Kingsley Idehen's Blog Data Space

The next release of Microsoft SQL Server, code-named "Yukon," will reshape the Windows relational database management system (RDBMS) landscape. Yukon promises to incorporate the benefits of native XML and object-oriented databases within a fully programmable relational database framework. A new Reporting Service, support for InfoPath (formerly XDocs) data-entry forms, and Transact-SQL (T-SQL) enhancements round out Yukon's new feature set. David Campbell, Microsoft's product unit manager for the SQL Server engine, gave .NET developers a Yukon preview at VSLive! San Francisco this past February. In this article, I'll analyze Campbell's "Database of the Future: A Preview of Yukon and Other Technical Advancements" keynote address from an IT management and SQL Server DBA perspective.

For more see full article

What's the best way to move Radio UserLand over to a new computer? Without breaking anything. Yeah, I've read the "backup Radio" site, but that's not what I want to do. I want to move my entire Radio license, copy, and all the data contained therein, to a newly-setup computer. I can't get it to work. Any tips?[via The Scobleizer Weblog]

1. Migrate my Radio Blog Web to a Virtuoso Blog Server (it is a  Web Log server that supports; Blogger API 1.0/2.0, Meta-Weblog API, Moveable Type, and xmlStorageSystem)
2. Continue to use Radio as my desktop blogging tool, but also as the local blog server gateway for other tools that I use such as w.bloggar, FM Radio and Newzcrawler

How was this acheived?

1. I had to reconfigure the Radio #upstream.xml file so that it points to my Virtuoso Server for xmlStorageSystem Web Publishing

• This is my modified version of #upstream.xml
  <!-- edited with XMLSPY v5 rel. 3 U (http://www.xmlspy.com) by Kingsley Idehen (OpenLink Software) -->
  <upstream type="xmlStorageSystem" version="1.0">
    <!--This is my Virtuoso WebDAV account-->
    <usernum>kingsley</usernum>
    <name>Kingsley Idehen</name>
    <!--This is my Radio Password Name Reference-->
    <passwordName>default</passwordName>
    <!--This is the Virtuoso instance reference-->
    <server>demo2.usnet.private</server>
    <!--Virtuoso HTTP Server Instance Port Number-->
    <port>8890</port>
    <protocol>soap</protocol>
    <!--Virtuoso XML-RPC or SOAP Endpoint-->
    <rpcPath>/xmlStorageSystem</rpcPath>
    <soapAction>/xmlStorageSystem</soapAction>
  </upstream>

• You also have to make the following change via the following Userland Radio menu path "Radio"->Window->Radio.root->user->radio->prefs->upstream->servers:
  'serverCapabilities'->flError = true;

2. Publish my local Radio site, this time to Virtuoso rather than the Userland Community Server destination

New Architecture

----------------------
| Blogging Clients
---------------------
      |
------------
| Local Radio Userland Web Server
--------------------------------
      |
-----------
| Virtuoso Server (RSS, RDF, XML, SQL etc.. in one place for further use)
----------------------

End result is productive blogging, and reusable content storage in my Virtuoso knowledgebase.

Forbes Magazine Article

Net margins and return on equity are popular metrics that investors turn to in an effort to identify the most profitable companies. One less-used measure is return on invested capital, or ROIC.

Definitions of return on capital vary, but they all try to capture the same thing: how much a company has earned on all the capital it has invested, which includes both equity and debt. By including both, return on capital shows how a company uses all of its financial resources.

For our purposes, we define ROIC as earnings before interest, depreciation and amortization divided by invested capital. Invested capital encompasses shareholders' equity, plus all long-term liabilities and short-term debt.

WOW! We now use this metric to assess companies? Times have really changed!

This could be the basis of an XBRL project, the goal being to produce an XQuery to filter for all companies with a positive ROIC. Watch this space, it would be a great Virtuoso demo!

Amazon Takes Pikachu To The Patent Office

from the it's-not-"would-be-nice-to-catch-them-all" dept.
theodp writes "On Tuesday, Amazon was awarded a patent for Search Query Autocompletion. From the Summary of the Invention--'For example, if Pokemon toys are currently the best selling or most-frequently-searched-for items within the database, the term POKEMON may be suggested whenever a user enters the letters "PO," even though many hundreds of other items in the database may start with "PO.'" See, Amazon practices the mantra "Gotta catch 'em all" with patents.

Is this real! How can every fundamental database programming technique that has been in existence for years be co-opted by Amazon simply becuase they have realized that the Web is actually a Database (albeit distributed and free form in nature today, and obvioulsy semnatic in the future).

Enjoy the Video .

Virtuoso 64-Bit is becoming a priority, larger addressable memory space (we are talking about 512GB memory re. 64-Bit systems).

You can now do on Windows what you could have done many years ago on IRIX and Digital UNIX :-)

It will come as a surprise to many that, with little fanfare, Microsoft officially entered the blogging-tool space. At the recent VSLive! developer conference, Microsoft unveiled five new sample applications built on top of its ASP.Net scripting environment. One of these five ? the ASP.Net Community Starter Kit ? is a blog builder.

The Community Starter Kit consists of application code, templates, documentation and forum-based help. According to Microsoft's own definition of the kit: "The Community Starter Kit enables you to quickly create a community Web site such as a user group site, a developer resource site, or a news site."

Some additonal commentary from Drupal:
Food for thought and discussion. What would happen when every MSN/Hotmail user was automatically given the option to opt in for a free weblog (a la LiveJournal)?

Here is an extreme scenario. Having single sign-on in place (.NET Passport), every MSN user could comment on anyone else's blog and have his personal preferences follow him or her as he/she travels from weblog to weblog; a problem the rest of the weblog world has yet to solve.

Well! I think we have one Virtuoso Blogging Subsystem evangelist in the making here :-)

Naturally, their weblogs would seemingly integrate with their IM service/client, and both Internet Explorer and Outlook would get a handy "blog this" feature. Moreover, having billions of MSN users, they could establish de facto technology standards and render existing technologies such as the Blogger API, MetaWeblog API and Trackback almost useless. At every aspect, they would have an immediate technical advantage over established weblog software.

Like you know what .. they would! These APIs simply need a product that demonstrates:
What they are, Why they are useful, and more importantly how they preserve freedom of choice re. IT infrastructure Lampooning -- (L)inux, (A)pache, (M)ySQL, (P)HP|ERL|YTHON|)-ONING -- isn't the solution but potentially the problem.

I think we see why OPS needs blogging, ditto Virtuoso !