Chapter 7 Database Applications and Privacy Implications

Google is one of the most successful companies on WWW.

Ø  Search for Web pages, facts, quotes, etc.

Ø  200 million queries a day

Launched by a Sergey Brin and
Larry Page (Stanford Ph.D. students)

Ø  New approach in search technology

Ø  Marks a page’s relevance by the number of times other related web pages link to it, not how often a word or phrase appeared on a page

A database:

Ø  A collection of information
stored on computer disks

Database software:

Ø  Application software
(like word processing and
spreadsheet software)

Ø  Designed to maintain databases
(collections of information)

Database program: a software tool for organizing the storage and retrieval of information

Database: a collection of information stored in an organized form in a computer

Ø  Typically composed of one or more tables

ü  A collection of related information

A collection of records

The type of information a field can hold is determined by its:

Ø  Field type or

Ø  Data type 

Database programs provide you with more than one way to view data:

Ø  Form views

q  Show one record at a time

Ø  List views

q  Display several records in lists similar to the way a spreadsheet displays data

Import: receive data in the form of text files

Browse: navigate through information

Query: find records that match specific criteria

Personal information manager (PIM): an electronic organizer

Automates some or all of the following functions:

Ø  Address/phone book

Ø  Appointment calendar

Ø  To-do list

Ø  Miscellaneous notes

Handheld computers can share information with applications such as iCalendar running on PCs and Macintoshes.

From File Managers to Database Management Systems

ü  File manager: enables users to work with one file at a time

ü  Database management system (DBMS): manipulates data in a large collection of files, cross-referencing between files as needed

Database Trends

ü  Batch processing: users accumulate transactions and input them into the computer in large batches

ü  Real-Time computing: allows instant access to information

ü  Interactive processing: has replaced batch processing for most applications

Ø  Users can now interact with data through terminals, viewing and changing values online in real-time.

Ø  Batch processing is still used for jobs in which it makes sense to do a lot of transactions at once.

Databases and the Web

Ø  Information is available via a company’s Intranet and the Internet.

Ø  HTML, the language used to construct most Web pages, wasn’t designed to build database queries.

Ø  XML, a newer, more powerful data description language, is designed with industrial-strength database access in mind.

Ø  Web database strategies revolve around directories.

Ø  Directories are at the heart of many customer relationship management (CRM) systems—software systems for organizing and tracking information on customers.

Object-Oriented Ø  Easy manipulation of various types of data Ø  Saves time by reusing objects Ø  Associates actions with the data

Relational Ø  Not good with unstructured data (audio, video clips) Ø  Will still be used in combination with object oriented databases – as hybrids