Shantanu's Blog

Database Consultant

April 27, 2006

 

Power Point

Desktop Computer & 17" monitor use anything between 140-330 watts. Thus the power saved by switching computers off can keep only 2 light bulbs on!

Microwave uses 10 to 50 times more power than a computer where as AC uses 4 to 10 times more power. So if you are keen on saving power, avoid using Microwave, AC and washing machine. See the chart here...
http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/howmuch.html

1) Switch off the monitor (NOT the computer) when the computer is not in use.

2) Set the Power settings on your computer to automatically go into Sleep/Standby mode after 15 minutes or so of inactivity. * Screen saver doesn’t save power *

a) Right click anywhere on the desktop, choose properties
b) Choose Screen Saver Tab and click on settings
c) Choose the appropriate power scheme.
d) Change the "power button" setting on "advanced" tab to standby if you think that you might inadvertently press the power button instead of Sleep button on the keyboard.

3) Use laptop computers. They use a lot less energy than desktops. (just 45 watts! less power than a ceiling fan!)

4) If you use a desktop, use a trendy, space saver, flat screen and sleek "LCD monitor". It uses 50% less energy than traditional, old CRT's.
_____

The first rule is VERY important. Don't switch off the computer when you can just switch off the monitor. The CPU will keep using power, but not more than the power consumed by a light bulb!

i) This trick will save you a lot of time that the computer takes to start and shut down.
ii) You will also save your time (and dialing configuration) to get connected to the net.
iii) You can keep the frequently used applications like IE and word open. (You can even keep the frequently used sites in IE and files in word open!)

iv) Last but not the least (and the most important reason) the temporary memory will not be reset if you don't switch off the computer. It means the ignored words in spell check, recently used websites and cookies passed on to your computer are preserved. It saves a lot of time and hassle.

Inputs from Yahoo Answers

April 26, 2006

 

Online spreadsheets reviewed

I had written about zoho.com website that allows us to host csv and excel files online.

http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3043709&postID=114113926114637867

Thinkfree's online service was reviewed as well, but I do not recommend it anymore since it takes a lot of time to load the Java Runtime.

Free services:

http://zoho.com
1) Cost: free
2) Advantage: Excellent charts,
3) Sharing: One click sharing with public
4) Remark: Good for personal use and web designers


http://editgrid.com
1) Cost: free
2) Advantage: autosave, old versions,
3) Sharing: public sharing with or without password
4) Remark: Good for office use

http://irows.com
1) Cost: free
2) Advantage: Easy copy paste from excel, create charts
3) Sharing: Allow public sharing
4) Remark: Good for non-critical data

Paid services:

http://tracker.jot.com
1) Cost: 1 sheet free, $10 per month for 10 sheets.
2) Advantage: Excellent Sort and import options. Create calendar or Map.
3) Sharing: Useful for a group upto 5. No Public sharing.
4) Remark: Good for limited number of sheets / users

http://oksoft.dabbledb.com
1) Cost: 30 days free trial, $10 per month for 3 sheets.
2) Advantage: It supports excellent group by, sort and import functions just like excel.
3) Sharing: Useful for a group upto 5. No Public sharing.
4) Remark: It looks and feels like Database management software rather than online spreadsheet.

April 09, 2006

 

MySQL Case Study - 119

Pivot + CrossTab

I have a table in the form

year | season | hits

2004 | Summer | 42
2004 | Autumn | 43
2005 | Spring | 51
2005 | Summer | 52
2005 | Autumn | 53
2006 | Spring | 61

I want to generate a transform or pivot or crosstab - I'm not sure what the correct term is - to return the data in form

year | Spring | Summer | Autumn
2004 | ------ | ----42 | ----43
2005 | ----51 | ----52 | ----53
2006 | ----61 | ------ | ------

Could anyone suggest a mysql query to generate the required output?

Sorry about bad formatting of query but this board doesn't seem to accept bbcode.

http://forums.mysql.com/read.php?10,81701,81701#msg-81701

April 08, 2006

 

Kasparov No Longer Number One

Having ruled the chess world for over 20 years as the world's top player, and holding the record for being the world's number one ranked player 23 times, GM Garry Kasparov finally drops from the top spot due to inactivity in FIDE's April 2006 Rating List. Taking his place at the number one spot is the current FIDE Chess Champion GM Veselin Topalov with a rating of 2804.

