The primary use for me was just to have the PC Card stuck in the slot permanently so that I could transfer pictures off my camera. Of course all computers made would have had a single memory card slot built in for the last five years if everyone could have agreed on a single memory card standard.
...while a PCMCIA card reader will be completely flush. Makes a big difference, you can just leave the card stuck in there permenantly and you don't notice it at all.
So you do have constant inserts, but you are basically just using the database as a cache. In that case it really wouldn't matter at all if you had to go back to last night's backup, as material would just be cached again as queries came in. So MySQL would look like a good fit there.
It's difficult to find up-to-date comparisons as the latest versions of both (SQL Server 2005 and MySQL 5) are quite new, but here's an example comparing MySQL 4.1 with SQL Server 2000. MySQL 5 is meant to be a lot better than 4; SQL Server 2005 is also better but it is more of an incremental thing over 2000 compared to the advances with MySQL.
You should also consider SQL Server Express, which is free. Just bear in mind the limitations: 1 CPU, 1gb RAM, 4gb database size (data files, not including logs.) Other than this I believe it has the performance of the full version (e.g. it would be as fast as the full version running on a 1 CPU machine with 1gb RAM.)
To be honest if you are planning on just a single machine which is going to share the web server, application server and database the Express edition will likely be more than enough. The 1 CPU/1gb RAM limitation is what SQL Server is limited to use; if you have 2 CPUs/2gb RAM the rest of the system will still be using these.
The one to watch is the 4gb max database size; you would want to be a good bit below this (half?) to allow for expansion - and your application sounds like something that would potentially produce a very large amount of data to store (although maybe not as I presume you need to flush stuff out regularly to keep the info fresh.) Also, the 4gb is per database; you can have as many as you like.
You'll also be more familiar with SQL Server administration though, so staying with that might be easier than trying to migrate to MySQL now. What I would probably do myself would be to stick with SQL Server (if the free Express edition is enough) for _this_ move (you will have other issues with the move rather than trying to complicate it) and then when you have expanded to the point where you need a seperate database machine (which is very much to be recommended anyway) look into MySQL on that then. You can set up MySQL on that new machine independently while your app runs happily on the other, and only switch over when you are sure everything is working OK. MySQL (v5+, which many would think the first version that is a real DBMS) will have been around for a bit longer then as well which can only be an advantage.
To be honest performance is likely to depend a lot more on your database design, good SQL (e.g. thinking in sets, reducing queries per ASP page), proper use of indexes, appropriate caching, etc. You can speed up a badly implemented database by several orders of magnitude looking at these things, whereas either actual engine will be in the same ballpark. I'd say either DBMS will do in that regard.
Yeah, maybe he should just strap three of these together and post-process in Photoshop.
Well, post-processing actually only works on the image you have in front of you. Given that the scanner exposes individual lines in the image over time (e.g. it - "scans") to generate the end image, you would actually need a movie to be able to generate the same effect with post-processing. A movie with very high-quality frames, and an unbelievably high frame rate (effectively you would want a frame for each line, so depending on the scan speed up to perhaps a few thousand frames a second - and then you would throw out the entire frame except the single line you wanted.) The scanner idea is starting to sound better to me.
On a more general note, this whole attitude is endemic now. Sure you can correct stuff later, but it is generally better in photography to try to get the best image you can at the moment you are taking it; you've then have got a lot more to work with! The phrase "polishing a turd" comes to mind...
Out of interest, how did you implement the 'informed user' requirement? ("When the ping attribute is present, user agents should clearly indicate to the user that following the hyperlink will also cause secondary requests to be sent in the background, possibly including listing the actual target URIs.")
Posted by: Malcolm at January 17, 2006 12:14 PM
The UI component of this feature is currently unimplemented. We did not see that as a blocker to enabling this on the trunk (development) builds of Firefox. I hope to test out Ian's suggestion of adding the pings to the status bar shortly.
The feature is currently enabled by default in Firefox, but disabled for Thunderbird.
...about the 4000 port issue; your application should be keeping the database connections open rather than closing and reopening constantly anyway. So you should only be using a handful, for whatever number of concurrent connections there are to the DB.
Note: I don't use ASP myself and I don't actually know how ASP handles this. I _presume_ it doesn't only have an open and close repeatedly option, because that would be braindead.
