Database queries

Databases are a collection of information. For the database to be useful the user must be able to extract particular bits information. To search information manually would be a difficult as you would have look at all the information in order to find what you intended to find  e.g you what to find out how many males rated over 7 out of ten [ 1- bad and 10-being good] for ice cream van prices it would take you forever to find all of them. To prevent this problem database queries are used . Queries is an effortless way of seeking required data , all the user has to do is enter what data is required in the table after pressing search all the data that you asked would have come up.

To make this simply press design quires [on Microsoft access] , to save the information gathered  press save as object then name it.

So quires are the solution to manually searching for information.

Below is an image of when entering data to a quire  the table near the bottom of the screen is where you enter

the question for the results to come up.

Database

Introduction

It is a new topic about databases.In this post I will be talking about what I have learnt about databases.

What is a database ?

 A database is a collection of data or information which is held together

 in an organised or logical way.

Paper-based databases

Have you ever :

- kept details of your friends or families birthdays in a birthday book ?

-  written your friend's addresses into an address book ?

- owned  a copy of the Yellow Pages at hom VB

If you have answered YES to any of  these questions, then you have used a 'paper-based' database.

 - Birthdays were organised in logical order of 'month'

- Addresses were stored in logical order of 'surname'

- Telephone numbers were stored in logical order of 'profession' [jobs] e.g. gardener, builder, plumber.

These are all examples of `paper-based` database. However , when we use the term database we generally refer to  computerised database.

Computerized databases

There are many examples of computerized databases, some of which you well have used at home or school. Examples is when using a search engine ,such as Google, in order to find the right websites that you are looking for search engines require a vast computerized database that save websites which they search through, when key words are entered.

An other example Many schools , including Cranford Community college, now use electronic registers. These particular databases consents of records for every student in the school for mainly attendance both at school and lessons. More example are in the next section.

Daily Life Uses 

Online database

- If you would not use a paper-based database , a telephone number can be easily found and saves time by using the alternative way of finding information , online databases such as yell.co.uk

Electoral roll

The electoral roll is the details over the age 18 kept on local electoral registers . This database inculdes the following information 

• your name
• address
• date of birth[d.o.b]
• national insurance number

When election is imminent , cards are printed every person who is eligible to vote , over 18, . The cards are then sent to their home address. The card must be brought along to the polling station in order to vote.

Police 

The police uses various databases  to help solve crimes and track down criminals . From the record they obtain patterns and trends in crimes and this helps to establish whether a person could be reasonable for a series of crimes or assaults that have occurred .They able to gain more information by co-operating with other police forces .

A Library   

The library stores details of the book information.When you want to know if a book is in stock, you can not only look it up, but you can also check when it is due to be returned.

The database also records details of all the borrowers, what books they currently have borrowed and when they are due back.

The library database could be also be used for other tasks , recording bans and   monitoring use of computers e.c.t .  

Computerized V.S Paper-Based

Computerised	Paper-Based
Can hold a vast amount of data	Limited by physical storage space available
Very fast to find a specific record	Can take a while to manually search through all of the records
Can easily search for a specific criteria e.g. "all of the people who live in Warwick"	Difficult to search for a specific criteria; every record would have to be manually looked at.
Can be used to analyse the data e.g. 'most popular selling item'	Very difficult to analyse the data
Data can be sorted into ascending or descending order on multiple criteria	Difficult to sort data on more than one criteria.
Can easily update or amend a record e.g. customer's address after moving house	Changes have to be done manually. Records can look messy if scribbled out.
Records are stored safely, they are available when needed	Records can be lost or misfiled making it hard to find them
The database can be kept secure by use of passwords	The only security would be locking up the records.
Easy to make a back-up in case of data loss	Difficult to make a back up because every page/card would have to be re-written or photocopied. This means extra storage space is needed.

This table comes from the website `http://www.teach ict.com/ks3/year7/data_handling/miniweb/pg3.htm`

Tables


When talking about tables and also talking about databases we do not mean the table that we eat on I am talking about the table that represents data. Databases store data or information in tables like the one below.

   This image of the table was copied from the website ` http://www.teach-          
ict.com/ks3/year7/data_handling/miniweb/pg4.htm`

This table lets you see all of the records stored in a database. Tables can consist of  plenty records, from a few records to millions for a large organisation database.

Records

As you may have picked up by now tables are a great source of information.Tables contain loads of records.
An actual record means a particular piece of information about one person or thing.

In the table below, all of the information that is provided is about each cartoon character is stored in a `row` or `record` .


    Image copied from `http://www.teach-ict.com/ks3/year7/data_handling/miniweb/pg5.htm`


Fields 


Each table is made up of lots of records

A record is created from individual pieces of information these bits of information are called fields.
So a field ,when talking about databases, is not where you can play football it is a piece of data about one thing or person

Image obtained from `http://www.teach-ict.com/ks3/year7/data_handling/miniweb/pg6.htm`.


Data Types

When setting up a database , one key element is to chose what data type which you will use for each field.
Data type is what type of text is allowed to be entered.

some of the most common data types the follwing :

Alphanumeric or text

This lets you type in text , numbers and symbols

example

First name: Max

Surname:  smith

Address: 48, High Street

Postcode: CV34 5TR

Car Registration : EP05 6TY

Telephone number: 01926 123457

Numbers

This allows a whole number or a decimal number.Only numbers may be entered
on this data type no symbols or letters are allowed to typed .

Example

15

23.46


Currency

This enables the user to automatically format the data to have a currency symbol , £ ,$ or a euro sign.

