DB2 for Mac

É oficial. A versão GRÁTIS do DB2 está disponivel para download para mac.

Acabaram-se as desculpas do não quero outra maquina virtual para correr isso, nem sequer experimento.

Eu sei que sou suspeito para falar já que faço parte da equipa DB2. A análise que vou aqui fazer é muito influenciada pelo meu dia a dia no trabalho mas o que escrevo aqui é a minha opinião pessoal .

A IBM não trabalha no DB2 para pessoas como nós que têm uns sites jeitosos com alguns milhares de hits diários (com sorte). Eles fazem isto para aguentar soluções de escala gigante, algumas com standards pesados em  XML de agências governamentais, financeiras, health-care, etc, que transaccionam quantidades enormes de informação diáriamente. Essas empresas não só tem que minar os dados como fazer queries sobre eles de uma forma bastante intensiva. Estou a falar das maiores empresas americanas, e não o digo decor. Ouvi-o da boca de DBAs da Merrill Lynch, Barclays, ONU, Morgan Stanley, etc.. Que tem eles em comum? Todos eles usam DB2 e estão interessados em usar as funcionalidades XML do produto.

Já agora ninguém confia que seja possivel ter performance em XML certo? Bem a IBM tem pessoas inteligentes (como eu, lol) a trabalhar em tornar isso possivel. Deixo este link para vos aguçar o apetite. Claro que a performance não será a mesma que SQL mas comparado com os parsers xml que andam a usar… eheh. Exprimentem. :P

Como já descrevi o cliente normal do DB2 é facil constactar que não é feito para vender a José, ao Joaquim. Nem sequer a pequena empresa da Josefina. A versão Express-C é gratís para todos por isso mesmo. As limitações são um máximo de 16Gb de ram e 4 processadores na maquina.

Se isto parece razoavel:

DB2 for Mac Download

Depois contem como correu e se precisarem de umas dicas podem sempre entrar em contacto.

Footnote: Para os interessados se estão a desenvolver algo com um standard xml estranho  a probabilidade desse standard ser suportado pela ibm é grande e pode ser consultado aqui.

Well ever since I started working time for my blog has been less. I really dislike that as this little corner gives me a lot of joy not only in the moment of writing but also for the great joy that is sharing information and enabling others to learn new and exciting technologies. That’s one of the things I want to talk about today. The power of sharing.

Last two weeks I was contacted by people (mostly experienced people) that were using either my k-anonimity algorithm or my open source online testing system. The fact that people are using my silly scripts is rewarding enough but the networking opportunities and being a person enabler is really what thrills me the most. It’s pleasant to see people overcome their difficulties, help them learn a new technology and then seeing the final result. I hope to continue receiving your kind emails about my work. I will always have 5 minutes to help.

I think that if you are a blogger but you don’t share what your doing your missing out. Your code will vanish into some CD or will just remain in some folder, buried forever. Let your code live. Let it enable others. Let it grow. In the meantime it will help you get wherever you want. Actually I got another exciting news just for sharing. But unfortunately I cant disclose them just yet. It involves being invited to help writing a free Ruby on Rails book. Sorry, had to say it :) How cool is that?

Actually, the most boring thing about working at large corporation is the fact that you cannot share what you do. It no longer belongs to you and even if it’s ok to share it you have to follow a complex process to get authorization to do so. So no one does! Everybody is waiting to sue so you simply can’t do things that you assume would be ok. Referring a copyright brand without referring that the brand belongs to x can cost the company a significant amount (and your job :P) and they simply can’t risk it. But oh well. The least you can say is that the good things cancel that out.

I have beenworking on DB2 and I’m widely surprised by the quality of the pureXML support and overall behavior of the solution. The lack of advertising and tools that IBM distributes with DB2 doesn’t give you the same amount of trust that other better advertised and with better tools databases do. But when you get down to business you will realize that DB2 and Oracle are on a league of their own. Just talking to the clients will make you realise that they buy because other databases can’t handle the amount of information. And if you do XML, for the next 6 months at least I’m sure that DB2 will be miles ahead. How much longer will it take for companies to realize that storing xml in clobs ain’t probably the best solution? Anwser: Not much…

Oh, final note! I finally picked the theme for my masters thesis. It will be about data mining in xml databases so if you feel like you have a nice tittle suggestion for it just leave it in the comment box. It will be greatly appreciated.

