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Friday, September 14, 2012

Tech Video:Import Excel Data into a SQL 2012 Table

 Import Excel Data into a SQL 2012 Table


This is a brief posting with my first YouTube video, as promised I detailed the process in a video that I had first mentioned in the original screen shot article I created a few days ago. I will also be creating a short video that goes over the reverse process, bringing data from a SQL Table into an Excel Spreadsheet similar to this article I had posted.


Have a good one!

~Yati

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

App Review: Battery


Battery HD by samllite.ch (free)

Google Play - Apple App Store unavailable


The Battery HD application by smalllite.ch is a great battery app for your android device.

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Main Screen
One of the firs things I began noticing when I first began using my android phone was that the battery indicator seemed to go from full, to half, and then to empty, and it was difficult to know how much time I might actually be able to use my phone. 

 I had tried several battery apps over time, as I am sure many of you, dear readers, have as well.  What I noticed most about this application is that i am still using it on my phone approximately 6 months after first installing it.  That is in and of itself a good reason to endorse the application, however there are several very interesting features this app offers.
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One of the info Screens

The first Feature i would like to mention is the information screen.  pull down the status bar and click on the running application you are presented with a visual depiction of your battery, and this is very similar to most of the other apps available out on the app store.  The difference I noticed here (and there may be other apps out there that do this i've jsut settled on this one) is that you are able to glean a great amount of information from the various screens.

If you swipe to right to left you can see how long it would take to charge your battery both on AC and via USB.  you can see how long you would be able to use a flashlight app, how long you might be able to talk, how long you will be able to use WIFI, and so on.

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Discharge Graph
There is a discharge graph that you can also display that will show the speed at which your battery discharges over time.

There are several options that can be configured and although I had installed the free version it appears as if all of the options that are most useful are available and configurable.  In fact the only thing that reveals that this is a free vs paid app is the advertisements that appear. 

The ads are neither intrusive nor annoying and other than wanting to give some money to the developer, (which isn't a bad idea) it isn't necessary to purchase the full app.

One of the more useful features of the app is a numerical battery percentage that is shown at the upper-left hand side of the status bar (86 in the instance of my phone at the time I took the screen shot).


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Available Options
Overall this is a great application and has many useful features and options.  It certainly fulfilled my needs in a battery application for my android phone.  I recommend this application.  I give it 4 out of 5 stars because although it is a great app there are a lot of other battery apps available that are similar and it isn't a "game changer" sort of app.  But again it is excellent at what it does.  


~Yati



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Charging Screen







Monday, September 10, 2012

We Must Ride the Lightning


Lightning_by_Stock_by_KaiWe Must Ride the Lightning and Ride it well…

A quote from Robert Heinlein, he was referring to technology and warfare in the atomic age but I am going to discuss lightning.   Lightning is pretty common, we’ve all observed it, and some of us have even had the opportunity misfortune of being its conductor.  Odds that a person in the United States will “ride the lightning” once in their lifetime (naturally, not as ordered by the state) is approximately 1 in 3,000.  Lightning here within our terrestrial amphitheater, with all of its truly awe inspiring power and might still seems fairly mundane because it is a fairly common occurrence.  In this article we are going to discuss extraterrestrial lightning.  But first, what is lightning?

What is lightning?
Many of you may know what lightning is, but it bears repeating for those who may not.  Lightning is a large electrostatic discharge caused by a differential in electrical charge within the atmosphere.  Simply put, ground discharge lightning occurs when the ground and atmosphere have a difference in charge that is so great that difference discharges in the form of a large spark. Lightning is similar to when a person shuffles their feet along the ground and gets a shock when touching a door knob.  That is all fine and good, but other planets have lightning?
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Artist's Depiction of a Venusian Storm

Venus

Earth is not the only planet that has an atmospheres so it stands to reason that other planets may have atmospheric conditions leading to lightning strikes.  The first recorded lightning strike was recorded by the Russian Venera 12 space probe, these results were later called into question in 1999 when the Cassini space orbiter flew by and detected no signs of lightning.  However in 2005 the ESA launched the Venus Express orbiter which was able to confirm that lightning does occur in the Venusian atmosphere.  One fact that makes Venus’ lightning unique and interesting when compared with other planets, is that the Venusian clouds are comprised of sulfuric acid rather than water. This means the mechanics of rain drops falling and rubbing amongst each other causing the charges to build also occurs with other chemicals.  This could mean that on Titan with its methane seas, and methane rain most likely also experiences lightning.  If this is the case we may be able to peek into an environment somewhat similar to Earth’s own primordial state currently taking place on the surface of Titan.


