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Kingsley Uyi Idehen
Lexington, United States

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Interesting Database History: INFORMIX
Interesting Database History: INFORMIX

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Informix is a relational database and for almost 20 years was also the name of the company who developed it. Informix DBMS was a development of the pioneering Ingres system that also led to Sybase and SQL Server, and was the #2 database system behind Oracle for some time in the 1990s. Their brush with success was surprisingly short-lived however, and by 2000 a series of management blunders had all but destroyed the company. In 2001 they were purchased by IBM in order to gain access to Informix's existing market share and customer base. Long term plans to merge Informix technology with DB2 are in place, since the Informix Arrowhead project is now called DB2 Arrowhead. IBM is also commited in supporting older versions.

Read on.

# PermaLink Comments [0]
06/26/2003 19:45 GMT-0500 Modified: 06/22/2006 08:56 GMT-0500
EXCEL spreadsheet to INFORMIX via ODBC

Since the inception of ODBC (circa. late 1992) there have been two prime barriers to its total comprehension:

  • Misconception that it's inherently slow (a message originating from it's creator's, not Microsoft, but rather, the collection of DBMS vendor companies that actually created the SAG CLI from which ODBC was derived)
  • ODBC Drivers are valueless (or at best a check in the box item) so bottom line they cost nothing and we (the DBMS vendors) shall offer them to you free of charge.

The performance issues arenbspnow long forgotten (at least as far as OpenLink Software's contribution to ODBC goes). But the ODBC Drivers must be FREE as they offer little or no value problem rages on.

The Usenet posting below pretty much sums up why I decided that OpenLink needednbspto get into the ODBC Driver business in the first place. We anticipated significant problems in the area of usability, configurability and security if all a driver had to offer was query fulfillment in the form of a result set.

The excerpt below shows an all too common dilemma with ODBC (should you reach rollout and put ODBC in the hands of information and knowledge workers):

nbspHi all,

I set up an Excel spreadsheet to our production database through ODBC driver to get a report. Everything was working fine, and life was good until I found a little problem with the SQL tool in Excel.

Normally, to get a report Excel will write a select statement according to criterias that the users input/ choose. It also allows anyone to Edit the select statement it writes in a little box. What I did was changing that select statement to delete/update statement. And it ran.

What surprised me was that it actually ran the statement against the database and delete/update tables accordingly. This is not what we want. I have not been able to find any options to turn this thing off so that the user cannot edit the generated select SQL.

I know all the permissions the user has are defined through the username that is defined in ODBC. We don't want to change all the user permissions on the database side. Is there any other way ? MS Excel 2000 Informix IDS 9.30 UC1 Dynix/ptx V4.5.3 Thanks N.

The user's ODBC usage requirements are unconventional to a database engine. What do I mean? Well relational databases fundamentally handle security on a user or role basis, and this security schemes can be applied to tables and rows, but it does nothing for this scenario.

The ODBC Drivers from OpenLink Software were built (in 1993 I might add)nbspwith thisnbspmiddleware predicamentnbspand more in mind. As you might imagine, most ODBC vendors will tell you to sort out the security either at thenbspdatabase end or the client application end.nbsp

OurnbspDrivers (the Multi-Tier variant) on the other hand enable you to configure a set of rules that will enforce read-only access on an application basis such that in this particular case when Excel is used the session is read-only irrespective of what exits MS Query. The rules can even enable read-write or read-only access to Excel (or other ODBC compliant application) and the basis of any combination of the following: username, client ip, machine alias, application, lan subnet, and any user definable profile (we call these domains).

Additional reading as this is only the tip of the iceberg.

# PermaLink Comments [0]
06/26/2003 19:33 GMT-0500 Modified: 06/22/2006 08:56 GMT-0500
Doc Searls is covering the Corporate Weblogging thing.

Corporate blogging is about data transformation from raw form to contextual form (knowledge aka competitive advantage). The ability to consume, distill, synthesize, and disseminate, is how corporations ultimately attain success or failure. Corporate blogging done the right way is just one of many IT based initiatives at the disposal of those corporations that comprehend the potential impact on their bottom and top lines.