I simply can’t believe that I forgot to post this project in my blog. Anyway if you have to deploy a multiple choice test and you feel like messing arround with Ruby on Rails and DB2 here goes the link.

Open Source Online Testing System (OSOTS)

So what is the travel hat?

It’s simple. It’s the unique hat of power – my precious – that travels all around the world. There are some simple rules. You are expected to try to give the hat as soon as possible, to a good friend in which you trust. That friend is expected to take it to a new city where the hat has never been before. Diversity is a major factor for the hat so it’s supposed to go to new and exciting places every time he travels. If you can you should choose for the diversity of the destination. Once reached that destination the search for a new owner begins.

This is still a alpha version so there are some known issues like the invalid rss feed (aka the nonexistent rss feed, because the stylesheet is still not implemented)

Upcoming Features:

• Does not highlight current location.
• Does not show total miles traveled.
• Does not show total countries visited.
• Does not list the nationalities that held the hat.
• Stylesheet to create the feed from the XML file.
• Administration system with db2 pureXML.
• Improve (aka do some) webdesign.

Follow it’s latest adventures on thetravelhat.com.

O programa DB2 on Campus, que pretende aproximar a comunidade estudantil deste motor de base de dados da IBM, vai visitar Portugal.

Eu estive muito envolvido neste programa sendo distinguido pela IBM pelos meus esforços enquanto um dos primeiros DB2 Ambassadors Portugueses. Dois exemplos:  o desenvolvimento do OSOTS e uma demonstração sobre METS Standard with IBM DB2 Express C using XForms as user-interface and Ruby on Rails as a Rest Web-services.

Foram estes projectos que facilitaram a minha visibilidade junto de alguns IBMers, o que possibilitou que fosse contratado para trabalhar no IBM Watson Research Center em Nova Iorque. Essa é, alias, a única razão pela qual não vou estar presente. Não vou estar em Portugal.

Quem estiver interessado em bases de dados e XML, ou talvez apenas em conhecer outros IBMers, pode/deve dar um salto ao DB2 on Campus. O evento vai ser realizado em duas universidades: Universidade do Minho e Instituto Superior Técnico.

Instituto Superior Técnico (TagusPark)

• Localização
• 29 e 30 de Setembro
• Mais informações [1,2]

Universidade do Minho

• Localização
• 2 e 3 de Outubro
• Mais Informações

Foi lançado hoje a nova versão do IBM Data Studio Developer.

Desde que entrei no DB2 Students Group na condição de embaixador tive o privilégio de aprender e mexer com algumas soluções da IBM. Entre o rol de coisas que me agradaram (não vamos falar de coisas tristes, como o IBM_DB adapter para Ruby que na altura estava bastante desactualizado) foram a possibilidade de usar alojar xml nativamente na base de dados. O pureXML com suporte para XQuery foi algo que usei durante o semestre passado em projectos como o Open Source Online Testing System. O facto da LeFevre ter implementado o Mondrian no DB2 também é um ponto a favor para qualquer maluquinho da segurança dos dados. E todos tiveram a oportunidade de ver que implementei o Mondrian no ultimo semestre no âmbito da unidade curricular de criptografia e segurança de sistemas informáticos.

O Data Studio Developer é uma ferramenta para developers que usam DB2. Entre as novidades da nova versão está o suporte para PureQuery e o facto de usar o mesmo tipo de tecnologia de persistencia que a usada no Project Zero. Continuam interessados? Então podem sacar aqui.

qs = Question.find_by_sql
"select X.* from ots_schema.questions," +
  "XMLTABLE (\'$d/question\' passing document as \"d\" " +
    "COLUMNS question_text VARCHAR(200)" +
    "PATH \'question_text\') as X"

qs.first.question_text.lstrip
=> "Which of the following is the correct syntax to set the DB2COMM variable to TCPIP?\n  "

If DB2 was had a good DB2 driver and a ActivePureXML (or something adapter) it would so f*ckin rock. Just look at the sample. And the dynamic nature of ruby would enable the flexibility of xml documents.