...number one probably being what is your code division between SQL and ASP, e.g. how much of your code is SQL and how much is ASP? Number two would then be whether you use any SQL-Server specific features or other SQL that isn't supported (or doesn't work the same) on MySQL. So the first thing for you to do is to test your application on MySQL and see if it works, (highly unlikely off the bat) or if it doesn't, work out how much fixing is required, and how much will this cost (time/money). This is not specific to a move to MySQL, it would be the same going between any two DBMSes.
If you are moving from a shared environment, I presume you aren't massively high volume but you should bear in mind that using ASP with MySQL you will have to go through ODBC which will have a performance penalty. With SQL Server you can use a native driver as I believe you can if you use MySQL with certain application servers other than ASP.
You should also look at what you are storing in your database - is it highly transactional, updated continually with absolutely essential information (I am thinking orders/financial transactions) or is it mainly SELECTs on data that is updated infrequently. With the former, data integrity should be top of your shopping list while with the latter you just need to make sure that you back up regularly and you shouldn't lose anything important even in case of a disaster. MySQL 5 is meant to be much better on this matter and many other issues that were problematic for MySQL in the past but bear in mind that v5 is only out a few months.
Bottom line is - if you have a relatively low-traffic website with relatively simple code, moving shouldn't be too much of a problem. If you have a high-traffic website with complex SQL, moving will likely cost more than a SQL Server license. BTW, SQL Server is a decent database, I wouldn't move off it just for the heck of it.
In fairness, the one time I went over the handlebars involved a collision with a fixed object, although I did on a seperate occasion have a nasty sideways skid from a sudden stop necessitated by a car door opening.
I have a faint memory of going over from my childhood but of course can't remember the full details;-)
Of course on most bicycles the brakes are in such bad condition that the question is somewhat academic.
The only thing that really bothers me about digital is the way that it blows out highlights (pixels go to #ffffff abruptly).
I would have thought you can do this just as easily with film, in fact arguably more so (just from the point of view that you don't know for sure until you get it developed.)
If not, please explain, I'm nowhere near a photography expert.
...of the computer by providing a safer "Recycle Bin" to protect their files better (e.g. more difficult to accidentally delete, or indeed for other software to delete). The Norton Recycle Bin also protects for example files deleted from a network share, which the standard Windows one doesn't (although this is a seperate issue.)
Sony's rootkit offered no benefit to the user, only to Sony.
Disclaimer: I don't and wouldn't run Norton, it's a massive hog and really gets into the depths of your system, the point is just that their intention is not so bad here.
HORRIBLE. They were also very big and clunky devices. You might also note that modern Creatives ape the iPod UI about as far as they can while staying the right side of a lawsuit. They would take the scroll wheel if they could, but instead have to make do with a strip which means you have to constantly take your finger up when you run out of room. UI is quite important when you are trying to navigate through thousands of songs.
The iPod was successful because it was small, easy to use, and actually competitively priced (e.g. I didn't see any similarly priced 4gb flash players in the market when the Nano came out.)
...this SD card player at £8.99 seems a good deal. Alternatively this (cheap-end electronics) is exactly the sort of thing to buy direct from Hong Kong/China on eBay for peanuts (just remember to factor in the shipping!)
That was just a (poor) example used in the article. The example needs to hotlink to a php-generated JS as it needs the PHP to fill in the IP address server-side.
Grokster.com are filling in the IP address server-side and serving it out as plain HTML (check the source.)
...and the web browsing experience is very good indeed. I wouldn't call it slow by any means, slightly slower than a desktop perhaps but much much faster than any other pocket/PDA browser I have ever tried.
Problem two: Remind me why we don't fine people for selling violent books, movies, magazines, newspapers, music, etc. to minors. If we're going to restrict free speech we need to restrict all forms of it.
...with R and NC-17 being unavailable to minors (the former without parental approval). Although these ratings seem more concerned with sex and the number of times the word 'fuck' is used than actual violence.
Now I think the MPAA system is technically voluntary, but it would seem to have pretty much the same effect as European rating systems which are mostly enshrined in the law.
If this was a general ban or censorship, I would completely agree. However I really don't get the problem with restricting the 'rights' of minors, this coming from a country where most states don't let you purchase alcohol until the very late age of 21 (which to a European seems _far_ more bizarre.)
Slashdot Mirror
...and can format from there.
The primary use for me was just to have the PC Card stuck in the slot permanently so that I could transfer pictures off my camera. Of course all computers made would have had a single memory card slot built in for the last five years if everyone could have agreed on a single memory card standard.