Jupiter

jupiter
Jupiter Storm
In 2007 the New Horizons mission, a very exciting mission in its own right, used Jupiter for a gravity assist on its way to Pluto (still a planet at the time and still a planet in our hearts) was able to record lightning strikes near the Jupiter’s North and South poles.  Some of the bolts were up to 10 times as powerful as any lightning strikes recorded on earth.  During both the Galileo mission in the 90s and voyager probe in 1979 lightning was recorded nearer the equator.  Similar to storms that occur on Earth water vapor rises and ice particles form, then fall colliding on their way down towards the surface, building electrical charge which then discharges as lightning.  Jovian storms not only have extremely energetic lightning, but due to the incredible gravity rain falls faster causing the charges to build quickly.  Jupiter’s storms are often larger than the entire Earth, and along with gravity, and an extremely dry atmosphere, an atmosphere made up almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, the rain can fall very fast.  All of these things culminate into the…perfect…storm.

Saturn

PIA14921_690x460
Saturn Lightning
Daytime lightning had not been observed until March 6, 2011.  The Cassini spacecraft was able to visually observe a lightning strike in a very large storm.  Scientists have calculated that the bolt Cassini saw was about 3 billion watts and lasted for one second.  The flash was approximately 100 miles in diameter and exited the top of the cloud surface. 

The very fact that other planets exhibit and experience atmospheric conditions similar to those found on Earth helps shape our perception of the planets around us.  They are different from ours and we may not be able to live on them, for now, but they are more similar than one would first suppose.  Of course we would not have been able to learn about these weather patterns if NASA, the ESA and the Russian Space programs had not sent space vehicles to explore them.  The insight we gain by observing weather on other planets may help us to understand the weather here on the planet we call home.

~Yati

The following quite is taken from a memo that Robert Heinlein wrote to for the Naval Air Material Command in 1945 it is a bit of a pessimistic viewpoint for humanity, but this was not an uncommon view held by many scientists at the time.   None the less it is where I derived the title of this posting and they are still the words of Heinlein.

This question needs to be approached with humility and with real desire to serve rather than simply with the idea of preserving a particular bureaucratic institution as a going concern. It may be conclusively assumed that, while war may possibly be successfully outlawed through the use or the threat of the use of the atomic bomb, the atomic bomb itself may no more be outlawed than sex or the silent stars. It’s here, we’ve got it. It is a fait accompli. We must at all times be ready and willing to use it. If our culture is to survive we must contain that power with sober judgment and humanity. It is a simple fact that (1) we can not afford a war ever again, (2) the atomic bomb cannot be abolished, nor can it be indefinitely kept from other peoples. We must ride the lightning and ride it well. I conceive the atomic bomb as being the force behind the police power for a planetary peace. Perhaps the custodian will be called the “Armed Forces of the U.S.” or perhaps the “Peace Forces of 

 

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Tech: SQL String Concatenation

sql_server

Tech: SQL String Concatenation

This will be a very short basic article dealing with very basic string concatenation.

In this instance I was asked to combine a first name and last name in a table.  First names and last names are separate columns in the SQL database I happened to be working with.  For full MSDN reference you can go to this link.

First

Here is a simple SQL statement, I am retrieving the top 10 first and last names 

select top 10 first_name, last_name
from ccontacts
This script will return the first 10 first and last names from the table named ccontacts.

resluts_no_concat

You can see that the results contain a first name and last name.  Now I need the first name and last name returned in one column separated by a space, similar to the way you would see them in regular print.

To return results like this we need to use a simple concatenation statement within the select statement.

In order to return the first name and last name together as a full name field as you can see below, adding the first name, a blank space ' ', and the last name will return both first and last name as a full name field.  I used the 'as' modifier to allow the column name to be fullname.
select top 10 first_name, last_name, ( first_name  + ' ' +  last_name ) as fullname from ccontacts
Here you can see the results with firstname_name, last_name, and fullname.

slq_concat_fname_lname

Now lets say that we want the first name and last name but we want the format to be last name then a comma, space, and finally first name.


select top 10 first_name, last_name, ( last_name  + ', ' +  first_name ) as fullname from ccontacts

As you can see below we are still returning the first name, last name, but now the fullname column is last name, comma, space, first name.


slq_concat_lname_comma_fname

As I mentioned at the onset of this article, it would be very simple, dealing with simple string concatenation.  While working my "day job" as I run into small tech issues I will continue to create articles such as these to outline tech issues in general.

have a great day!

~Yati