Tech of the Day

[Daniel E.]

Reminders for database geeks:

Microsoft SQL Server - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

SQLCMD is a command line application that comes with Microsoft SQL Server...It allows SQL queries to be written and executed from the command prompt. It can also act as a scripting language to create and run a set of SQL statements as a script. Such scripts are stored as a .sql file, and are used either for management of databases or to create the database schema during the deployment of a database.

SQL Server Profiler - SQL Server Profiler

Explore the features of SQL Server Profiler. Get help troubleshooting problems by using this tool to create traces and analyze and replay trace results.

docs.microsoft.com

SQL Server Profiler is an interface to create and manage traces and analyze and replay trace results. Events are saved in a trace file that can later be analyzed or used to replay a specific series of steps when diagnosing a problem.

Newer stuff related to Azure:

What is the Azure SQL Database service? - Azure SQL Database

Get an introduction to SQL Database: technical details and capabilities of the Microsoft relational database management system (RDBMS) in the cloud.

docs.microsoft.com

Azure SQL Database is a fully managed platform as a service (PaaS) database engine that handles most of the database management functions such as upgrading, patching, backups, and monitoring without user involvement. Azure SQL Database is always running on the latest stable version of the SQL Server database engine and patched OS with 99.99% availability. PaaS capabilities that are built into Azure SQL Database enable you to focus on the domain-specific database administration and optimization activities that are critical for your business.

Query Performance Insight - Azure SQL Database

Query performance monitoring identifies the most CPU-consuming and long-running queries for single and pooled databases in Azure SQL Database.

docs.microsoft.com

Automatic tuning email notifications how-to guide - Azure SQL Database & Azure SQL Managed Instance

Enable e-mail notifications for Azure SQL Database automatic query tuning.

docs.microsoft.com

 

[Daniel E.]

Free, quick, online "mini masters" in public health:

Mini-Master of Public Health (MPH)

The world’s health needs are changing—evolving day to day, sometimes even hour to hour. It is the role of the public health professional to stay apace with these changes to protect and improve the health of populations. Because of the commitment to ensure access to education around pressing...

populationhealthexchange.org

"Because of the commitment to ensure access to education around pressing public health issues, Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) now offers a free, online Mini-MPH. The Mini-MPH provides foundational knowledge in public health to all interested learners. The program includes six hours of engaging, online content that covers key concepts of public health, with expert faculty, accessible to everyone."

 

[Daniel E.]

Blog, Wiki or Forum – Which Should You Use?

Blogs, wikis and forums were not designed as educational tools, but they can be very useful in a teaching and learning context for supporting dialogue between students, providing a space for collaboration and chronicling student reflections.

teaching.unsw.edu.au

 

[Daniel E.]

Free Domain Value and Appraisal Tool | What is your domain worth? - GoDaddy

Discover your domain value and worth with GoDaddy’s free domain appraisal tool. Your domain name might be more valuable than you think.

www.godaddy.com

 

[Daniel E.]

Multimedia Tools and Applications

The first journal in the field and well recognized in the multimedia community, Multimedia Tools and Applications holds the highest Google h5-index score of ...

www.springer.com

Under Creative Commons licences, authors retain copyright of their articles...

The CC BY licence (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence)...is the most open licence available and considered the industry 'gold standard' for open access; it is also preferred by many funders. This licence allows readers to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and to alter, transform, or build upon the material, including for commercial use, providing the original author is credited.

 

[Daniel E.]

Whoisology - Billions of archived domain name whois records

A searchable cross referenced database of current and historic domain name ownership records. Designed for InfoSec, legal, and research professionals. Free for casual users.

whoisology.com

 

[Daniel E.]

Your Access To This Website Has Been Blocked

Something in your behavior has triggered our protection systems - we apologise for any inconvenience this process may have caused.

www.fiverr.com

A video can get more eyes on your product and boost your sales.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create an explainer video.

 

[Daniel E.]

Python for Excel: A Modern Environment for Automation and Data Analysis​

While Excel remains ubiquitous in the business world, recent Microsoft feedback forums are full of requests to include Python as an Excel scripting language. In fact, it's the top feature requested. What makes this combination so compelling? In this hands-on guide, Felix Zumstein--creator of xlwings, a popular open source package for automating Excel with Python--shows experienced Excel users how to integrate these two worlds efficiently.
Excel has added quite a few new capabilities over the past couple of years, but its automation language, VBA, stopped evolving a long time ago. Many Excel power users have already adopted Python for daily automation tasks. This guide gets you started.

• Use Python without extensive programming knowledge
• Get started with modern tools, including Jupyter notebooks and Visual Studio code
• Use pandas to acquire, clean, and analyze data and replace typical Excel calculations
• Automate tedious tasks like consolidation of Excel workbooks and production of Excel reports
• Use xlwings to build interactive Excel tools that use Python as a calculation engine
• Connect Excel to databases and CSV files and fetch data from the internet using Python code
• Use Python as a single tool to replace VBA, Power Query, and Power Pivot

 

[Daniel E.]

