Categories
Technology

Yahoo Support is Improving

I have started to have lots of issues whith the Yahoo toolbar for Firefox.

As a travelling consultant who regularly flits between home, office and multiple client sites and multiple PC’s at each site it is a boon to be able to access my bookmarks especially at any PC I use. For YEARS I have been using the Yahoo Bookmarks service, and since it was launched I have been using the Yahoo Companion or Yahoo Toolbar.

Recently it has stopped showing me my buttons on the toolbar:

Yahoo Toolbar Broken

Categories
Boomerangs

New Toys

Took delivery of some new toys on Wednesday:

Davro Astro BoomerangDavro Traditional BoomerangDavro Outback BoomerangDavro Falcon Boomerang

Categories
Photography

Exposure

Exposure is the heart and the art and the act of taking a photograph.

In film cameras, the film must be exposed to light, the light causes a chemical reaction to occur which captures and records the picture.

In a digital camera, the action is the same except, instead of the light falling on a chemical soaked film, it lands on a sensor. Think of the sensor as the camera’s eye, it “sees” the light and records the picture.

I don’t really want to use an eye as an analogy as your eye has a very clever brain behind it helping out. To simplify things your eye needs just the right amount of light to see. Too much light and you are blinded, time to put on your polarised sunglasses (more of this in another article I think), not enough light and it is too dark to see.

The “right” amount of light, is what’s known as the correct exposure. You are letting in just enought light to record a good photo.

Categories
Photography

Photography Tips

Emma decided to to photography at school this year buit is not a formal course, just a teacher that is taking her through it.

She is enjoying it, but is not feeling that she is getting much from it.

Sarah has also expressed an interest in learning more.

I thought I would write a series of short articles just coving my understanding of the basics. This will help to consolidate my knowledge and act as a reference for the kids.

Categories
Dimensional Modelling Maxima Information Group Work

Dimensionally Modelling A Recursive Hierarchy


Creative Commons License photo credit: gadl

I was recently asked how to include a recursive hierarchy into a dimensional model.

What do I mean by a recursive hierarchy? This is when an entity (a table) relates to it’s self. Take the following example from an Oracle database:

EMPNO ENAME JOB MGR HIREDATE SAL COMM DEPTNO
7369 ‘SMITH’ ‘CLERK’ 7902 ’17-DEC-1980′ 800 NULL 20
7499 ‘ALLEN’ ‘SALESMAN’ 7698 ’20-FEB-1981′ 1600 300 30
7521 ‘WARD’ ‘SALESMAN’ 7698 ’22-FEB-1981′ 1250 500 30
7566 ‘JONES’ ‘MANAGER’ 7839 ‘2-APR-1981’ 2975 NULL 20
7654 ‘MARTIN’ ‘SALESMAN’ 7698 ’28-SEP-1981′ 1250 1400 30
7698 ‘BLAKE’ ‘MANAGER’ 7839 ‘1-MAY-1981’ 2850 NULL 30
7782 ‘CLARK’ ‘MANAGER’ 7839 ‘9-JUN-1981’ 2450 NULL 10
7788 ‘SCOTT’ ‘ANALYST’ 7566 ’09-DEC-1982′ 3000 NULL 20
7839 ‘KING’ ‘PRESIDENT’ NULL ’17-NOV-1981′ 5000 NULL 10
7844 ‘TURNER’ ‘SALESMAN’ 7698 ‘8-SEP-1981’ 1500 0 30
7876 ‘ADAMS’ ‘CLERK’ 7788 ’12-JAN-1983′ 1100 NULL 20
7900 ‘JAMES’ ‘CLERK’ 7698 ‘3-DEC-1981’ 950 NULL 30
7902 ‘FORD’ ‘ANALYST’ 7566 ‘3-DEC-1981’ 3000 NULL 20
7934 ‘MILLER’ ‘CLERK’ 7782 ’23-JAN-1982′ 1300 NULL 10

From this we can see that there is a recursive hierarchy within this table between the empno column and the mgr column, the mgr column shows the employee that is the manager for each row.