Ahh, Doc Searls is covering the Corporate Weblogging thing.

Personally, I think corporate weblogging is a non-event. For instance? Am I a corporate weblogger? I don't think so. I don't have Microsoft's executive blessing for this.

The blessing isn't the point. Corporations have always blogged (or attempted to, they just never called it blogging, or simply lacked cohesive technology to make the concept gel). Every second of the day in any corporation data come in, and goes out (after numerous transformations across a plethora of contexts).

Every corporation knows that it has to create, persist, and disseminate knowledge, and like the Internet, Web, XML, Web Services, and now Blogging, technology is simply catching up in a somewhat standardized form.

Funny, I was talking with my boss's boss today. Vic Gundotra (General Manager of Platform Evangelism). I asked him "so, from a Microsoft's exec point of view, what would you like me to do on my weblog?"

He answered: "I don't want to tell you what to do, because anything I tell you will only screw it up and make it boring."

Oh, you mean like Eric Rudder's weblog? Now I'm in trouble... ;-)

[via The Scobleizer Weblog]

Your boss was right on every count :-)

# PermaLink Comments [0]
06/26/2003 17:45 GMT-0500 Modified: 06/22/2006 08:56 GMT-0500
[Gripe|Rant] Google Just Shipped a Toolbar

As I performed my ritualistic scan of happenings in the blogospshere (which is far more cost-effective than conventional browsing by the way), I encountered the piece below [via The Scobleizer Weblog]:

I was over at Chris Pirillo's blog, and see that Google just shipped a beta of a Toolbar. Oh, this is awesome. The toolbar is one of my favorite things.

There was a second of excitement, and then reality struck, one second I wanted to download in anticipation of being blown away, but in reality I knew I was on a quest to encounter an all too familiar problem (I've done many iterations of this loop since the late 80's across many initially exciting offerings):

Why to do great companies shoot themselves in the foot, time and time again? I ask.

What do I mean by this statement? Well Google has just produced a toolbar that only works with IE (applause), andnbspdelivered this at a time when Microsoft has made it pretty clear that they have Google in their sights as depicted in the blogosphere commentary below:

Just about a month ago, Tim Oren commented on some postings by Doc Searls and Dave Winer about Microsoft plans to take on Google. At the time, Tim questioned whether search could actually get enough Microsoft energy -- given all of the other issues at hand.

Earlier today, Dave updated the story, spiced up by some comments from a recent interviewee sharing what he learned in his interview with the GM of MSN Search. Fascinating stuff. Google in Microsoft's gun sights. With a small (50 people -- small for Microsoft?) team driving search at Microsoft -- they might actually be able to innovate quickly.

[Courtesy of: Scott Loftesnessnbsp]

This is also at a time when the "Macduff" in Mozilla is pretty much on it's way (moving bushes and all)nbspto decapitate IE's head (not a damned minute too soon in my opinion, Macbeth's time is up on the browser front!).

Bottom line,nbspcan't Google produce a browser indpendent toolbar? Or one for all the main browsers (there aren't that many) Why bolsternbspit's largest threat? Beta or not, the futility paradox remains.

And one final frustration, what on earth is a "BlogThis" feature that sends everyone to Blogger? Yes, I know Google owns Pyra, but so what?nbspWe have a number of Blog Servers and Clients in the blogoshpere, why pursue such a deliberately closed strategy in an inherently open realm? Having Microsoft as a competitive threat is one thing, but being your own worst enemy is simply scarey!

What'snbspwrong with us having a browser independent tool bar equipped with a "BlogThis" plug-in that could post to any Blog Host/Server using any one of the following; Blogger (1.0 or 2.0), Meta-Weblog, or MoveableType? This is standard functionality in most Blog Clients today.

Two Thumbs Down in my book.

nbsp

# PermaLink Comments [0]
06/26/2003 17:34 GMT-0500 Modified: 06/22/2006 08:56 GMT-0500
         
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