Read on to learn what questions to ask of a database ...

 

What IS a database? It's more than just making an Excel spreadsheet with a column for each topic. It's a
"systematically arranged collection of data, structured so that it can be automatically retrieved or manipulated." from the Encarta® World English Dictionary ©.

Flat versus Relational Databases.

The relational database was invented in 1970. Originally, databases were flat. This means that the information was stored in one long text file called a tab delimited file. Each entry in the tab delimited file is separated by a special character. Each entry contains multiple pieces of information (fields) about a particular object or person grouped together as a record. The text file makes it difficult to search for specific information or to create reports that include only certain fields from each record.  

Here's an example of the file created by a flat database:

Lname, FName, Age, Salary|Smith, John, 35, $280|Doe, Jane, 28, $325|Brown, Scott, 41, $265|Howard, Shemp, 48, $359|Taylor, Tom, 22, $250

A good example is the folder with forms inside that a doctor keeps on each patient. The drawer in the filing cabinet where they're kept is the datafile; individual folders and the forms inside are records; on each form are many things about the patient that the doctor has to fill in and these are the fields - datafile then record then field.  (Most doctors and hospitals have now gone digital.)

A relational database allows you to easily find specific information. It also allows you to sort based on any field and generate reports that contain only certain fields from each record.  It would be much easier to find "Mary Brown" using the example above.

Why Use A Relational Database?

I have two kinds of databases - one paper (business cards) and one electronic.

I still have a rolodex to keep business cards for two reasons: to write where and when I met someone on the back and to have a visual cue to remind me of the person and their business.

But I enter the information from the business card in my computer database, too. That way not only do I have two records of the same data but if I can't remember the person's name or business and therefore can't use the computer database, my memory may be jogged by their business card. It takes longer to look at each one but that's what people did before computers, didn't they?

Which One Should I Choose?

There are many to choose from.

 

The top two are Microsoft Access and FileMakerPro. How do you decide? Ask yourself this question - if I'm a PC user will there be any time I want a Mac user to look at/ change my data?   

 

I work with a client putting her newsletter into Constant Contact and manipulating the content she's written so it's "marketing-like". She has a PC and I have a Mac. She inputs information into her database from business cards and courses she teaches. She then emails me the database file so I can upload any changes into CC.

 

We chose to use FileMakerPro because it's the only one (I know of) where the file can be used on both a Mac and a PC. The others are PC only or Mac only.

Hope this helps you to understand databases. If you don't understand something, please call or email me :-)

The Shallows. What the Internet Is Doing To Our Brains  by Nicholas Carr   

 

I was browsing in a bookstore (a physical one - not online) as I often do and I was drawn to pick up and then buy this book. I'd not heard of it but what a provocative title!   

 

Completed in 2009, published in 2010 and the republished with a new afterword in 2011, it really led me to wanting to learn more about the author and his writings.

 

He doesn't take sides (he went off to college in 1977 the year that Star Wars came out and the Apple Computer company was incorporated) but presents us with information that really makes us think long and hard and often question why.

 

From the back cover of the paperback version "... heralded as the flashpoint for the ongoing debate over thee power and peril of technology. ... Part intellectual history, part popular science, and part cultural criticism ..."

 

He writes about the brain's plasticity and how it's a good and a bad thing. He writes technology - reading and writing, printing, books, clocks, maps,  and how "... the intellectual ethic of a technology is rarely recognized by its inventors." Each one shapes our brain. Did you ever think about that?

Then he gets to the web/ internet and what it's doing to our brains. I grew up (I was born in 1950) with books and not technology while my nephew who was born in 1990 grew up with technology. How does it affect his brain? Or those of today's 5 year olds who know right away how to use smart phones? Hmmmm. Makes you think, doesn't it?

 

Buy this book, read it and think about what it says.  

Buy this book and read  

Buy this book and read i.Bu 

A Quote For You ....
"Life is not what you see, but what you've projected. It's not what you've felt, but what you've decided. It's not what you've experienced, but how you've remembered it. It's not what you've forged, but what you've allowed. And it's not who's appeared, but who you've summoned.

And this should serve you well until you find what you already have."