...while a PCMCIA card reader will be completely flush. Makes a big difference, you can just leave the card stuck in there permenantly and you don't notice it at all.
...you just did
So you do have constant inserts, but you are basically just using the database as a cache. In that case it really wouldn't matter at all if you had to go back to last night's backup, as material would just be cached again as queries came in. So MySQL would look like a good fit there.
It's difficult to find up-to-date comparisons as the latest versions of both (SQL Server 2005 and MySQL 5) are quite new, but here's an example comparing MySQL 4.1 with SQL Server 2000. MySQL 5 is meant to be a lot better than 4; SQL Server 2005 is also better but it is more of an incremental thing over 2000 compared to the advances with MySQL.
You should also consider SQL Server Express, which is free. Just bear in mind the limitations: 1 CPU, 1gb RAM, 4gb database size (data files, not including logs.) Other than this I believe it has the performance of the full version (e.g. it would be as fast as the full version running on a 1 CPU machine with 1gb RAM.)
To be honest if you are planning on just a single machine which is going to share the web server, application server and database the Express edition will likely be more than enough. The 1 CPU/1gb RAM limitation is what SQL Server is limited to use; if you have 2 CPUs/2gb RAM the rest of the system will still be using these.
The one to watch is the 4gb max database size; you would want to be a good bit below this (half?) to allow for expansion - and your application sounds like something that would potentially produce a very large amount of data to store (although maybe not as I presume you need to flush stuff out regularly to keep the info fresh.) Also, the 4gb is per database; you can have as many as you like.
You'll also be more familiar with SQL Server administration though, so staying with that might be easier than trying to migrate to MySQL now. What I would probably do myself would be to stick with SQL Server (if the free Express edition is enough) for _this_ move (you will have other issues with the move rather than trying to complicate it) and then when you have expanded to the point where you need a seperate database machine (which is very much to be recommended anyway) look into MySQL on that then. You can set up MySQL on that new machine independently while your app runs happily on the other, and only switch over when you are sure everything is working OK. MySQL (v5+, which many would think the first version that is a real DBMS) will have been around for a bit longer then as well which can only be an advantage.
To be honest performance is likely to depend a lot more on your database design, good SQL (e.g. thinking in sets, reducing queries per ASP page), proper use of indexes, appropriate caching, etc. You can speed up a badly implemented database by several orders of magnitude looking at these things, whereas either actual engine will be in the same ballpark. I'd say either DBMS will do in that regard.
Yeah, maybe he should just strap three of these together and post-process in Photoshop.
Well, post-processing actually only works on the image you have in front of you. Given that the scanner exposes individual lines in the image over time (e.g. it - "scans") to generate the end image, you would actually need a movie to be able to generate the same effect with post-processing. A movie with very high-quality frames, and an unbelievably high frame rate (effectively you would want a frame for each line, so depending on the scan speed up to perhaps a few thousand frames a second - and then you would throw out the entire frame except the single line you wanted.) The scanner idea is starting to sound better to me.
On a more general note, this whole attitude is endemic now. Sure you can correct stuff later, but it is generally better in photography to try to get the best image you can at the moment you are taking it; you've then have got a lot more to work with! The phrase "polishing a turd" comes to mind...
...or more specifically the comments below:
Out of interest, how did you implement the 'informed user' requirement? ("When the ping attribute is present, user agents should clearly indicate to the user that following the hyperlink will also cause secondary requests to be sent in the background, possibly including listing the actual target URIs.")
Posted by: Malcolm at January 17, 2006 12:14 PM
The UI component of this feature is currently unimplemented. We did not see that as a blocker to enabling this on the trunk (development) builds of Firefox. I hope to test out Ian's suggestion of adding the pings to the status bar shortly.
The feature is currently enabled by default in Firefox, but disabled for Thunderbird.
Posted by: Darin at January 17, 2006 12:33 PM
...about the 4000 port issue; your application should be keeping the database connections open rather than closing and reopening constantly anyway. So you should only be using a handful, for whatever number of concurrent connections there are to the DB.
Note: I don't use ASP myself and I don't actually know how ASP handles this. I _presume_ it doesn't only have an open and close repeatedly option, because that would be braindead.
