Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude. (c) Ruffin Bailey 2001-2021

I'm working on a project that uses MySQL as the RDBMS and though MySQL has grown quite a bit more mature than when I first experimented with it back around version 3 when it was the pseudo-rdbms to pair with php for your wack web site, I still have an enjoyable learning curve replacing all the tools I know how to use with Sybase or SQL Server. Actually, a large part of the/my problem is that I'm not using Windows, which means I can't fall back on the SQL Server tools that work with any ODBC-compliant database systems. MySQL on the command-line is much different than even Oracle with SQuirreL SQL.

Anyhow, here's today's lesson. One way to get a table from MySQL into a text file for slapping into another datasource is the following:

1.) I decided to use XML for my output, so I needed to log into mysql using the -X option. This makes all output from SELECTs, etc, come in XML format.

mysql -u username -p -X

2.) To SELECT INTO a file, you use this format:

select * from TableName into OUTFILE '/path/to/file/out.txt';

Note that the file cannot already exist (so you can't use SQL to introduce a major security breech and overwrite files) and that, on *NIX, you'll need to have permissions to that path and to write in that path.

2a.) Finding a dir that I could write into was a pain in the system I'm using, so I had to make one. Apparently mysql was using a different user than the one I was logging in as (I'm not the admin on one box), so I went to an appropriate location and created a directory.

prompt>cd ~/Public prompt>mkdir smack prompt>chmod 777 smack prompt>cd smack prompt>pwd /Users/currentUser/Public/smack

This makes me a directory in /Users/currentUser/Public/smack that anyone can write into. In general, that's a bad idea. I really need to limit to the mysql user. Wish I knew who that was, and how I'd change things appropriately even if I did. The "777" bit is a grenade to allow most anyone in smack to do most anything they want, and makes administrators squirrelly. Rightfully, afaik.

In any event, here's the SQL to use now to write out that file with XML in it. Note that I'm using OS X here, so the Public dir in my user's home dir was already there.

select * from TableName into OUTFILE '/Users/currentUser/Public/smack/Out.txt';

3.) That's essentially it/There is no step 3. But now you do need to get that file from the new dir to somewhere you can hack on it. I'm using OS X at home for this as well, in spite of it not being my typical rdbms dev environment, and Fugu somehow knows how to use SFTP or the like to browse my dirs and grab the file with my standard ssh login info for the MySQL server. Putty or something similar would probably be your choice on Windows.

What a pain. I miss my bcp and DTS.

[Update: Of course the file is not longer in XML, though the screen output is. Go figure. No idea how to fix that yet.]

This is precisely the kind of tripe that gives Mac users the "irrational fankid" label:

What about the Dell Coupon Argument? For bargain-searching geeks, Dell's random coupons do indeed offer significant discounts. But even if you're lucky enough to take advantage of Mr. Ou's $650 markdown, once you equip your Dell with all the software and anti-virus protection necessary to actually use it, the big price differential shrinks significantly.

This fellow at MacWorld is trying to say that if you remove the coupons you can find for Dell laptops that comparable Intel-powered laptops (Dell vs. Apple) cost similar amounts.

Big problem: Coupons create different marketing niches. Most people savvy enough to read MacWorld are also savvy enough to find a coupon online. I believe Dell also runs a number of deals in the catalogs they mail out as well as their on their online store. It's difficult not to accidently fall into one of the target niches if you know how to spell "computer". To ignore precisely the market that would be worried about whether the two have similar hardware -- that is, ones that could find coupons -- is to miss the conversation entirely.

I believe he's also missing another market -- the iBook user. I imagine iBooks will remain at an M-note for a while longer, and they really aren't bad deals. He might want to wait until they go Intel before responding to price critiques. Still, I hope the iBook has a duo chip as well, or they're going to have a hard time competing with other entry-level computers, whose prices have plummeted recently.

(He also, for some reason, ignores the screen discrepancy between Dell and MacBook, but I'll only mention that in passing for now.)