Please IBM please. DB2 for mac and decent support on Ruby. Don’t make me write things like this no more:

# Once again fixing IBM_DB bugs the ugly way
# with_scope anyone?
add_index :'ots_schema.users', :login

or

t.column :document, :xml

Finally we will be able to refactor our ugly code when we have this situation (changeset 9067):

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :channels
end

class Channel < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :network
  belongs_to :user
end

class Group < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :channels
  has_one :network,
    :through => :channels,
    :conditions => ['channels.alive? = ?', true]
end

Another good news is that the RubyForge place for the OTS project was finally approved. So guess I will be doing some work on it this afternoon.

If your working with DB2 on Rails you probably need to check if the xml document is – at least – well formed.

I found a neat plugin called validates-xml that uses REXML to see if documents are well formed.

To install it simply

svn co http://validates-xml.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ validates-xml-read-only

And copy that folder to vendor/plugins.

You can easily integrate schema validation with a validates_xml_with_schema method. But you should use REXML as it cames with the standard ruby bundle since version 1.8.

To use it simply restart your server and

validates_xml :xmldocument

That’s it!

Bem todos os semestres faço um plano de acção do que vou fazer para além de o que é espectável de mim – ir as aulas, fazer os trabalhos, passar nos exames e ler pelo menos um livro de informática – de escolha livre – por mês.

Acredito na valorização pessoal e gosto muito de aprender coisas novas. E acredito que não existe melhor forma de o fazer que com projectos práticos!

Algumas das novidades do último semestre foram ter entrado no centro de apoio ao open-source do departamento de informática, ser eleito IBM DB2 Student Ambassador e ter entrado na melhor rede de bloggers de informática de portugal – prt.sc. Como projecto pessoal escolhi aprender – por sugestão do Ulisses Costa – Ruby & Ruby on Rails.

Dito isto resta uma dúvida: O que aprender este semestre?

Tenho que confessar que ando nas nuvens por terem aceite a minha colaboração no projecto CouchDB do rubyforge.

Como devem saber CouchDB é uma base de dados criada pelo Damien Katz (que trabalha agora na IBM), não relacional, desenvolvida em erlang que tem como objectivo guardar documentos e é RESTful. Os conceitos são excelentes e a forma de abordar o fault-tolerance e problemas de carga são daqueles conceitos que nos deixam a babar mortinhos por experimentar o brinquedo novo. Mas não se fica por aqui. Aconselho a lerem a wiki para terem uma noção do que é – e o que não é – o CouchDB. Só não gosto muito do facto de estar tão ligado a javascript e JSON – o primeiro porque nunca gostei muito de javascript e o segundo porque preferia yaml. Mas vá antes JSON que XML!

Outros tópicos que andam por aqui a passear – sendo que aqui é a minha cabeça – é a vontade de aprender um mínimo de Erlang e continuar o estudo de DB2 para tirar a certificação. Espero que quando acabar este semestre possa olhar para trás e sentir a mesma satisfação que sinto pelo semestre que já passou.

Most rails developers use OS-X. Mostly because rails is built-in the latest release (Leopard) and TextMate offers a great IDE to use with Rails. Some could argue that it also works nicely on Windows but I really believe that Rails ain’t done to be used on a Windows Platform. Many articles and interviews with rails creator DHH second this statement. Rails is easy to develop in OS X and deploy in a Linux distro of your choice.

In my most recent screen-cast I explored an interesting technique of taking advantage of rails RESTful design and DB2 pureXML features to easily create a web-service that could query a relational databases with XML support (like DB2). As you must know DB2 Express-C is distributed freely and offers no limitation to home users/small companies. So it would be awesome to expand ActiveRecord to support xml elements, if a schema was provided to the database.

I’m aware that a pure xml database stategy would be a bad approach but there are situations when it simply makes sense. And in those situations one would profit greatly of two things wich are missing.

• XML Support for ActiveRecord – in construction?
• DB2 for Mac – will this ever exist?

Antonio Cangiano is creating a plugin that revolves around this concepts, but in a DB2 centered perspective. In my opinion it would be best if the rails plugin worked not only for DB2 but for any database adapter with XML support – as long as such is provided.

Let me give you a sample. Imagine that you have a database model for translating you rails application. It could be something like:

Languages

• ID, int
• DOCUMENT, XML

Imagine that the xml file is

<language isoname="pt-PT">
  <hello>Olá</hello>
  <bye>Até a próxima!</bye>
</language>
(...)