My new favorite app for taking notes and writing:

Future of Text - Gingko App

Gingko makes it easy to write notes collaboratively with your classmates. Work better, together.

gingkoapp.com

Examples - Gingko App

Tree documents for clarity focus and flow

gingkoapp.com

"A new kind of word processor. A way of reading and writing hierarchical documents. A mix between Evernote + Workflowy."

Cost is free to minimal (donation-based), and you can export to Microsoft Word, HTML, LaTeX, etc., as well as the presentation format Impress.js (below).

 

[Daniel E.]

Alternative to Microsoft PowerPoint:

impress.js | presentation tool based on the power of CSS3 transforms and transitions in modern browsers | by Bartek Szopka @bartaz

impress.js is a presentation tool based on the power of CSS3 transforms and transitions in modern browsers and inspired by the idea behind prezi.com.

impress.js.org

GitHub - impress/impress.js: It's a presentation framework based on the power of CSS3 transforms and transitions in modern browsers and inspired by the idea behind prezi.com.

It's a presentation framework based on the power of CSS3 transforms and transitions in modern browsers and inspired by the idea behind prezi.com. - impress/impress.js

github.com

 

[David Baxter PhD]

There are also several free alternatives to the Microsoft Office suite, notably:

Home | LibreOffice - Free and private office suite - Based on OpenOffice - Compatible with Microsoft

Free office suite – the evolution of OpenOffice. Compatible with Microsoft .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx. Updated regularly, community powered.

www.libreoffice.org

FreeOffice: The best free alternative to Microsoft Office

FreeOffice, the best free alternative to Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) for Windows, Mac and Linux

www.freeoffice.com

For more, see

Best Microsoft Office alternative of 2024

We look at the best Microsoft Office alternatives for all budgets

www.techradar.com

 

[Daniel E.]

Free Kindle book:

Learn Human-Computer Interaction: Solve human problems and focus on rapid prototyping and validating solutions through user testing

"This book is for software engineers, UX designers, entrepreneurs, or anyone who is just getting started with user interface design and looking to gain a solid understanding of human-computer interaction and UX design. No prior HCI knowledge is required to get started."

Table of Contents​

1. Introducing HCI and UX Design
2. Human Centered Design Principles
3. Interface Design Values
4. Human Centered Thinking for Design and Development
5. Human Centered Methods for User Research
6. User Insights for Software Solutions
7. Storytelling and Rapid Prototyping
8. Validating Software Solutions
9. Improving Software Systems with Data
10. Human Centered Solutions
11. Extending HCI
12. The Future of HCI

 

[Daniel E.]

For Mac users (like myself):

5 macOS system settings to configure for productivity

When you set up your new Mac, it doesn’t necessarily come with sensible system defaults. When you want to focus on something or get…

duncanlew.medium.com

 

[Daniel E.]

Lightweight image tools:

For Windows:

IrfanView (recommended by David)

Instant Eyedropper (recommended by David )

For Mac:

XnView MP (seems somewhat similar to IrfranView -- at least in name)

And I just found that the Mac has a built-in eyedropper tool:

Digital Color Meter User Guide for Mac

Learn how to use Digital Color Meter on your Mac to find the color value of any color on your Mac display.

support.apple.com

 

[Daniel E.]

Conference video talk archive :: ConferenceCast.tv

The largest conference video talk archive on marketing, IT, technology, business, finance, self-development and other topics

www.conferencecast.tv

"Talks from the world's best conferences"​

 

[Daniel E.]

Color Hunter

Color palettes made from images

www.colorhunter.com

 

[Daniel E.]

Accessibility Support - Official Apple Support

Find information about Apple's built-in accessibility tools and technologies that help people with disabilities get the most from their Apple products.

support.apple.com

 

[Daniel E.]

I am using newly-improved Semantic Scholar, which is similar to Google Scholar. The best feature for me is you can create your own "research feeds." This does not create a RSS feed, but it recommends papers based on papers you add to your feed. This is based on a similar feature at another academic search site.

Semantic Scholar | AI-Powered Research Tool

Semantic Scholar uses groundbreaking AI and engineering to understand the semantics of scientific literature to help Scholars discover relevant research.

www.semanticscholar.org

 

[Daniel E.]

A history of WordPress security vulnerabilities:



"A countdown of some of the most memorable vulnerabilities and the lessons to be learned from them."

 

[Daniel E.]

‘Over $1,300 just gone’: Mobile payment app losses lead to class-action lawsuit

Two local men claim scammers stole thousands from their Cash App mobile pay accounts and then the company refused to cover their losses.

www.wftv.com

With Cash App or any mobile payment service, don’t link it to your checking account. Use a credit card so you can dispute fraudulent transactions and get your money back.