If I can save $650 on one computer and my cost is "anti-virus protection" which, as it turns out, appears to come to $39.99 sans coupons, I think I can handle it. The antivirus slap is more irrational outburst than even & fair comparision. I take $620 over $0 every time, with perhaps one exception.

I am somewhat surprised Dell doesn't offer OpenOffice on its bottom-end models that don't come with MS Office, however. WordPerfect and that's it? Interesting. Still, Macs don't come with any office software worth mentioning other than trials for MS Office and iWork '06. I suppose the "actually use it" comment dealt solely with iLife. I'll counter that Half-Life 2 and Photoshop running natively are both a bit cheaper on the Dell right now.

In any event, it is good to finally be past the "megahertz myth" 'UD.

[It occurs to me now, a bit later, than the MacWorld guy didn't even mention iSight in the text of his article. Do people really not use the camera? I finally hooked up a DVcorder to my Mac, and it's pretty cool. An integrated camera's gotta be worth a little dough, and is one of those things I think many who wouldn't think it too useful would find is central to their computer use soon afterwards.]

title: Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude.	descrip: One feller's views on the state of everyday computer science & its application (and now, OTHER STUFF) who isn't rich enough to shell out for www.myfreakinfirst-andlast-name.com Using 89% of the same design the blog had in 2001.
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Monday, February 27, 2006
bit-tech.net \| Backing up your CDs is now illegal Comments like this one apparently from a brief filed on behalf of the RIAA drive me mad: ...the philosophy behind the Linux platform is inconsistent with protecting copyrighted works, this is no way the fault of the copyright owners. The whole point of Linux is that it does inhabit the copyright system and uses it to its fullest advantage! Some people might consider this pranking capitalism. Good for them. The idea is that the copyright system exists. If you'd like to provide an alternative to corporate bodies -- which I usually envision through the context of the legal term "fictious entities"; each corporation is a body, a person, if you will -- who desire to tie rights to property very specifically to one individual, what do you do? You write a license that says the opposite, that you use copyright to prohibit any one person from having sole control of your property. Now it's community property, thanks to its license's use of copyright. Linux, moreso the GPL, is very much is consistent with protecting copyrighted works. Without copyright, the GPL can't exist! Copyright is the very foundation of the GPL! To claim that copyright, that capitalism must in some a priori fashion tie a work to a single individual, is a very shortsighted position. The GPL protects property so licensed from exclusive ownership. To me, that's a protection worth pursuing. And look, I'm not a GPL zealot; I don't even particularly like it (link fixed 20060914). Still,this unfair undercut of the concept of copyright is much more dangerous. For me, the above statement shows the RIAA is trying to copyright the uses of idea of copyright! They no longer approve of the system that empowered them, that they've been outsmarted, as it were, and now they're trying to bully the term into redefinition. In theory, I believe the courts won't buy the hype. In practice, I'm concerned. posted by ruffin at 2/27/2006 11:32:00 AM

Sunday, February 26, 2006
1.3.1's "PPCness" From Apple's Java development email list: 2D Java 1.3.1 Graphics tests HeatBugs, Java 1.3 `MacBook 3 framerate (higher is better) Dual 2.5GHz G5 156 framerate (no kidding)` The original poster's guess was that Java 1.3.1 was being run under Rosetta on the MacBook (an x86 powered creature). The fellow who is likely the most well-informed poster on the Java list replied. My guess is that 1.3.1's graphics under x86 simply sucks, because there's little incentive for it not to. For example, I doubt that Apple would even bother porting any of 1.3.1's hwaccel stuff. There are two later Java versions that are more likely to be used on x86, so the priority of getting 1.3.1 graphics to a level of mere adequacy on x86 is probably pretty low. My guess is that 1.3.1's speed on PPC is dependent on its PPC-ness. But that's just a guess. Seriously? The hardware acceleration is PPC dependent? That's strange. And at a cost of 156 to 3 frames per second? I suppose that potentially makes sense, and tells us two things I used to write about a decent amount on this blog: 1.) Java 1.3.x on Apple is finally dead, gone just as surely as the Classic environment (so quite Jar Bundling to run on 1.3*!) and 2.) Man, Apple went around their elbow to kludge decent Java performance on the Mac OS. To think people on the Apple list attacked (okay, well, we'll safely say "seriously questioned") those who claimed Java on Apple wasn't quite as hot as Jobs had promised... posted by ruffin at 2/26/2006 06:12:00 PM