If this makes sense in your application then you could easily do something like register your model to observe (see observer design pattern) the session['language'] for changes and, if it’s changed, it would get all the XML for that language – it would fall back to default if such was not available – and create the hash with the values. The problem with this approach – besides making no sense for the internationalization problem! – is that in the observer model you would have to:

Language.find :first

And fetch the whole xml and then process it. If the XML document has 10MB, it would take some time. With XQuery support on ActiveRecord we could simply

Language.find :first,
  :xcondition => ["//language[@isoname==?]",
    session['language']]

Or, if we simply wanted to say hello in many languages – like flickr in their first page – we could simply

Language.find :first, :xcondition => '//hello'

There are just two problems that prevent rails developers from being able to do this kind of things. And those are the lack of XQuery abilities in ActiveRecord and the fact that Mac developers cannot use DB2.

HIGH QUALITY VERSION DOWNLOAD HERE

Well, here is the long promised screen-cast. The amount of topics covered is simply huge. To get you ready for the screen-cast I prepared some other more introductory screen-cast as well as some articles on these subjects. I’m sorry that I don’t have the time to document the REST, but I really advice to invest some time learning it as it’s a very pragmatic way of delivering high quality web services.

I strongly advice you to download this screen-cast from rapidshare as both Youtube and Google Videos quality is really awful. You can download it from here.

This work was really fun to do. So I hope to have the opportunity to develop it further and manage nested rest routes like /mets/1/agents to return the agents of the first submission information package (sip) using some cool DB2 pureXML features. I really feel that with a good plugin to help users take full advantage of DB2 pureXML features and a little of imagination this web-service could be of some use.

I also expect to complete the xforms model as it is not indexing a fileptr to each category when such is selected. I hope to implement this soon enough.

Here are the associated resources I developed:

• [screencast@rapidshare] METS Standard with IBM DB2 Express C using XForms as user-interface and Ruby on Rails as a Rest Web-services

• XForms
• Ruby on Rails Rest Web-Service

And here are the other two screencasts I produced to introduce you to XForms and METS:

• [screen-cast] An easy introduction to METS/XForms (The first part of the screen-cast)
• An easy introduction to METS/XForms
• [accessibility/screen-cast script] An easy introduction to METS/XForms

• [article] Installing IBM Emerging Technologies ToolKit (ETTK) on Eclipse
• [screen-cast] Create a XForms user interface from a schema using Visual XForms Designer
• [article] Some good XForms Resources
• [article] First version of the XForms without METS
• First version of the XForms without METS
  

I also advice you to take a look at this articles. All of them where very helpful to my work.

• Ubuntu work-arround for DB2 Express-C
• Starting with DB2 Express-C
• Solving problem “The database manager shared memory set cannot be allocated”
• Creating database objects & Storing validated XML data

• Ruby and DB2 Guide
• Ruby/Python and DB2 Drivers
• Getting started with DB2 and Ruby on Rails
• IBM_DB Forum

• METS: An overview and Tutorial
• METS Schema Structure Diagram

Peço desculpa a todos os leitores deste blog. O facto de não postar nada aqui a demasiado tempo prende-se com o facto de o mestrado em informática da universidade do minho ser… uma merda.

Passo a explicar:

Soube esta terça-feira o meu calendário de exames. Lá estava presente um um exame dai a 6 dias . Entretanto , como alguns de vocês sabem, quarta-feira estive no ISEP na qualidade de DB2 Ambassador e sábado e domingo tenho compromissos profissionais assumidos anteriores a saida do calendário. Já tive que voltar atrás com a minha palavra em projectos importantes com deadlines neste mês e fazer um sacrifício para acabar outros tinham bastante urgência.

Fiquei assim com dois dias para estudar.

Não compreendo esta falta de respeito e consideração dos docentes pelos alunos. Será que lhes custa entender que são pessoas, como eles, e que como eles também tem os seus próprios projectos e compromissos? É assim tão difícil definir um calendário e stick-with-it? Mas isto no inicio do semestre se fizer o favor! Outro amigos meus tem viagens marcadas para esta altura, já que no próprio calendário escolar existem períodos de férias. Será que alguém se esqueceu disto também?

