Wrapping Up...

Questions I answered:

• What is a database?
• Why do we use databases?
• Why are relational databases better than spreadsheets?
• What are database relationships?
• What is database modeling?

Resources:

• Scholarly: Modern Database Management [9th edition] by Jeffrey A. Hoffer, Mary B. Prescott, and Heikki Topi
  • The textbook I used for the class "Database Management" at the University of Maine at Presque Isle. Pearson Education was responsible for the content, which is a very good education program, so the information is reliable. This book alone could answer all of the questions I had. It deals with everything database-related.
    
• Newspaper: Q/A: Youth Runaways: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/q-and-a-youth-runaways/?scp=2&sq=database&st=cse
  • A New York Times article about how there is a database available publishing numbers that people concerned about teenage prostitution can call. I located it by searching for the word "database" in the... online database of newspaper articles. A reporter in the New York Times was responsible for the information. It has less to do with their knowledge of databases, but rather the fact that databases are used in almost everything. It helps answer "Why use databases," considering it is a very convenient way to organize lots of information and publish it.
    
• Popular: Tech FAQ - http://www.tech-faq.com/database.shtml
  • Tech FAQ is, I believe, a blog of some sort answering questions about technology. There is really no credibility to this, but I've used them before, and they have pretty extensive answers to common and uncommon technology questions. They are very good at explaining things in easy-to-understand terminology.
    
• FAQ: Access Web - http://www.mvps.org/access/tencommandments.htm
  • This is an amazing site! It is devoted to FAQ's about Microsoft Access, and seems to have many good instructions on how to do specific things inside Access. While this doesn't really help answer my questions, it was very helpful in my "General Database Rules..." post.

Terms:

1. Data - any collections of information that we find relevant or valuable
2. Database - an organized collection of logically related data
3. Relational Database - the type of database that establishes the relationships between tables by means of common fields
4. Data Normalization - eliminating all repeating data
5. Data Type - the classification of what type of data appears in the cell
6. Database Management System (DBMS) - a program that is used to create, manage, and search databases
7. Query - the way a DBMS searches a database for information
8. Overhead - when you basically say "I don't want to assign the data type of this piece of data, so basically just make sure it has enough room to be whatever it wants." (The space you take up by not defining space that isn't actually being used)
   
9. Normalization - the process of breaking data into smaller pieces without repeating data
10. Entity - a fancy way of saying table
11. Entity-Relationship (ER) Diagram - a diagram relating the tables of a database to each other with symbols expressing whether the relationship is one-to-many, one-to-one, or many-to-many
12. Child Table - a table that only exists to connect two many-to-many relationships
13. Keys - fields that link to other tables
14. Primary Keys - the number or code that MUST be unique with every row of data

Professional Blogs:

1. Database Management and Analytic Technologies in a Changing World - http://www.dbms2.com/
   • I chose this blog because it is all about Database Management. However, he really took it more into the "Analytic Technologies" direction. I wouldn't recommend this blog for someone who is trying to learn more about database management. It all is going over my head. It is very focused on extremely new technologies.
     I would consider it a good blog by the criteria listed, however. The blog has existed since August 2005, and has over 80 pages of posts. He never seemed to lose his zeal for it. He posts very frequently. His posts are relevant, they are just a tad... over the top. It does, however, provide information on where database management is headed, which is always useful in technology. It's also easy to find information because he's categorized it well.
     
2. DataGeek - http://dbageek.blogspot.com/
   • This blog I chose also because it's very close to the topic... data and data management. A few of the posts he had earlier were actually very relevant to the topic, and very helpful. I would recommend following... maybe that would encourage him to start posting. According to the blog review, this blog isn't very good at all. He almost never posts. It existed from 2005 to 2006, so it is definitely old, but... short-lived. The posts are pretty relevant, but... they stopped coming in 2006. It DID provide practical information about Microsoft Access, which is always nice. It's easy to locate information, only because it is so sparse.