Thea Burger's Blog : SQL SELECT TOP N equivalent in ORACLE and MySQL Also good to know about MySQL (SELECT TOP 10 equivalent): MySQL: `SELECT product, descr, email FROM products LIMIT 10` posted by ruffin at 2/26/2006 04:39:00 PM

Fun with MySQL I'm working on a project that uses MySQL as the RDBMS and though MySQL has grown quite a bit more mature than when I first experimented with it back around version 3 when it was the pseudo-rdbms to pair with php for your wack web site, I still have an enjoyable learning curve replacing all the tools I know how to use with Sybase or SQL Server. Actually, a large part of the/my problem is that I'm not using Windows, which means I can't fall back on the SQL Server tools that work with any ODBC-compliant database systems. MySQL on the command-line is much different than even Oracle with SQuirreL SQL. Anyhow, here's today's lesson. One way to get a table from MySQL into a text file for slapping into another datasource is the following: 1.) I decided to use XML for my output, so I needed to log into mysql using the -X option. This makes all output from SELECTs, etc, come in XML format. `mysql -u username -p -X` 2.) To SELECT INTO a file, you use this format: `select * from TableName into OUTFILE '/path/to/file/out.txt';` Note that the file cannot already exist (so you can't use SQL to introduce a major security breech and overwrite files) and that, on NIX, you'll need to have permissions to that path and* to write in that path. 2a.) Finding a dir that I could write into was a pain in the system I'm using, so I had to make one. Apparently mysql was using a different user than the one I was logging in as (I'm not the admin on one box), so I went to an appropriate location and created a directory. `prompt>cd ~/Public prompt>mkdir smack prompt>chmod 777 smack prompt>cd smack prompt>pwd /Users/currentUser/Public/smack` This makes me a directory in `/Users/currentUser/Public/smack` that anyone can write into. In general, that's a bad idea. I really need to limit to the mysql user. Wish I knew who that was, and how I'd change things appropriately even if I did. The "`777`" bit is a grenade to allow most anyone in `smack` to do most anything they want, and makes administrators squirrelly. Rightfully, afaik. In any event, here's the SQL to use now to write out that file with XML in it. Note that I'm using OS X here, so the Public dir in my user's home dir was already there. `select * from TableName into OUTFILE '/Users/currentUser/Public/smack/Out.txt';` 3.) That's essentially it/There is no step 3. But now you do need to get that file from the new dir to somewhere you can hack on it. I'm using OS X at home for this as well, in spite of it not being my typical rdbms dev environment, and Fugu somehow knows how to use SFTP or the like to browse my dirs and grab the file with my standard ssh login info for the MySQL server. Putty or something similar would probably be your choice on Windows. What a pain. I miss my bcp and DTS. [Update: Of course the file is not longer in XML, though the screen output is. Go figure. No idea how to fix that yet.] posted by ruffin at 2/26/2006 04:01:00 PM

The HD Boycott Begins Now This letter seems to contain decent advice not just for WWII messages but also for people making license key schemes. Enter keys: a cipher that uses a key is still more secure. Even if the cipher is disclosed, even if the ciphertext is intercepted, without the key (or a break), the message is secret. Post-war, this is doubly important as we begin to realize what I think of as Schneier's Law: "any person can invent a security system so clever that she or he can't think of how to break it." This means that the only experimental methodology for discovering if you've made mistakes in your cipher is to tell all the smart people you can about it and ask them to think of ways to break it. Without this critical step, you'll eventually end up living in a fool's paradise, where your attacker has broken your cipher ages ago and is quietly decrypting all her intercepts of your messages, snickering at you. (emph mine) posted by ruffin at 2/26/2006 02:14:00 PM

