Vos Virtual Network

Autumn on Flickr - Follow GR58’s photostream.

Tags: fall colors, Michigan, October, swans

Book Review: MySQL in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition, by Russell J.T. Dyer, published by O’Reilly Media, April 2008, 545 pages, ISBN:0-596-51433-6, price: US $34.99 (Reviewed by Daniel Vos)

MySQL in a Nutshell, 2nd ed.

Behind virtually every web application, there’s a database management system.

Ever used Facebook? Guess what? It runs on a (huge!) database. What about your favorite discussion forum? Are you into auto maintenance, fly fishing, or (if you’re like my wife) do you like to swap recipes, trade amusing anecdotes about your kids, or post blog articles? All database-driven.

Many of the most popular, thriving websites are database driven. Behind the scenes many Web 2.0 websites are running MySQL, Sun Microsystem’s open source database. (There are other popular databases from Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM — but that’s another story.)

MySQL is the M in LAMP — the very popular Open Source web site platform/framework (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl, PHP, Python). MySQL is the database used with WordPress (the software that runs this VVN blog). MySQL is the default database server used with Ruby on Rails.

If MySQL is the world’s most popular open-source database, then MySQL in a Nutshell (2nd ed.) by Russell J. T. Dyer is the Encyclopedia Britannica of MySQL. Weighing in at 545 pages, the book is divided into five parts:

1. Tutorial - A brief tutorial on installing MySQL and performing basic database management tasks (35 pages).
2. Statement and Function Reference - A comprehensive reference to SQL statements, clauses, and functions implemented by MySQL. (SQL is the standard language implemented by all major database management systems, but MySQL, Oracle, MS SQLServer, and the rest all have their own quirks.) This section weighs in at nearly 300 pages, and covers database user administration, data manipulation, and database replication, and more. String function, date and time functions, mathematical functions, and flow control functions are described here, too.
3. Client and Server Administration - A guide to MySQL server and client configuration and administration (90 pages). This is where you will learn the difference between mysqld (the database server) and mysql (the command-line client), and the configuration options of each. A reference to command-line utilities such as mysqladmin, mysqlcheck and mysqldump is also included.
4. Programming APIs - A 100-page guide to three popular programming language APIs - C, Perl, and PHP - which websites or programs use to interface with MySQL.
5. Quick Reference - A 15-page set of appendices with a quick reference to the data types, operators (arithmetic, relational, and logical), and environment variables used by MySQL.

If you are an absolute beginner to MySQL and database management systems, this book might not be the best first choice for you. A good place to start instead might be here. But if you know that MySQL is in your software development or web site development future, MySQL in a Nutshell deserves a place on your bookshelf.

Tags: book review, database, FOSS, mySQL, open-source, Web 2.0, web application

Today marks the one year anniversary of the day we started the Designing With Web Standards group on Facebook (DWWS). Since October 27, 2007 over 4,100 members have joined, representing over 50 countries around the globe.

Designing With Web Standards - Facebook Group

Quoting from the DWWS Facebook group page:

Designing With Web Standards is “the foundational web standards text”. “A core text cited by many as the beginning of the true revolution.”

“Web standards” didn’t really exist until Mr. Jeffrey Zeldman, and his colleagues, coined the term, applied it to a set of ill-enforced W3C and ECMA recommendations, and persuaded browser makers to support these core technologies accurately and completely. That was “The Web Standards Project.”

Designers still weren’t using these hard-won standards, so Mr. Zeldman pushed A List Apart in the direction of web standards evangelism, and this had a great effect. An underground of smart, forward-thinking designers and developers embraced web standards.

Still, most people didn’t get the concepts of web standards, and the industry was oblivious to the benefits or even the existence of web standards.

So the book was written, and published, revised and re-published and the story of web standards continues. It’s the book that launched a thousand other books, from Web Standards Solutions on. It changed some people’s careers, launched others, shook up the industry. However imperfectly applied, web standards are behind most “Web 2.0″ apps.

And yet web standards are still a semi-underground movement, and standardistas are still a rare breed.

Back on November 2nd, 2007 - Jeffrey Zeldman wrote about the group in his blog.

In July of 2008, we wrote an update about DWWS group activities, and related events.

In the past year, 4,171 members have to joined the DWWS Facebook group - to ask questions about the Designing With Web Standards book, and dialogue about Web Standards.

The DWWS Facebook group is already very global. Members are from the following countries, or regions: Australia, Argentina, Bangladesh, Belgium, Belize, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Finland, Fiji, France, Ghana, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya,
Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, UK, USA, Venezuela, Vietnam, etc.

Join the DWWS FB group and let’s learn about web standards together.

Just getting started with web design or web standards? Check out Jeffrey Zeldman’s DWWS page, or our recent book review of Jeffrey’s book - Designing With Web Standards.

Tags: Designing With Web Standards, DWWS, DWWS2e, facebook, web design

Did you watch the debate between Carl Levin and Jack Hoogendyk for the US Senate?

