A round up from my site feeds

Angel's chat with the IKEA bot is a thing of beauty, read it now.

An open source search engine has been anounced.

At long last the mozilla roadmap blog has started. Hopefully this will give us an better idea of the future aims of the Mozilla.org foundation (and maybe get the bloody roadmap updated).

Build a stun gun from a disposable camera.
No Jules, you may not use it on the tube ;)

Everything I've ever wanted to know about databases.

Recently I've been looking into creating my own custom weblogging tool that will let me make some private posts that are invisible to most visitors to site (so that I can talk about work without getting the sack, etc.). So I started having a look at how to store data on computers. Here are the most useful links I've found.
An introduction to databases for the web. Starting form "information .. collected in the .. stories of its older [tribe] members" to how to use basic SQL commands this is by far the best introduction I have found. However it tells you that creating a database from scratch is beyond this tutorial.
A close second was Geek Girls' databasics. She gives a very good step by step guide to creating a useful database in MS Access, in plain English.
The simplest kind of database is basically just an array, with key/value pairs (see php's DBA, for example). The next most complicated is a flat file, i.e. a table with columns of one type of data and rows from individual sources. The most complicated is the Relational Model, which allow multiple related tables.

Database Design

One way to start is to draw all the things you want in your database in a Entity Relationship Diagram. This is part one of a tutorial. You have to pay to receive the rest, i.e. how to turn your ER diagram into a database. That said it is a very good introduction to ER diagramming.
Data Modelling is another introduction to ER diagrams, but goes much further and shows you how to design a relational database from your diagram.
Geek Girls databases from scratch. A practical demonstration of how to turn a single table into multiple tables (a relational database) to prevent data insertion and deletion oddities. Based on a relational database. Once again written in plain English.

419 Eater Scambaiting for fun and profit
Definition of 419 scam and scam baiting