The week of the 4th of July is a happy week for Americans.  Most families get out for a parade, a fireworks display, a picnic in the park, a movie where Will Smith puts the beat down on a bunch of aliens, or an afternoon at the pool or lake.  We celebrate the contributions of our service men and women. We honor veterans. We ...

In last month's column, ''2012 Might Really Be the End of the World as We Know It,'' I described a number of major developments in the IT industry that are likely to disrupt the life of database professionals everywhere.  I categorize those four disruptors - virtualization, cloud computing, solid state drives (SSD), and advanced ...

My Favorite Magazine There are a lot of reasons why I love The Economist magazine and pay over $100 per year for a subscription. First of all, it summarizes all of its news articles, big and small, in the first 4-5 pages of the magazine. Don't have time to read the entire issue? No problem, how does 20 minutes work for you? Second, it ...