...number one probably being what is your code division between SQL and ASP, e.g. how much of your code is SQL and how much is ASP? Number two would then be whether you use any SQL-Server specific features or other SQL that isn't supported (or doesn't work the same) on MySQL. So the first thing for you to do is to test your application on MySQL and see if it works, (highly unlikely off the bat) or if it doesn't, work out how much fixing is required, and how much will this cost (time/money). This is not specific to a move to MySQL, it would be the same going between any two DBMSes.
If you are moving from a shared environment, I presume you aren't massively high volume but you should bear in mind that using ASP with MySQL you will have to go through ODBC which will have a performance penalty. With SQL Server you can use a native driver as I believe you can if you use MySQL with certain application servers other than ASP.
Also remember you can move entirely to Linux while still using ASP if you want.
You should also look at what you are storing in your database - is it highly transactional, updated continually with absolutely essential information (I am thinking orders/financial transactions) or is it mainly SELECTs on data that is updated infrequently. With the former, data integrity should be top of your shopping list while with the latter you just need to make sure that you back up regularly and you shouldn't lose anything important even in case of a disaster. MySQL 5 is meant to be much better on this matter and many other issues that were problematic for MySQL in the past but bear in mind that v5 is only out a few months.
Bottom line is - if you have a relatively low-traffic website with relatively simple code, moving shouldn't be too much of a problem. If you have a high-traffic website with complex SQL, moving will likely cost more than a SQL Server license. BTW, SQL Server is a decent database, I wouldn't move off it just for the heck of it.
...if you clicked 'Don't Agree' to it and the rootkit installs itself anyway.
...the whole REALITY TV-SHOW thing! It's a sitcom.
...all of which are out on DVD. (You may know this an mean that it never got past season 1 on TV in America, it wasn't clear.)
that's a very interesting link - nice that he makes a suggestion of what to do about it.
Interesting link here:
;-)
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brakturn.html
In fairness, the one time I went over the handlebars involved a collision with a fixed object, although I did on a seperate occasion have a nasty sideways skid from a sudden stop necessitated by a car door opening.
I have a faint memory of going over from my childhood but of course can't remember the full details
Of course on most bicycles the brakes are in such bad condition that the question is somewhat academic.
The only thing that really bothers me about digital is the way that it blows out highlights (pixels go to #ffffff abruptly).
I would have thought you can do this just as easily with film, in fact arguably more so (just from the point of view that you don't know for sure until you get it developed.)
If not, please explain, I'm nowhere near a photography expert.
...of the computer by providing a safer "Recycle Bin" to protect their files better (e.g. more difficult to accidentally delete, or indeed for other software to delete). The Norton Recycle Bin also protects for example files deleted from a network share, which the standard Windows one doesn't (although this is a seperate issue.)
Sony's rootkit offered no benefit to the user, only to Sony.
Disclaimer: I don't and wouldn't run Norton, it's a massive hog and really gets into the depths of your system, the point is just that their intention is not so bad here.
Very sudden front braking can send you over the handlebars, which won't happen with rear braking.
HORRIBLE. They were also very big and clunky devices. You might also note that modern Creatives ape the iPod UI about as far as they can while staying the right side of a lawsuit. They would take the scroll wheel if they could, but instead have to make do with a strip which means you have to constantly take your finger up when you run out of room. UI is quite important when you are trying to navigate through thousands of songs.
The iPod was successful because it was small, easy to use, and actually competitively priced (e.g. I didn't see any similarly priced 4gb flash players in the market when the Nano came out.)
...this SD card player at £8.99 seems a good deal. Alternatively this (cheap-end electronics) is exactly the sort of thing to buy direct from Hong Kong/China on eBay for peanuts (just remember to factor in the shipping!)
Grokster.com are filling in the IP address server-side and serving it out as plain HTML (check the source.)
The 1% in the USA, strangely, could care less.
...and the web browsing experience is very good indeed. I wouldn't call it slow by any means, slightly slower than a desktop perhaps but much much faster than any other pocket/PDA browser I have ever tried.
I'd heartily recommend it.
...you turn your computer _off_!?
Now I think the MPAA system is technically voluntary, but it would seem to have pretty much the same effect as European rating systems which are mostly enshrined in the law.
If this was a general ban or censorship, I would completely agree. However I really don't get the problem with restricting the 'rights' of minors, this coming from a country where most states don't let you purchase alcohol until the very late age of 21 (which to a European seems _far_ more bizarre.)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/01/06/victory_fo r_cprm_sd_cards/