Posts Tagged ‘Java’

MySQL-Definition

Thursday, July 24th, 2008

MySQL is a relational database management system (RDBMS) based on SQL (Structured Query Language). First released in January, 1998, MySQL is now one component of parent company MySQL AB’s product line of database servers and development tools.

Many Internet startups became interested in the original open source version of MySQL as an alternative to the proprietary database systems from Oracle, IBM, and Informix. MySQL is currently available under two different licensing agreements: free of charge, under the GNU General Public License (GPL) open source system or through subscription to MySQL Network for business applications.

MySQL runs on virtually all platforms, including Linux, Unix, and Windows. It is fully multi-threaded using kernel threads, and provides application program interfaces (APIs) for many programming languages, including C, C++, Eiffel, Java, Perl, PHP, Python, and Tcl.

MySQL is used in a wide range of applications, including data warehousing, e-commerce, Web databases, logging applications and distributed applications. It is also increasingly embedded in third-party software and other technologies. According to MySQL AB, their flagship product has over six million active MySQL installations worldwide. Customers include Cisco, Dun & Bradstreet, Google, NASA, Lufthansa, Hyperion, and Suzuki.

JavaScript vs Java

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

Although the names are much alike, JavaScript is primarily a scripting language for use within HTML pages, while Java is a real programming language that does quite different things from JavaScript. In addition Java is much harder to learn. It was developed by Sun for use in pretty much anything that needs some computing power.

JavaScript was developed by Brendan Eich, then working at Netscape, as a client side scripting language (even though there’s no fundamental reason why it can’t be used in a server side environment).

Originally the language was called Live Script, but when it was about to be released Java had become immensely popular (and slightly hypey). At the last possible moment Netscape changed the name of its scripting language to “JavaScript”. This was done purely for marketing reasons. Worse, Eich was ordered to “make it look like Java”. This has given rise to the idea that JavaScript is a “dumbed-down” version of Java. Unfortunately there’s not the slightest shred of truth in this story.

Java and JavaScript both descend from C and C++, but the languages (or rather, their ancestors) have gone in quite different directions. You can see them as distantly related cousins. Both are object oriented (though this is less important in JavaScript than in many other languages) and they share some syntax, but the differences are more important than the similarities.

If you are a C++ or Java programmer you will be surprised by some of JavaScript’s features. Since I don’t have any previous programming experience, the differences are not described on this site. The best you can do is buy David Flanagan, “JavaScript, the Definitive Guide”, 5th edition, O’Reilly, 2006. In this book the differences between C++/Java and JavaScript are clearly explained. I co–edited a few chapters of this book.

Search enging optimization: Search Engine Tips

Monday, June 30th, 2008

For the purpose of these tips a search engine is something like google. It scans the web for sites to include in its index. It will follow links and find new sites all on its own. A directory (such as Yahoo or DMOZ) includes sites one at a time, with a human being looking at each site.

You can learn a lot about different types of search engines at Search Engine Watch.

# Put your keyword/key phrase in the title tag of your page. It can be the only thing there, or you can make a complete sentence out of it. The title is also what appears in your bookmarks list. So a good title will help people remember you when they bookmark your site.

# Google doesn’t care what you put in the description tag, but other engines do. Put in a sentence which tells the viewer why the heck they should visit your site. What’s in it for them?

# Google doesn’t care about what’s in your keywords tag, but the other engines might. Put in a few words and phrases appropriate to your page. Include common mis-spellings.

# Your primary keyword/phrase should appear in the headline at the top of your page.

# Skip the graphics and banners. Write a page that’s cool and interesting and is appropriate to your keywords. So if your keyword is cell phones write a cool, informative page about cell phones.

# Skip the java, javascript, heavy graphics, etc.

# Links to your page, either from your other pages or from other sites, should contain your keyword.

# Any graphics should have keywords in the alt tag. This will help describe the image.

# Links from your page should also contain your keywords.

# Don’t use your keywords too many times on a page. How do you tell? If your page starts to read badly, then you’ve used your keyword too many times. Links to your page count for far more than how many times your keywords appear.

Protecting your computer from browser security holes

Saturday, June 28th, 2008

Occasionally, someone finds a flaw in Firefox (or a plugin) that allows any malicious web site you visit to take over your computer. This is less of a problem in Firefox than in some other browsers: according to research by Brian Krebs, Internet Explorer users were vulnerable to at least one known critical vulnerability for 70% of the days in 2005, while Firefox users were vulnerable for 5% of 2005.

Following these measures will keep Firefox from being vulnerable to these severe security holes most of the time:

* Let Firefox keep itself up-to-date. It usually does this automatically.
* Make sure your plugins, such as Flash and Java, are up-to-date. If you’re using Windows, see this page for instructions. (Hopefully, future versions of Firefox will warn when you have outdated plugins; see bug 271559.)

These optional measures that make your computer less likely to be infected with malware, even if your software is vulnerable:

* Restrict which browser features untrusted web sites can use. For example, many security holes in web browsers involve JavaScript or are difficult to exploit without JavaScript. An extension called NoScript allows you to restrict which sites are allowed to use JavaScript and plugins. Of course, this requires you to make decisions such as “should I trust this site to run JavaScript?” frequently when you visit new sites, and if your answer is always “yes”, it doesn’t protect you much. (Bug 38966, Bug 339056 and bug 94035 propose adding similar features to Firefox itself.)
* Avoid visiting malicious web sites. In particular, avoid visiting untrusted sites that feature:
o Song lyrics. Instead of searching for song lyrics using Google, search SongMeanings.net or try the band’s web site.
o Porn. If you look at porn, start somewhere safe, such as Tiava or MyFreePaySite.
o Pirated software. Instead of pirating software, consider looking for an open-source alternative.
* Consider using anti-virus software software, so that if a security hole is exploited in order to install a piece of common malicious software, the malicious software might not be allowed to run. You can’t rely on this kind of software to keep you safe because new viruses and spyware appear all the time, but it can be useful as a last line of defense.
* Consider using an operating system that usually isn’t targeted by authors of malicious software. For example, Mac OS X users are attacked much less often than Windows users (as of December 2006). Because of this, a Mac user without anti-virus software is quite a bit safer than a Windows user with anti-virus software.

Ubuntu Mobile

Monday, June 16th, 2008

Ubuntu Mobile, a fully open source project, gives full Internet, with no compromise. Custom options may include licensed codecs and popular third-party applications. Full Web 2.0/AJAX fidelity, with custom options of Adobe Flash®, Java, and more, Outstanding media playback so you can enjoy videos, music and photos with superior quality and easy navigation and other neat stuff.

Sun: We’ll put Java on the iPhone

Monday, June 16th, 2008

Sun Microsystems is developing a Java Virtual Machine for Apple’s iPhone and plans to release the JVM some time after June, enabling Java applications to run on the popular mobile device.

The JVM is to be based on the Java Micro Edition (ME) version of Java, said Eric Klein, vice president of Java marketing at Sun, on Friday afternoon. Apple had not shown interest in enabling Java to run on the iPhone, but Sun plans to step in and do the job itself after having pondered Thursday’s release of an SDK for the iPhone by Apple.