How to become a DB Admin in two weeks? [more inside]
posted on May 15, 2008 - 8 answers

What books / reference materials / training resources for Access 2003 can you recommend for a n00b? [more inside]
posted on May 14, 2008 - 3 answers

What is a good multiuser password database? [more inside]
posted on May 8, 2008 - 5 answers

Which version of PHP should I start to learn, and how? I know HTML and CSS, and intend to build with Drupal (or similar) and its many extensions. [more inside]
posted on May 4, 2008 - 12 answers

MySQL sorting issue. When I have "first name" and "last name" columns, and I'm sorting primarily by "last name." Some entries have only a "first name," and rather than have those end up at either the start or end of the sort, I'd like it to pretend the "first name" IS the "last name" and sort accordingly. Is there a way to do this with the SQL SELECT statement or should I just edit the data? [more inside]
posted on May 2, 2008 - 8 answers

Can you help structure my oracle database appropriately? [more inside]
posted on May 1, 2008 - 10 answers

How much SQL normalization is too much? [more inside]
posted on Apr 25, 2008 - 21 answers

Do any of you have any knowledge/experience with public-files.com? I have been using publicdata.com but public-files.com is a lot cheaper and seems to offer more information. I googled public-files.com but didn't get anything more than links advertising it but no opinions or users of their service.
posted on Apr 24, 2008 - 2 answers

I work on the production team for a long-running public radio program. We have a massive archive of shows in digital format (MP3 and AIFF) which we need to collate into a powerful and highly flexible database - something like iTunes, but much more advanced. Does a program exist to do this? [more inside]
posted on Apr 23, 2008 - 5 answers

Mac Mess Filter: help me choose personal database software. [more inside]
posted on Apr 21, 2008 - 13 answers

Do we know of a web service where I can feed a song title and artist in the front, and get one single canonical answer to the question of when it was first released? [more inside]
posted on Apr 16, 2008 - 6 answers

Is there a website that categorizes songs by mood or subject? Searching iTunes for title words and hoping the title then corresponds to the lyrics/mood doesn't always give the best results. [more inside]
posted on Apr 8, 2008 - 5 answers

How do I keep track of user actions on my website without killing the database? [more inside]
posted on Apr 8, 2008 - 5 answers

Computer Jobs filter: My friend recently graduated with a BS in Information Systems (after a long hiatus away from school). He has pre-college experience in database architecture using MS Access, but his other skills (MySQL, pHp) are learned on his own. He wants to find a job as a DBA or a web developer, but doesn't have the 3+ years of professional experience everyone wants. Even if he's able to learn Oracle, Python, Ruby, etc. on his own, how can he prove he knows them without resume experience to back him up? [more inside]
posted on Apr 8, 2008 - 17 answers

Maddening database question- Why are hierarchical/tree databases (seemingly) unavailable to me? Structures of structures of structures. [more inside]
posted on Apr 1, 2008 - 8 answers

You know those "Best of" surveys that run in most alt weeklies? We've done online versions of them and its always been problematic, so we're looknig for better suggestions on how to do it. [more inside]
posted on Apr 1, 2008 - 4 answers

My mother-in-law is a horse breeder and wants to create a web site that shows the lineage of a particular breed of horses. She has some of the data in a Filemaker 5.5 database, but needs to expand it greatly and put it online. How can we go about doing this, and/or hiring someone to do it? [more inside]
posted on Mar 26, 2008 - 3 answers

How to get a relational database on a mobile device, and query it using J2ME? [more inside]
posted on Mar 23, 2008 - 5 answers

How can I connect to a SQL Server 2005 database using windows authentication with PHP? [more inside]
posted on Mar 20, 2008 - 6 answers

I'm planning on starting a database freelancing business. I understand a lot of people prefer Microsoft Access or FileMaker. With the current evolving trend of applications going on the web and add to that my somewhat good experience with PHP, HTML, Javascript and CSS I'm seeking a cross platform efficient application environment. This is why I believe Access and FileMaker are not an option, I'm also more experienced with high level languages than I am with Access or FileMaker. [more inside]
posted on Mar 13, 2008 - 11 answers

What is the best way to work databases like we does with version control (Subversion or CVS) for the source files? I was researching but probably I'm not using the right words or there's some special way to work.
posted on Mar 12, 2008 - 19 answers

How can I mail-merge data from MS Access to Word from two different database tables? [more inside]
posted on Mar 5, 2008 - 6 answers

At work, I'm being asked to maintain an older Access 2003 database. The database sits on a network drive, but it requires that network drive to be mapped to Y:/. This is a problem because all of the users have it mapped to different drives. How can I get it to stop referencing a specific drive letter? [more inside]
posted on Mar 3, 2008 - 3 answers

I'd like to find an application that would help two assistants keep track of incoming phone calls (and their status) for a small office of 10 employees, without having to commit to an expensive database solution like Filemaker. [more inside]
posted on Feb 25, 2008 - 7 answers

SQL Filter: What query can I use to count the number of times a word appears in a text field? [more inside]
posted on Feb 21, 2008 - 6 answers