Com tudo isto resta-me dizer: Foda-se!

E obrigado.

We will post a xForms/METS/DB2 screen-cast in this website soon. To get you prepared for this I advice you to download this firefox plugin and read the following articles:

• Introduction to XForms [part2, part3]
• Use XForms to create your own Sudoku game [part2]
• XForms and Ruby on Rails at the Doctor’s Office (DB2)

In case you are looking for good examples you can visit this wikibook or better yet… Open your console, and create a directory in your home folder. Enter the folder and write this:

svn checkout http://xforms-examples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ xforms-examples-read-only

These are some great samples from Google Code. Believe me I’m saving you time with this advice. You won’t need to spend hours on badly executed examples from companies that are supposed to be building xForms implementations. Outch!?

I just got my first brand new MacBook and, as one would expect, some problems emerged by leaving my usual OS combo (Ubuntu/Windows) for Mac OS X Leopard. I’m still undecided whether to install Ubuntu or use VMWare Fusion to use Linux. As for Microsoft Windows as long as I don’t need to use .NET I don’t think I’ll install it. Not even with the free licenses Microsoft provides University of Minho students.

First I had to decide what to install:

• Firefox
• del.icio.us UNSAFE add-on for Firefox
• Portuguese Dictionary add-on for Firefox
• Pidgin Adium
• Nero Toast Titanium
• Office
• Photoshop
• TextMate
• Ruby on Rails
• Java SDK
• Netbeans
• Glassfish
• GHC
• Erlang
• MacTex
• oXygen
• BookPedia
• DB2 (will IBM make it available for mac anytime soon?)

The question you are probably asking is why Firefox instead of Safari!? Because the damn unsafe add-on for del.icio.us is just that: del.icio.us! I just can’t live without it. Maybe if the guys over there worked the basics of security we could say that it’s both excellent and safe! And don’t say there’s a add-on for Safari as well. I’ll only accept it if the add-on is as good as the one provided by Yahoo.

Now we go for the fun part. The problems and solving them. Your attention please, this is only fun for me when I do it on my computer so it won’t be pleasure if you ask me to fix your computer! Joana this one is for you, I know how your mind thinks.. Almost as badly as mine. Oh well, we are related aren’t we? :\ Please release those crazy Christmas photos to the world! :X

I’ll start with a small OS free tip and then go for the Q/A part. If you are Portuguese like myself you just hate all the results that google gives you from .br domains. Most of the results are overrated and most of the times you just wish that they weren’t there. If this is the case just do your normal search in google but write -br in the end. Just test this, go to google and type governo brasileiro -br. It works ;)

1. How do I get my mouse to behave like a normal one by removing this dreadful acceleration?
   

   Easy. Check Rúben’s blog @ http://blog.0×82.com/2007/12/mac-os-and-usb-mouse.html

2. What’s wrong with the encoding on TextEdit? The automatic descovery does not work and even when I specifically tell him to use this encoding it won’t work. The Where is ISO 8859-15 dilemma.

   Still don’t know. Anyone? If you want to test the bug just do this (from here):

   $ echo é > ~/a.txt
   $ cat ~/a.txt
   é
   Open a.txt with TextEdit and get:
   È

   Cracked it! At least I have a partial fix for Migrating documents from Ubuntu to Mac OS X Leopard:

   cmd + space terminal enter

   {go to the directory where the file is}

   bash$ iconv -f ISO-8859-15 -t UTF-8 {filename} > UTF8-{filename}

   For me it was:

   bash$ iconv -f ISO-8859-15 -t UTF-8 Pam.tex > UTF8-Pam.tex

   And yes PAM is as in Pluggable Authentication Modules. So I have a latex work on that :P

3. Where is type-a-name application? It’s not on the dock.

   Just press cmd + space and type what you are looking for. This is called spotlight. Either this or open Finder and go to applications.

4. Why doesn’t it show my dashboard when I go to the left/whatever corner?

   Have you even configured your mac? Common.. Click the apple on the top left corner and go to System Preferences. Exposé and Spaces. And now that you are there take a look around and configure all the other things that you neglected.

5. This computer is always underlining the words in red. (when the spelling is right :P If not you are a dumbass for asking this!)

