News (21)

UK govt to monitor all telecoms

UK internet service providers will be invited to tender for a British government scheme to monitor all internet communications and telecommunications in the country. Read more »

SaaS unsuitable as core platform for businesses

Despite the cost savings software-as-a-service (SaaS) promises to provide, some businesses believe the on-demand delivery model is not suitable as a platform for core enterprise-class applications. Read more »

Bosses can snoop on staff e-mails 'to fight terror'

The Greens and privacy advocates have hit back against proposed laws to allow companies to snoop on their workers' e-mails, but Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard has said the laws are needed to protect vital electronic infrastructure from terrorist attacks. Read more »

Safari licence mistakes PC for an Apple

Apple today fixed a clause in its licence agreement for Windows users who download its Safari browser — the clause restricted the software to a "single Apple-labeled computer". Read more »

Google denies it owns your words

Google has denied claims that the terms and conditions for its Google Docs service means it owns any user's content published in the application. Read more »

Apple takes over CUPS, Unix printing software

Apple has acquired the source code for CUPS, an open-source project for managing printing on Unix and Linux systems. Read more »

GPL3 welcomed by IBM, Red Hat, Novell, MySQL

Sixteen years after releasing GPL2, Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation launched GPL3 over the weekend. Read more »

GPLv3 release set for Saturday morning

The Free Software Foundation is set to release the General Public License version 3 at noon on Friday (in the US). Read more »

Developer defies MS demands to kill .NET debug tool

UK developer Jamie Cansdale seems to have ignored calls from Microsoft that he remove a free tool called TestDriven.NET from his Web site, despite legal demands that the tool be removed by June 1 -- because it breaches licensing conditions. Read more »

Torvalds critical of new GPL draft

The second draft of a revised General Public License has been released, but Linus Torvalds--founder and leader of the best-known software project governed by the GPL--remains unconvinced of its merits. Read more »

Features (82)

Google: Open source lets us control our destiny

Chris DiBona, Google's open source program manager, gave the opening keynote at the Open Source Developer's Conference. Builder AU caught up with him to discuss why Google uses open source, how the company open sources its software and what it is like to be a comic book character. Read more »

Using Grouping Sets in SQL Server 2008

A neat new feature in SQL Server 2008 is the GROUPING SETS clause, which allows you to easily specify combinations of field groupings in your queries to see different levels of aggregated data. This article looks at how you can use the new SQL Server 2008 GROUPING SETS clause to aggregate your data. Read more »

Iterating through tables and databases in SQL Server

We look at two very useful stored procedures that live in the master database but are not mentioned in SQL Server Books Online. These system procedures come in very handy for jobs such as determining the space used, the number of rows, the indexes on the user tables, and so on. Read more »

Explore Oracle 10g's updated sample schemas

Each new release of Oracle database brings with it new features to explore. It can be a challenge to create adequate sample tables to play with a given feature. Read more »

Control null data in Oracle using the ORDER BY clause

NULL data, which is sometimes called "absent" data, can be difficult to work with in relational databases. Learn how to control null data in Oracle using the ORDER BY clause. Read more »

How do I ... reject alpha characters in a SQL Server character column?

Enforcing your data's integrity is probably the single most important issue you face when designing a database. Validating user input is one way of keeping bad data from making its way into your analyses and reports. Read more »

Executing queries with phpMyAdmin

This tutorial shows you how to construct and execute queries using phpMyAdmin. Read more »

Build directory structures using SQL Server 2005

If you store directory structures in the database, you are aware of what it takes to retrieve the data. Writing queries to pull this information is sometimes difficult to achieve and inefficient. You can use the recursion and XML features in SQL Server 2005 to build a file location on the fly. Read more »

Implement custom paging with SQL Server 2005

In previous columns, I covered the basics of using the .NET 3.5 ListView control and explained how to pair it with the DataPager control. Now I'll show you how to use these controls with a SQL Server 2005 backend to implement custom paging, in which only a subset of the data is retrieved for display. Read more »

Generate dynamic SQL statements in SQL Server

When you need to solve a tricky database problem, the ability to generate SQL statements is a powerful tool -- although you must be careful when using it. This article explores how you can use this functionality to generate SQL statements on the fly. Read more »

Blog (3)

Going the extra step but not the extra mile

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- I've always been a big fan of going the extra mile with error messages, it's a good way to show that you actually care about the product to take the time to customise it even when things are amiss -- and yes, things will go wrong, you will not create the perfect application. Read more »

GPLv3 would prevent MS/Novell

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- According to the Free Software Foundation's general counsel, Eben Moglen, GPL version 3 would prevent the type of deal made by Microsoft and Novell from happening. Read more »

The trouble with contracting

David McAmis [blogs:theneteffect] -- More and more companies are using IT recruiters and contracting agencies to fill developer positions, but the developer usually ends up paying the price. Read more »

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