Friday, February 24, 2006
Google, meet George Orwell. Looking at Google's new Mac widgets, I was curious to see how the search history worked. Apparently it only searches through results of searches from Google rather than searching through, say, Safari's history. In other words, it's something that allows you to search your search history at Google. Scary. So, um, "How is my Search History stored?" Personalized Search stores your search history on Google servers, which means you can view your history and get personalized search results on any computer. Tempting, but I don't believe I'm ready to allow my search history to be stored on someone else's server. It's a wonder they don't already do it through cookies with id numbers -- heck, I'm not sure that they don't. Still, if enough people use it, Google might finally become what Microsoft hoped Hotmail/Passport would be. Can the Google OS be all that far behind? posted by ruffin at 2/24/2006 02:49:00 PM

Tuesday, February 21, 2006
*ongoing On PHP** So here's my problem, based on my limited experience with PHP (deploying a couple of free apps to do this and that, and debugging a site for a non-technical friend here and there): all the PHP code I've seen in that experience has been messy, unmaintainable crap. Spaghetti SQL wrapped in spaghetti PHP wrapped in spaghetti HTML, replicated in slightly-varying form in dozens of places. Well said. posted by ruffin at 2/21/2006 07:39:00 AM

Saturday, February 18, 2006
Poet at Work: Walt Whitman Notebooks 1850s-1860s Boy, it sure is a good thing we've got computers to digitize important images like these for posterity! Some of Walt Whitman's handywork, never to be lost, accessible to anyone with a decently reliable Internet connection. Okay, I know, somebody'll do something impressive with the stuff on the page, but, well, probably won't be me. And yes, like the Centennial Gateway at NCSU, that's all there is, HAR HAR HAR (pardon the inside joke I'm probably the only one getting). Here, we are supposed to be viewing the margins from a poorly cut out page of one of Whitman's notebooks. posted by ruffin at 2/18/2006 07:47:00 PM

Friday, February 17, 2006
Win With NetBeans in Look and Feel Competition! Particularly poorly written post follows: I hope I'm not the only person -- and therefore, by definition, also the first -- to think the chosen winners of Sun's NetBeans' Look and Feel Competition! are horrendously embarassing for what they suggests about the stereotypical programmer. Of the thirty winners in the competition -- a redesign contest for the GUI of the Sun-supported tool for designing Java code -- at least four have backgrounds that include relatively attractive women, some awfully prominently displayed. I've complained about this same sort of lack of professionalism from a Sun supported initiative before, but to give out prizes for essentially showing you could follow a tutorial that showed how to embed pin-ups in your application (what happens at the above link) simply by including more examples of such pin-ups combined with the most trivial of modifcations to the UI elsewhere is in very bad taste. Let's be clear -- none of these winners foreground men, not that that would make the ones winning any more deserving. Hrm. None of the winners really seem superior in any practical sense to Netbeans' default look and feel. Most of these are trying harder to be bad art than functional improvements. So we've got a bunch of horny guys who'd like to insert pictures of women into their IDEs in place of having girlie calendars on the wall of their garage. Is there anything inherently wrong with having viewing pictures of attractive women? No. But please, Sun's winners aren't artistic, are sexist, do not promote professionalism, nor show any way that the benefits are particularly practical ones for designing GUI'd apps in Java. In a society where such moves are considered offensive, well, such a move has to be considered exactly that. Are Netbeans employees really so naive that they don't realize many women in a Java programmer's workplace would prefer not to see this kind of junk on coworkers' screens? I know I don't have any particular desire to have an extended conversation staring at code with, say, The Rock shirtless in the background. Hey Sun, apologize, rerun the contest, and demand a little more true innovation in lieu of something that quite literally pimps your products. posted by ruffin at 2/17/2006 11:46:00 PM

Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Look, albums are singles! I've seen some complaining by record companies, most recently in my local paper, that gross income falls as sales move from albums to a sort of a la carte system with iTunes and friends. Apparently the loss in album sales has not been solved by the increase in the sale of the 45, so to speak, so there's the temptation to cry foul, or at least whine. Two thoughts: 1.) If they're hurting now, what happens once the old libraries have been picked over? I mean, we've got an explosion of potential singles from albums we didn't buy due to cost; I know I've purchased a number of single tracks where I don't want to slap down $15 -- or even $6 used from Amazon -- for the entire disc. But once I've in effect picked over that library, what happens? Are there so many back albums I'll be buying singles forever, or will this be another revenue stream that slows a bit in the future? 2.) How were they doing with 45s? Apparently not so well, as I can remember an age with just albums and very very few singles. Yet I've seen collections from people who were relatively young in the 50s that are almost exclusively singles! Makes me wonder if this isn't just a cyclic thing rather than what the record companies are obviously trying to do: make it sound like gloom and doom for an entire industry. Seems like there's a pertinent story about an ant and a grasshopper I should put in here somewhere. posted by ruffin at 2/14/2006 02:52:00 PM

Macworld: News: Opinion: Does Dell beat MacBook Pro on price? This is precisely the kind of tripe that gives Mac users the "irrational fankid" label: What about the Dell Coupon Argument? For bargain-searching geeks, Dell's random coupons do indeed offer significant discounts. But even if you're lucky enough to take advantage of Mr. Ou's $650 markdown, once you equip your Dell with all the software and anti-virus protection necessary to actually use it, the big price differential shrinks significantly. This fellow at MacWorld is trying to say that if you remove the coupons you can find for Dell laptops that comparable Intel-powered laptops (Dell vs. Apple) cost similar amounts. Big problem: Coupons create different marketing niches. Most people savvy enough to read MacWorld are also savvy enough to find a coupon online. I believe Dell also runs a number of deals in the catalogs they mail out as well as their on their online store. It's difficult not to accidently fall into one of the target niches if you know how to spell "computer". To ignore precisely the market that would be worried about whether the two have similar hardware -- that is, ones that could find coupons -- is to miss the conversation entirely. I believe he's also missing another market -- the iBook user. I imagine iBooks will remain at an M-note for a while longer, and they really aren't bad deals. He might want to wait until they go Intel before responding to price critiques. Still, I hope the iBook has a duo chip as well, or they're going to have a hard time competing with other entry-level computers, whose prices have plummeted recently. (He also, for some reason, ignores the screen discrepancy between Dell and MacBook, but I'll only mention that in passing for now.) If I can save $650 on one computer and my cost is "anti-virus protection" which, as it turns out, appears to come to $39.99 sans coupons, I think I can handle it. The antivirus slap is more irrational outburst than even & fair comparision. I take $620 over $0 every time, with perhaps one exception. I am somewhat surprised Dell doesn't offer OpenOffice on its bottom-end models that don't come with MS Office, however. WordPerfect and that's it? Interesting. Still, Macs don't come with any office software worth mentioning other than trials for MS Office and iWork '06. I suppose the "actually use it" comment dealt solely with iLife. I'll counter that Half-Life 2 and Photoshop running natively are both a bit cheaper on the Dell right now. In any event, it is good to finally be past the "megahertz myth" 'UD. [It occurs to me now, a bit later, than the MacWorld guy didn't even mention iSight in the text of his article. Do people really not use the camera? I finally hooked up a DVcorder to my Mac, and it's pretty cool. An integrated camera's gotta be worth a little dough, and is one of those things I think many who wouldn't think it too useful would find is central to their computer use soon afterwards.] posted by ruffin at 2/14/2006 12:43:00 PM

Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Macworld: News: Meg Whitman says eBay transformation is under way from here: EBay Inc. is fast moving away from its roots as an online auction site and becoming an electronic-commerce site, President and Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman said at a press conference Tuesday in Brussels. You know, I've noticed that and think the way they're going about it is a bad idea. I do appreciate when my searches for items turn up stores that have something that matches, but to essentially use the same system of feedback, etc (that is, a store owner could run an auction under the same persona) starts to dillute what it means to be an eBay seller. I'm also getting the feeling when I'm setting up sales, from both eBay and PayPal, that I'm supposed to think more like a store than a "hobbyist" or non-professional seller. I can feel the level of attention/emphasis shift from auctions -- what eBay does better than anyone -- to this shop mentality. I think it likewise dillutes their brand recognition. I'd start by putting the store stuff under a different moniker, a different corporation, sorta like Microsoft did with Xbox. I don't think anyone's confusing the Xbox, running an IBM processor, for heaven's sake, with Windows. Though the Windows Media compatibility (iirc) is something of a lead-in, for the most part I've yet to see Xbox position itself to drive sales of Windows. eBay needs to keep eBay eBay -- if they don't, someone else is liable to create an auction site that's just clever enough with auction specific features that eventually they'll reach a tipping point and eBay will see itself depending quite a bit more on their position in a market where there are many more, highly mature competitors. posted by ruffin at 2/07/2006 03:59:00 PM

Friday, February 03, 2006
What is a portable app? \| PortableApps.com After looking up the NVu site for the last post, I stumbled on a "portable app" project whose goal is to give you open source apps repackaged so that no installation (dll registering, profile creating on each computer, etc) is necessary. Here are some of the "advantages". What is a portable app? \| PortableApps.com: Consider the Convenience... Have your favorite websites handy to recommend to a friend or colleague Have your presentation AND the required software ready to go for that big meeting Have your password with you if you want to bank online while traveling Have utilities handy when visiting family or friends that are having PC problems. This is a Very Good Idea in Theory, At Least. I get awfully tired of carrying my laptop freakin EVERYWHERE to ensure I have all my recent emails, lesson plans, applications, etc. Abstract your profile to your USB drive! Though the size limitations of a jump drive are fairly prohibitive, it does seem like it could eventually be a more feasible idea than the .Mac/Google approach. posted by ruffin at 2/03/2006 12:11:00 PM

reNVu With the wonders of cut & paste, here's a quick review of NVu I sent to a mailing list a while back... > NVu is nice, it's based on the Mozilla editor code, the one drawback > is that it doesn't handle frames. > > The NVu website shows how to get a frames-like effect using CSS > (Which is the 'correct' way to do it, in fact, as frames are being > deprecated) but be aware of that if you're going to work on an > existing web site that does use frames. > > We have a bunch of people using it. I've had some real issues with NVu, though overall I'll admit I like it. The indentation functions have some real issues and occasionally I've had trouble with it "remembering" styles (an added bold, etc) after I've turned them off several times, which requires a trip into the "Source" pane for some first aid. The interface leaves a little to be desired, as there aren't keyboard shortcuts for many of the buttons on the menu bar, which slows me down considerably. Nor does it seem to find linked stylesheets in its WYSIWYG window. I've also noticed that the html code, though very lean and easy to hack by hand after you're done, does tend to leave in quite a few "appendix" tags after editing, like spans without anything between the tags, etc. This is all with the version from 20050624. In any event, for light "word processing on the web", it's really stellar. Spellcheck is great to have and it does a super job of WYSIWYGing aside from linked css. And thank freakin' heavens for the lack of html bloat, the span issues aside. It's an html designer's dream if they have to accept formatted text from other members of their company. Now, instead of having to recut something from Word, you get them to download NVu to edit and work from that very easy to modify base. Interestingly for me, Seamonkey 1.0 is out now and has Composer in it. I wonder which set of Composer code is more stable? posted by ruffin at 2/03/2006 12:04:00 PM

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