Example

$5.99

£10.40

Date/Time

This restricts the user to entry to 1-31 for day[ but also 28 or 30 in appropriate months] and 1-12 for month.
The particular data type is automatically check if the date is real, for example, it would not allow 31/02/06 to be typed.

It also formats the dates into long medium and short date/time .

Example

Long Date : 8 February 2007

Medium Date : 8-Feb-07

Short Date : 08/02/07

Long Time : 19:30:08

Medium Time : 07:30 PM

Short Time : 19:30


Autonumber

This type of data will automatically increase by 1 as the records are added to the chosen database.

Example

1:1

1:2

1:3

1:4

Yes/No,Boolean,Logical

This setting is often associate to as different things you may listened to it as `logic`,  or `boolean` or yes/ no .
This datatype , means that it is restricted to one option of two choices.

Example

Male/Female

Yes/No

On/Off

Hot/Cold

It might be difficult to understand how the data types were used ,to help you visualise  I have copied an image from `http://www.teach-ict.com/ks3/year7/data_handling/miniweb/pg6.htm` .

Evaluation

Evaluation

I am very happy with my website as the final product was exactly as I

planned. I aimed to bring an enjoyable, colourful and educational

presentation.

I hope you notice the amount of effort put in to this, particularly the 

content and animation. There are small quirks that I have included for 

effect.

One other element that I am proud of is the customized title it was a 

`wicked`turn out as it gave the website the website orginalaty.

I found arranging the pictures and animation easy but structuring the

content was challenging.

My favourite part was seeing the final outcome and family reaction to it. 

I would be more resourceful with my time if I did the project again and 

creating better effects, for example replacing the moving skull with a

witch silhouette possibly moving across the screen on her broomstick. 

The images I used for the project were different ranging from scary 

witches to the typical TV witch. The videos I used were amusing and 

educational. Also the pictures were relevant, for example the page 

`witch revealed` had a picture of a witch in distress . This picture is 

trying to annotate that `why has everybody stop believing in witches`

[ you have to see the website to know what I am talking about].

I ensured that the text was relevant to the subject and tried

to make sure that the reader was kept interested throughout. 

As far as the layout is concerned I made an effort to try and keep it 

simple and not make the page look messy and overworked. The colour 

scheme was important due to the subject. Red and black were the primary

colours of my project. 

For the finshed assignment,I think the website`s content was deatiled, 

interesting and knowledgeble, overall the task outcome was good and I am 

happy the way it turned at in the end.

Wicked Progress

I have made a lot progress so far and is just putting  the finishing  touches on the website.

I have added a  2 blood dripping animation , I have flipped one and stretched them across the top of the of the page to make it look like it is one big blood dripping affect.I made the animations completely in perfect sync.  

I have put the information[ in my own words] from a collected series 

of websites saved in my favourites. 

The moving skull was a great success as this added a more evil look on my website.The menu which allows easy access  to any of my pages.

The video  collection was a nightmare in real life . It took me for ever to figure out how to add more than one video together [ in a collection ] . I thought I would have put them all separately and therefore make the page look unprofessional and  not organised.But in the end I found the way to make the video in one section .

The pictures were so `wicked` as I put them all in a animated gallery it kept going in a constantly although it was really difficult to get I tried to search it , I asked my friends, So I figured it out by experimenting .

It just shows shows that with a lot of effort you can do any task.

Wix

This week I had made some ajustments like editing the apperance of the scroolbar I made it a witches broomstick to match the theme also be more creative with my desighn and effects of my websites . I have finfished the information and now working on the effects and desighn. I also added a  `wicked photot garelly`.I added the scroolbar by  asking an other student . The broomstick idea was my orginall idea [ to add an image to the scroolbar].

I made my one coztimized title by taking a screen shot add adding sybols [ siloute of a witch ridding a broom stick] so that is how I made my coztimized title.

I aslo made a cool video page called `wicked video`s ` It is a collected selections of witch videos to please the viewer an example of this is clip from the wizard of oz when the witch melts when water comes in touch with her.

wix

Using Wix was difficult but I managed to overcome challenges , but sometimes it is really frustrating.
 For example I typed in ` can you change the colour of the frame in wix` the answer I had read was no but I later on discovered that you can change the frame colour ,as I experimented, so that messed up all my plans and i have to go back and change everything .  I learnt that all the answer is not always easy to find.

I`m now focusing on the information and the basic design of the website. The content that is going to be on my website is the following

• Witch Trails
• Why did people believe in witches ?
• Wicked videos
• a gallery

I`m still experimenting on the effects,  layout, design , I`m  asking my friends for cool affects to make the presentation look more sinister.

Cool stuff , like adding sound effect are really difficult to find how to do it I`m still not sure how to add sound hopefully i will get it.

Any ways I`m thinking of including a quiz to see how much you learned from the website and a rating button to see how useful they think the website was to them.But I am still doubting the idea because it may make the website less professional .

I have added some cool effects like tint this option can make any object on the screen change colour to want you would like it to be, an example would be the effect splatter this effect was originally brown but i used the tint button to change the colour of it to make it red for gore effect. I found this tip really useful and helpful.

witch websites

I'm building a website about witches and I don't know how to build a website but I`m slolwy geting there the techquies I have learned to put images into my websites by expermiting e.g pressing different buttons I have also put in my title which was difficult but I managed it. Learnig different techniques was difficult but i could do it with the help of youtube watching these videos helped me with the foundation of my website [ about wichtes ] I have also used the internet to search how to do stuff . Finding the right image was a nightmare and finding the websites to help out was even more difficult . I have managed to finish off my home page . next I going to find how to make videos.