At his peak, in July 1999, GM Kasparov reached and incredible rating of 2851 which has yet to be toppled by anyone else. However, Topalov and GM Viswanathan Anand are within possible reach of breaking this mark if they continue their amazing performances. Could Topalov and Anand become big rivals as we had with Karpov and Kasparov?

April 07, 2006

 

MySQL Case Study - 118

I'm having a hard time with a query and I thought someone might have a good time taking a crack at it.

I have a table that we'll call Options.

it looks like this.

style int
sequence int
optionCode varchar
optionDesc tinytext

There are no keys in this table. (i didn't make it and I can't augment the schema).

Here's a sample of what the table might look like

style......sequence......optioncode......optiondesc
-----......--------......----------......----------
276........15............AAA.............lah de dah
279........25............AAA.............do de do
333........08............BBB.............lah de dah
276........25............BBB.............do de do
277........15............BBB.............lah de dah
276........25............CCC.............do de do
250........15............CCC.............lah de dah
276........25............DDD.............do de do
280........15............DDD.............lah de dah
279........25............DDD.............do de do

What I want to do is ultimately choose the style ID that has all of it's option codes within this list ('AAA', 'BBB', 'CCC', 'DDD') Right now (since I made this fake table) I know that style I want is 276.

276 shows that it has all 4 of those option codes spread out on 4 different rows. Other styles have *SOME* of those option codes, but not all of them.

How would I select that single style that contains All the values in that list without selecting the styles that conatin SOME of those values.

http://forums.mysql.com/read.php?10,81353,81353#msg-81353

 

MySQL Case Study - 117

Calculate Percentage:

I'm very new to MySQL and have a query I'm trying to achieve, if anyone can point me in the right direction, I would greatly appreciate it. I have a table created to store print job logs from a print server:

Table = printLogs

logNum mediumint(8)
logDateTime datetime
docNum tinyint(3)
docName varchar(200)
owner varchar(25)
printerName varchar(25)
printerPort varchar(50)
sizeInBytes varchar(50)
pagesPrinted smallint(10)

What I'm trying to do is find a query that, based on a 'printerName', will display 'owner' and percentage derived from the total number of pages printed to that 'printerName' for a given date range.

Something like this:

+--------+--------------------------+
| owner | Percentage of total jobs |
+--------+--------------------------+
| Mary | 50% |
| John | 30% |
| Kim | 10% |
| Sue | 10% |
+--------+--------------------------+

Each row of the table is a different print job and can be one of about 20 different owners who have printed any number of pages to any of 10 printers. The main reason for the query is to be to determine which group/owner uses each printer the most.

Thanks for ANY suggestions,

http://forums.mysql.com/read.php?10,81298,81298#msg-81298

 

MySQL Case Study - 116

I'm a bit stomped with something I would like to do in mysql, but not sure how I should do it.
Perhaps it's not even possible, I'll try to explain.
I have two tables, Rents and Vechicules.
In the Rents table I have these fields, CustomerId, startdate, enddate, vechicleId as int, date, date, int resp.
The Vechicules table contains the fields VechiculeId and licenseplate.

So there's a link from the Rents to the vechicules table with vechiculeId.
With this i could see which customer has which car in a certain start to end date,
but also, because there's a carpooling scheme and insurances we can have 2 or more customers renting the same car.

And I want to be able to search in the Rents table with the Customer id, a start date and an endate and return all the rows where that certain customer is the sole renter.
No with the carpool we would have in the Rents table:
2 - 04/04/06 - 04/11/06 - 6
3 - 04/04/06 - 04/31/06 - 6


So customers 2 and 3 are carpooling from 04/04 to 04/11 and then after that customer 3 is the sole renter from 04/15 until 04/31.

Long dragged out question, can someone help out with this query? I really don't know whether it even possible with mysql.

http://forums.mysql.com/read.php?10,81050,81050#msg-81050

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