August 2006

YoMoBlog.com suports Drupal

August 30, 2006

Dave Winer has setup a new service at YoMoBlog.com to make it easy to submit blog posts using PDA web-browsers. The great thing is it works with Drupal right out of the box.

I haven't caught the "mobile blogging" bug yet for public blogs, but it will be nice for private blogs where I need to add a note quickly on the run.

Update: It doesn't seem to get the category on the post all the time. I'm sure this will be worked out shortly but in the meantime there may be a need to check the category.

MySQL views and MS Access

August 29, 2006

So the CASE... WHEN solution posted previously works very well for MySQL. Lots of nice views popping up and databases going forward.

However, when attempting to link a view as a table in Microsoft Access the calculated columns won't show. It's a real drag as it is such quick work to use views to de-normalize data for backwards compatibility.

Enter the pass-through query which solves this problem as long as having the data in an Access query is suitable.

Monday

August 28, 2006

Survived the first Monday of the fall term. Barely.

Air conditioner died weeks ago, in the hottest part of the summer. Makes little difference because we use the swamp cooler. Saturday we set about rebuilding the ailing swamp cooler. Its motor had given up. New motor and things are well. However, the new motor is so powerful it blows more water droplets than cool air.

While we're outside we notice the water system does not come on as it should. Looks to be a bad timer. As in the 9-5 job never a dearth of things to do.

CASE.... WHEN

August 24, 2006

The answer to my previous post comes in the form of the CASE statement in MySQL.

Basically SELECT (CASE WHEN alt_grade = '' THEN grade ELSE alt_grade END).

On another matter, am I the only one who is having terrible performance from the MySQL site online? During the day it's reminiscent of the good old dial-up-modem days.

Select IF...

August 22, 2006

So today's brain teaser, how to best select either column A or column B in MySQL. Here's the setup. We have three columns that count. They are:

Name
Grade
Alt. Grade

In most rows there is a grade and no alt. grade. But every once in a while there are both a grade and an alt. grade. If it were an either-or case it would be simple. But it's an either-and. The question of the day is how to best accomplish it in MySQL 5.

State of Nevada

August 22, 2006

With some regularity I catch a bit or two of KNPR's program State of Nevada. The shows have always been some of the poorest examples of mainstream media. Today for example they talked about credit card debt. The oft ineffective interviewer let the industry representative Nessa Feddif do a Nixonian job of not telling a lie. When the chap from consumer credit counseling said that universal default information is in small print, for example, Feddif responds that credit cards are required to put the default rates in large (10-point) type. So more spin goes without notice.

Scoble: I was wrong

August 22, 2006

It has already been said elsewhere, including by Scoble himself that the post yesterday on what blogs are, or aren't, was incorrect. I won't go into the discussion as the points have been well made elsewhere. I would just comment that this site is one of the most useful blogs out there. Mind you, it won't be to everybody else but it is to me and it is to those who use it.

More troubles for Tower Records

August 20, 2006

Tower Records announced tonight that it will seek a buyer under the rules of a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy filing. A few weeks ago Tower made news when it was announced that several suppliers were no longer supplying product to the venerable record store chain. Tower Records emerged from bankruptcy in 2004 but has continued to struggle with the boom in online sales.

How about some RSS

August 20, 2006

Dave Winer comments on the state of web news on the mainstream news sites. Hey Dave how about a RSS newsreader? :).

My NetNewsWire is filled with the other stories about what is going on elsewhere. Sure there are more JonBenet stories than there need to be. I'm probably more accepting of them since I lived near Boulder for more than a dozen years and the case is one from the old neighborhood.

There is a serious side to this too. Dave's commented a couple of times on the overload of JonBenet coverage. Since I get my news from the radio and the RSS feeds I read I've not seen an overload. Sure, there's a story each day, but there are plenty of other real news stories too. I found myself wondering if this story would have crossed my desk if it weren't for the current coverage.

Home again

August 20, 2006

I feel bad that I didnt get this note out sooner. I arrived back in the US on August 8th as part of the first group of soldiers to return. I was very glad to be "non-essential". I expect everyone else to arrive soon. It is good to be back. In many ways it is like I never left. Imagine someone hitting the "pause" button on your life for a year while everyone else continues on "play". That is close.

I dont know what the next several months will hold but I will continue to update everyone. Thank you all so very much for your support and emails and packages and letters and prayers during the deployment. You made the time much more bearable.

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