I love the way Jack Hoogendyk answers questions. Jack’s ideas are great,  his ethical standards are high. I think Jack will be a great replacement for Carl Levin.

Here’s a link to the debate that was held recently at the Detroit Economic Club –  you can watch a replay of the streaming video. It will also be broadcast again in the Detroit area on Channel 56 this Sunday, October 26, at 4 pm.

You can watch another debate (between Carl Levin and Jack Hoogendyk) that was held in Grand Rapids, Michigan (on Sunday, October 19, 2008) on the WGVU web video channel - Decision 2008 US Senatorial Debate.

Tags: Carl Levin, debate, Detroit, I Love Detroit, Jack Hoogendyk, Michigan, US Senate

Pablo Picasso 1907 Self Portrait

Here is a section from Pablo Picasso’s 1907 self portrait. Picasso was  born on October 25, 1881. Picasso grew up in a middle class family in Malaga, Spain. His father was an art instructer and curator of an art museum. According to Picasso’s mother, his first words were “piz, piz” - short for lápiz, the Spanish word for “pencil”.  Picasso is one of the most famous 20th century artists and is best known for Cubist style paintings.

Tags: art, painting, reflection, self portrait

Open Source software projects and FOSS (free open source software) governance policies are becoming more visible at companies like Capgemini, Cisco, CompuWare, EDS, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Sun, etc.

The news about Microsoft’s Open Source Web Platform Installer probably took a few people by surprise this week. Game plans and strategies are changing quickly, and enterprise open source governance policies (PDF) may need to be reviewed or revised to keep up with the rapid pace of change. Projects like FOSSology and FossBazaar are designed to grapple with governance issues.

Open Source in the Enterprise - 2008, an O’Reilly Radar Report starts with the question/premise: “It’s no longer IF, but HOW?”  O’Reilly’s new report is for CIOs, CTOs, IT managers, and business owners who want to make smart decisions about deploying open source. (Disclaimer: O’Reilly makes money selling books about open source software.)

So how do you use open source software in your business? How do you define policies for using open source? How do you govern IT? What are the best practices in the industry today?

The O’Reilly Radar Report, Open Source in the Enterprise - 2008, is authored by Bernard Golden (CEO of Navica).

Mr. Golden starts out by telling us that open source is “growing at a compound rate of 55%”. The number of projects hosted at SourceForge has grown from around 12,500 in 2000 to nearly 200,000 by year-end 2007. However, Mr. Golden also reminds us that Open Source adoption statistics are not very reliable at this point:

It is extremely challenging to assess how much open source is being used within enterprises today. One of the traditional methods of use identification (vendor reports) is missing, as most open source software is downloaded anonymously and copied/redistributed extensively. Self-reporting by enterprises cannot be relied upon, either, as many companies are unwilling to self-report in the interest of avoiding conflict with existing vendors or keeping competitive information confidential.

He goes on to explain his method of research, which involved examining job posting data — looking for tell tale markers of Open Source adoption in various enterprises.

The report lists 6 drivers for Enterprise Open Source Adoption, and follows each with case studies, and analysis of best practices:

1. Agility and Scale ( case study - PayPal)
2. Quality and Security (case study - Coverity)
3. Breaking Vendor Lockin (case study - Kaplan test services)
4. Cost (case study - Big Lots)
5. Sovereignty (case study - open source in Brazil)
6. Innovation (case study - AMQP at JP Morgan/Chase)

The O’Reilly report concludes with details on how to create an Open Source Action Plan.

The critical task at this stage of open source use is to bring it into the open and recognize that it will be an important part of IT initiatives going forward. Don’t underestimate this issue: a recent CIO magazine survey found that about 50% of enterprises claim that they are currently using open source, while 45% cited support concerns as a reason restricting its use—whereas the reality is that nearly every IT organization has open source running today. The first step to solving a problem is confronting it, and the challenge for early open source users is to be honest about their actual circumstances.

I found the report to be well researched and written in a non-technical, jargon-free manner. The case studies are helpful. You might find the report helpful also.

Disclaimer: The values, viewpoints and opinions expressed are totally my own, and do not necessarily reflect the values, viewpoints, or opinions of my employer, clients, suppliers, or any other affiliation.

Tags: FOSS, IT governance, IT policy, open-source, opensource

Title track from the upcoming live worship album, “A New Hallelujah“, available October 28th, 2008. You’ll see the African Childrens Choir singing along in the video. Perhaps there are a few souls looking for hope after the financial troubles of the past week. This is “A New Hallelujah” - not Jeff Buckley’s  Hallelujah, or Handel’s grand old Hallelujah.

Hallelujah—means “Praise the LORD!” The word is made by putting together two Hebrew words: Hallelu (meaning “praise”) and Yah (for the name of God, “Yahweh,” or “the LORD”). Hallelujah is also the title of the Hollywood’s first all black film, produced in 1929 (the same year that Dr. Martin Luther King was born). Another interesting connection - October 28, 1929 was Black Monday in the stock market crash leading up to the Great Depression.

