not a good idea, despite the following story:

When Windows Update reminds me that there is an update, I usually apply the patches to one machine and see what happens. On Tuesday this week there didn’t seem to be any problems. That was until I rebooted the PC and found that I no longer had Internet access! So I went through the updates, chose one and uninstalled it. It turned out to be the right one - KB951748. After a reboot my internet worked again.

It turned out that it was a clash between the changes made by the security update, and the ZoneAlarm firewall (see “Check Point Provides ZoneAlarm Customers Solution for Loss of Internet Access Which May Occur after Installation of Microsoft Update KB951748“) Oh well, just another software conflict.

Spies like our PCs, spies as in Spyware that is.

Currently I’m trying to de-gunk a Dell notebook which had two anti-virus programs (one expired and just working as a firewall), but no Anti-Spyware program. It really needed one, because it was infected by one worm, and three key-loggers of various flavors – very nasty stuff. For a relatively new PC with 1GB RAM and Windows XP it was running as slow as molasses.

Just having an Anti-virus program is no good, unless it is a Security Suite which includes an Anti-spyware component. Symantec Norton Internet Security 2008 is one such Security Suite.

Unlike Anti-virus programs, you can run more than one Anti-Spyware program. Experts recommend running a commercial anti-spyware program, and also running one of the many free anti-spyware programs. Here it really helps to read reviews of the anti-spyware program, as the top program from two years ago may just not have kept up with technology, even though gets regular signature updates. I have run into minor conflicts while running two anti-spyware programs which both do background (real-time) scanning, but they were very minor.

Also, beware of fake Anti-Spyware programs. The Spyware Warrior website has a list of “Rogue/Suspect Anti-Spyware Products & Web Sites“.

One of the aspects of being a computer professional (or geek if you prefer), is being asked to look at computers with problems by friends and acquaintances.

On at least two occasions when I’ve looked at computers that were either having errors on startup, or running very slow, there was something immediately obvious. In the mistaken belief that the more anti-virus programs the better, more than one anti-virus program had been installed. This is a case of two not being better than one.

Brian Krebs’ blog at washingtonpost.com has a transcript of a security question and answer session, and he says this is response to the question of running two different anti-virus programs on the same machine:

“…Having two anti-virus programs running at once is at the very least asking for your system to slow to a crawl. At worst, each could identify the other as a potential threat…”
There are a few exceptions; some anti-virus programs like ClamWin Antivirus “…don’t load when Windows starts up, …and they don’t do real time protection… If you felt you really wanted that, I don’t see the problem with it…”

My advice is - don’t even try to have more than one anti-virus program running on your computer. It will save a lot of headaches.

I noticed that on Pricegrabber.com, the Anti-virus with the highest User Rating currently is Kaspersky Lab Anti-Virus 7.0. Hmm, maybe I’ll try that one once my current anti-virus subscription runs out.

Windows 7 was announced on June 24 with a ship date of January 2010, (see “Microsoft VP confirms Windows 7 ship date: January 2010” from Info World). This is quite a big deal, as Vista was only released in January 2007, and now the next version of Windows is being announced with a ship date. On top of that, to quote from Information Week, Microsoft has promised support for Windows XP through 2014 ( see “Microsoft Pledges Windows XP Support Through 2014“).

Another gem in the same article says:
“(Microsoft) has apparently accepted the fact that many of its largest customers will skip Vista altogether and will continue using XP at least until Windows 7 becomes available three years from now, and possibly longer.

In addition to supporting XP through 2014, Microsoft is now actively promoting a program that allows customers to downgrade Vista systems to XP through a loophole in the company’s licensing terms. Microsoft’s software license allows customers who purchase a copy of Windows to install and run a previous version of the OS at no additional cost.”

Windows 7 gives something for companies and individuals to wait for. If you cannot wait until 2010 for a new PC, Vista should be fine if bought on a powerful enough PC, although research any possible peripheral incompatibilities (Palm handhelds etc) first.

As for extended support for Windows XP, I don’t think this is completely unheard of, as Windows 98 was supported until a few years ago. Then companies were installing Windows 98 on PCs which been shipped preloaded with Windows XP.

What is a GPS doing on a computer blog? Well, this particular GPS is a converged device. Not converged with an MP3 player (although it can play MP3s), but converged with a Windows Mobile handheld computer.

It is is the HP Compaq iPAQ rx5915 PDA, otherwise known as the HP iPaq rx5915 Travel Companion. The design is more like that of a GPS, although it is a fully functional Pocket PC with Wi-Fi (b and g), Bluetooth, standard Windows Mobile applications and it runs Windows Mobile 5.0. The main difference it that is has 2GB of onboard flash ROM, in which the maps are stored. The device comes preloaded with the maps for North America (US and Canada) including Alaska and Hawaii as well as Tom Tom navigation software, so after the first charge it is ready to go. The screen also has transflective antiglare coating designed to reduce glare and improve readability outside.

Prior to an upcoming trip I decided to update the map files, since I haven’t updated them since getting the iPaq rx5915 almost two years ago.

The installation instructions with the map update were not very positive – to get it to work you either had to delete the “iPAQ GPS” folder from Rom, which meant all your maps and the mapping software would be gone if the update wasn’t successful, or “Run the update four times. The fourth time the update is run, it will proceed successfully…. This map update requires at least 45 minutes to complete“.

I tried the map update once, and got an error message about an invalid system configuration. After re-reading the install instructions figured I would rather take a chance on map data which was a bit out of date.