Does anyone know of any online (or otherwise electronic) databases for every make/model of automobile every produced worldwide? This can be broken up into several separate databases, so if you know of a resource for German, Japanese, American (etc.) cars, that would help too!... [more inside]
posted on Feb 21, 2008 - 6 answers

I'm undertaking a personal web development and database building project, but I don't do web development or database building. Please help me assess the best options to have someone else do the work for me. I think the stuff I want is fairly easy, but please tell me what you think. [more inside]
posted on Feb 19, 2008 - 4 answers

I need to code a form to gather contact information from visitors to my website, and I'm looking for alternatives to mySQL. [more inside]
posted on Feb 18, 2008 - 10 answers

I'm looking for a way to organize a list of members of my neighborhood association, preferably something web-based, but that doesn't require the actual members to log in. [more inside]
posted on Feb 11, 2008 - 5 answers

What is a simple straight forward way to gather gps data, and sync it with my digital camera/ Digital recorder? And possibly create a GIS database out of it? [more inside]
posted on Feb 9, 2008 - 7 answers

I need to query data from another table that I'm already writing to. [more inside]
posted on Feb 6, 2008 - 6 answers

How can a new company track leads submitted via its website through the sales and post-sales process, simply, automatically, and online? [more inside]
posted on Jan 30, 2008 - 12 answers

How can I create an indexing system for the collection of scholarly journal articles that I'm quickly amassing? [more inside]
posted on Jan 29, 2008 - 17 answers

I want to make a dictionary database of words, where I can query part of speech, spelling patterns, pronunciation patterns, number of syllables, definitions, etc. Is Access best for this? Or are there other smaller, free applications you would suggest? Ideally I would like a lot of control over query output layout. Ease of use is important. (I never felt Access was so user-friendly [maybe that's true of all databases in general], but I'm a whiz at Excel. Unfortunately, using XL as a DB isn't very pretty.)
posted on Jan 29, 2008 - 4 answers

I am looking for a web-based database application that I can run on my own servers. [more inside]
posted on Jan 27, 2008 - 8 answers

Does there exist a database for plants grown in the US similar to the USDA's nutrition database? If yes, can I download it? [more inside]
posted on Jan 26, 2008 - 1 answers

What are best practices for storing arbitrary form data? More inside... [more inside]
posted on Jan 24, 2008 - 6 answers

Some colleagues and I will soon be leaving our current employer and starting a new company. How can I best replicate our current relational database/SQL abilities from scratch? [more inside]
posted on Jan 23, 2008 - 11 answers

For database usage, is it better to store data in XML or serialized format? In particular, PHP serialization. [more inside]
posted on Jan 18, 2008 - 10 answers

I'm beginning a project to document and restructure a set of existing Microsoft SQL Server databases, and need to quickly recommend a software package for data modeling and generating a data dictionary. I'm looking for a recommendation and/or general advice, pros, cons, etc. that will help to make and justify a selection. [more inside]
posted on Jan 18, 2008 - 1 answers

Help me design a small Access application to run a prize drawing. As I see it, the MC will open the application and click the Draw button, which will select from the available prizes for that month. Once drawn, that prize becomes unavailable. MC will then type in the winner's name and click Save, setting the form ready for the next contestant. Specs and examples follow. [more inside]
posted on Jan 16, 2008 - 8 answers

What DBA certification should I pursue? MS, Oracle, something else? [more inside]
posted on Jan 15, 2008 - 3 answers

How do I query data from one MySQL table, but I also need to get a single piece of data from a second table too? Should I be doing a JOIN, or a separate query? [more inside]
posted on Jan 7, 2008 - 9 answers

How can I get data from the USDA's food database into excel? [more inside]
posted on Jan 5, 2008 - 8 answers

I'd like to know how multi-dimensional data modelling works. [more inside]
posted on Dec 26, 2007 - 2 answers

I need suggestions for an application (or database) to help my employer keep better track of live-trivia scorekeeping results. They are currently doing it all in various separate Excel spreadsheets, and this is (almost) 2008, so I'm sure there must be a better way. [more inside]
posted on Dec 24, 2007 - 3 answers

Software for keeping lists of terms and definitions organized? Help me tame the glossary monster. [more inside]
posted on Dec 20, 2007 - 4 answers

I've been charged with redoing our Label Website pretty much from scratch, both back-end and front-end (yes, its a self-link but its relevant). Because this site is about classical music, there is a HUGE amount of metadata that will need to be collected, parsed and displayed (think 3700 titles * 10 tracks * performer, composer, title, length, etc for each track). Has anyone done or know of anyone who's done work on this scale on either the back-end side or the design side before that they might recommend? I have an RFP pretty much already mocked-up. I would've liked to have used someone like 37signals but it seems like they don't do work for others anymore.
posted on Dec 19, 2007 - 13 answers

Filemaker question: How do I combine two records into one? [more inside]
posted on Dec 19, 2007 - 5 answers

Help me use email in a multi-user environment. IMAP is great, but not for more than one user at a time. [more inside]
posted on Dec 10, 2007 - 14 answers