Look for A New Hallelujah, coming out on October 28, 2008.

Tags: gospel music, Hallelujah, music, video

Continuing my research on the Essential Reading List for Web Designers, System Architects, Technologists and “other-ologists”. And before I forget — check out my blogroll. The writers (bloggers) on my blog roll are very important (or they wouldn’t be on my blog roll). I’ve been reading some of these blogs for several years. Scroll down and review the blogroll list on the right hand side column (about half-way down).

Remember — this is a survey of books, blogs and magazines that people are recommending to me. I haven’t distilled the list down yet… still collecting suggestions from friends… My friend Antoine told me to look at Digital Web Magazine - they publish a variety of articles of interest to web designers, web developers, etc.

Here’s a few books that Antoine mentioned:

1. Designing With Web Standards, by Jeffrey Zeldman, published by Peachpit Press, 2007, ISBN:0321385551, 410 pages (and you know I’ve recommended Zeldman’s book a Zillion times)
2. Web Accessibility, Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance, by Jim Thatcher, Michael R. Burks, Christian Heilmann, Shawn Lawton Henry, Patrick H. Lauke, Richard Rutter; published by Friends of ED, 2006, ISBN:1590596382, 648 pages
3. The Zen of CSS Design, by Dave Shea, and Molly E. Holzschlag; Published by Peachpit Press, 2005, ISBN:0321303474, 296 pages
4. The Business Side of Creativity, The Complete Guide for Running a Graphic Design Or Communications Business, by Cameron S. Foote, Illustrated by Mark Bellerose;Published by W. W. Norton & Company, 2002, ISBN:039373093X, 432 pages

Tags: books, DWWS2e, web design, web development

Under the overpass after an autumn rain, by the railroad tracks.
I-96 at the Southfield Freeway. Detroit, Michigan. October 2007.

From G. S. George’s Flickr Photostream.

Tags: bridge, Detroit, Michigan, photo, railroad, rails

Reading for personal growth and professional development -  While writing in my architectural journal, I started down the path of trying to describe my personal reading program for professional development. I documented some of the most important magazines (Byte Magazine was on my essential reading list — 25 years ago), books and blogs for a computer systems architect. That got me wondering about what books or blogs I was missing out on. Was I missing something really important? To be a great computer systems architect, one needs to read great books, magazines, and blogs — and go to great conferences — and keep learning every day. So I kept wondering… Was there something missing from my essential reading list?  I started asking a few friends about their essential reading list. Uh-oohhh…  Some friends don’t really read much… (maybe they learn more by attending conferences, etc.) and the ones that do read,  might be on a different career path, so they have different professional development goals.

Context is Everything - For architects, computer programmers, lawyers, philosophers, and theologians - context is everything. The essential reading list for a lawyer is different from the essential reading list of an architect, physician or pastor.  I’m also searching for common themes, and patterns to reuse…

Is there a book (or a blog) that should be essential reading for architects (who build large buildings)  — and for computer architects (who build large computer systems)? I think there might be… and I’m getting to that… hang on a minute…. Are there books and blogs that every designer should read, whether they are designing websites, bikes, book covers, or baby-clothes?

The quest for the best - There are a lot of dead end streets on this quest. For instance, sometimes you find a really cool blog, but alas — the blogger quits blogging. Example: Loosely Coupled - a great blog for software developers and systems architects (covering SOA) - but the last entry appears to be from May 2006.

So, I sent emails to a few friends, saying:

What do you consider essential reading each day, each week, each
month? Books, journals, magazine, blogs?
What technical journals to read each month?
What do you read that keeps you going and growing?
I’m interested in your thoughts.

So, that’s the long contextual explanation as to why I’m building an essential reading list for various professions. Then I want to see if there are common themes — books, magazines, journals, and blogs that are considered essential reading by a lot of people from various backgrounds and professions.

So here’s a few books and blogs that my friends suggested, and guess what? Some of them were already on my blog roll, or books that I’ve read. This is not the distilled list of essential reading… yet… but here are some suggestions that are coming in from my initial survey of computer geeks and web designers…  not a comprehensive survey… (It’s kind of a list from A to Z – with the middle part still missing).

Suggested blogs:

1. 456 Berea Street - A blog by Roger Johansson. A Swedish web professional who has been working with the web and other interactive media since 1994.
2. AlertBox - Jakob Nielsen’s Newsletter on Web Usability
3. A List Apart - A List Apart Magazine (ISSN: 1534-0295) explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices.
4. Authentic Boredom - A blog by web designer Cameron Moll.
5. UXMag - The User Experience Magazine - Elevating user experience one article at a time.
6. Zeldman - Online since May 1995, “Jeffrey Zeldman Presents” is the personal site of designer, writer, and web standards guru Jeffrey Zeldman. Zeldman was one of the first designers, bloggers, and independent publishers on the web, and one of the first web design teachers. We’ve mentioned (and reviewed his best selling book), Designing With Web Standards, several times before.

To be continued…

Tags: blogs, books, DWWS2e, web design, Web Standards