   Just press cmd + mouse and change the language. Thanks Nuno Veloso from Apple Tech Team for this tip.

6. How can I see the right mouse button menu?

   crtl + mouseclick

7. PageUp/PageDown!?
   

   fn+ up
   fn + down

If after this you still feel like reading about Mac OS for rookies – like myself – you can check this section in Arun Gupta’s Blog or check this extensive list of Keyboard Shortcuts. Have fun!

Now let’s get back to work, something almost impossible when your doing a report on LaTeX and the encodings are never right.

One final touch: ctrl + alt + cmd + 8. Merry Christmas! :)

I’m really happy to announce that I was selected as featured DB2 Student Ambassador on IBM website. I really would like to thanks Vítor Rodrigues for all the help, for being a my DB2 mentor and most of all a good friend! I also feel obliged to mention the work of the other DB2 Ambassadors that have helped to establish the first Portuguese DB2 Study Group. So Simão, Hélder, João, Nuno and Marcelo thank you :) Finally I would like to thank the support of CeSIUM and CAOS, two students organization that I am a part of and that provided the hardware and know-how that made the site, blog and DB2 server a reality.

I hope that with this many Portuguese students like myself see that your work can be recognized – even by industry leaders like IBM – if you just go the extra mile. So do it! It’s your life, live it to the the fullest.

Para ser grande, sê inteiro: nada
Teu exagera ou exclui.

Sê todo em cada coisa. Põe quanto és
No mínimo que fazes.

Assim em cada lago a lua toda
Brilha, porque alta vive

Ricardo Reis (Fernando Pessoa)

A new version of DB2 Express-C was made available by IBM today. As you might already know DB2 Express-C is a free dataserver without limits on database size or number of users.

We got this news from Antonio Cangiano, a IBM Engineer that likes DB2 and Ruby on Rails. Seems like a nice guy! :P

You won’t find this new version on IBM DB2 Express-C Website, but you can download the Linux Version here and the Windows Version here.Mac version is still not available. This is probably the down side as many of us are waiting for IBM to ship a Express-C DB2 version for Macintosh. Hopefully next time?

I still didn’t tested the new DB2 but according to Antonio

Version 9.5 brings to the table a great deal of new enhancements and features. Among these there is also the reduced amount of memory requirements and the improved efficiency of operations on Linux. Oh and it will also make you rich and more beautiful. I mean, pureXML support has been greatly improved and it is a release that is sure to please many people on both Windows and Linux.

I know the t-shirt looks great. Hopefully Vítor will send me one! :P

Com 31 votos a favor, um agrafador, uma tesoura e uma telefone foi hoje eleita a nova direcção do Centro de Estudantes de Engenharia de Sistemas e Informática da Universidade do Minho. Contra apenas três votos em branco (e um par de sapatilhas).

O seu novo presidente deve andar num dia de sorte já que também hoje foi anunciado como novo IBM Cenas. Parabéns!

Pessoalmente sou membro do CAOS, Centro de Apoio ao Open Source, que também faz parte do CeSIUM. Este é sem dúvida o projecto de informática feito por alunos mais dinâmico e motivante da Universidade do Minho. Espero que, num futuro próximo, sejam muitos os estudantes que possam ganhar com a divulgação e apoio que prestamos na área do software livre. Para já SVNs para membros e um mirror de software livre. Em breve outras novidades, como por exemplo um workshop de LaTeX para iniciantes dado pelo Nuno Veloso e o Ulisses Costa. Já ouvi falar também se fornecer alojamento aos membros (LAMP), com uma razoável quantidade de espaço, gratuitamente. Eu cá espero que seja LAMPr :P

É preciso ter Ruby!

Para finalizar, a todos aqueles que me conhecem como hacker da optimus, sejam bem vindos.

Para tutoriais sobre como hackear a optimus visitem esta página.

Bem como já referi num post anterior sou DB2 Student Ambassador na Universidade do Minho. Acabamos agora de instalar e configurar o blog do projecto. Para já ainda está muito verdinho, mas esperamos que saiam boas coisas daqui. Quando tiver menos sono :P

Vai um leitinho com chocolate? Claaaaro..

[EDIT: Será que colar imans num micro-ondas é boa ideia!?..

E tirei eu 16 no exame de electricidade e magnetismo.. tsc tsc..]