Paul Maddox

A poster by the name of Stripe-man has come up with a really simple way of paginating data in SQL Server.  This has always been easy with MySQL using the LIMIT keyword, which is missing from SQL Server 2000.  (SQL Server 2005 added a row count similar to Oracle's, I believe.)

Here is the template:

SELECT TOP <PAGESIZE> * FROM task_log WHERE id NOT IN (SELECT TOP <PAGEOFFSET> id FROM task_log ORDER BY ID) ORDER BY ID

So, for example, to display 10 items from 51-60 we would do:

SELECT TOP 10 * FROM task_log WHERE id NOT IN (SELECT TOP 50 id FROM task_log ORDER BY ID) ORDER BY ID

What this essentially says is: show me the top ten results that do not appear in the top fifty results.

PHPBuilder.com - View Single Post - Pagination with PHP / MsSQl not MySQL!

Google is making a pretty good progress getting business customers on to its mail platform, at a rate of 1000 per day.  However Rishi Chandra, product manager for Google Apps, is perhaps being a bit optimistic in terms of product development, which in the case of GMail we have seen relatively little of since its beta inception.

"At the end of the day, Google Apps is about innovation," said Chandra. "You don't have to wait for a major release to get these features. It happens in real time. ... It's taking the speed and innovation of the consumer world and applying it to the business world."

The problem is, it seems we do have to wait.  Whilst Windows Live Mail and Yahoo Mail have seen dramatic improvements in the user interface, Google can be seen lagging behind with what cynics might even call a dated user experience.

As Information Week identifies:

"Such relentless change has the potential to leave users lost, but Chandra insists Google's focus on the user experience means that new features are easy to understand and don't require new training."

Unfortunately to produce a high level of innovation along with consistency of user experience is not an easy task, despite Chandra's insistence, but only time will tell what emphasis Google chooses, or whether they will attempt the impossible.

Google Apps Opens Door To Migrating E-Mail Users -- Google Apps -- InformationWeek

In SQL Server I get the following error when I try to COUNT(*) rows in very large tables:

"Arithmetic overflow error converting expression to data type int."

Googling and sifting through pages about the same problem for SUM( ), I found you can use this function:

COUNT_BIG(*)

This uses a bigint rather than int for storage.

To answer this question let's think back around 25 years. These were the days when computers used proprietary hardware and proprietary operating systems. Companies like Commodore, Sinclair and Apple were selling their combined hardware and software solutions. The market was largely fragmented, and the systems available varied widely in functionality.

It was only in 1982 that we saw the start of what now represents the vast majority of computer sales: clones. Compaq Computer Corp introduced the first IBM PC clone. As a result, by luck, Microsoft's operating system was able to run on computers from two hardware companies; it was no longer at the mercy of a single manufacturer. Soon this would become three, then four, then many. Whilst hardware manufacturers were able to concentrate on improving hardware technology and manufacturing process, Microsoft was able to concentrate on improving the operating system.

The above is relevant because we see the same story playing out today in the mobile phone marketplace. Manufacturers with proprietary operating systems are moving to those that are common.

A few years ago mobile manufacturers such as Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson used proprietary firmware. They did this because, just like the Commodore PET, the firmware performed such a simple function that writing it was no major overhead on development.

In the last few years we've seen mobile phone power and functionality increase dramatically, and as a result the use for a common, complex operating system has become more attractive. Quite simply, mobile manufacturers have an increasing burden to create what has gone from being a simple firmware, to a rich operating system.

Microsoft, much as they did 25 years ago, has been one of the companies to provide a common operating system for multiple hardware manufacturers. Unfortunately for Microsoft, not all hardware manufacturers were as naive as computer manufacturers when they first seized the computer OS market.

One very real competitor to Microsoft Windows Mobile is Symbian OS, originally developed by Psion and now co-owned by Nokia, Ericsson, Panasonic and others. In July 2006, it had 67% of the 'smart mobile device' market. This operating system achieves by design exactly what Microsoft achieved by luck: being a common OS capable of running on many manufacturers' hardware.

With Microsoft a very competitive player, Symbian OS having a strong grip on the market, and Apple joining the party with the market awareness and sex appeal to have an impact, only time will tell if in 25 years time, the mobile phone market will have played out exactly as the computer market has. This time around, however, Microsoft has some strong competitors to reconcile.


Of course I could also have mentioned Linux as another competitor, but I'll save this for another post.

As part of Microsoft's badly-received Live web products, Windows Live Writer is a curious addition to Microsoft's product set. Live Writer provides surprisingly Microsoft-agnostic support for bloggers to use a conventional Windows application to post entries to their blog.

As most will know, using all but the most sophisticated web apps results in a less than fluid experience, and often functionality such as copy and paste is left out in the cold.

Windows Live Writer gives the blog community a way of publishing using a desktop application that offers copy and paste (including images), WYSIWYG HTML editing, multiple account management, all wrapped up with the fluidity that makes writing much more dynamic than can sometimes be the case with web-based blog editors.

As an example: if a blog is published by Blogger to a third-party website, Live Writer will allow the user to publish via the Blogger interface, but upload directly to the user's third-party FTP site.

Windows Live Writer goes to show what Microsoft can achieve when they have a clear goal. Quite simply it is clean, easy to use and very effective.