SQL

Using Teradata SQL: Validating a UK Postcode

This one came about because a set of data I was dealing with had UK postcodes in it. The data came in from a whole variety of sources, and as such, was not very good in quality terms. The system that the data was going to, on the other hand

Using "fait accompli" as a tool is a double edged sword ...

When you are dealing with committees, they can be very frustrating. It can sometimes seem that it takes an age to get anything done. You have to have meetings, present findings, discuss results and possible out comes, reach a consensus or at least majority. Then things happen. The temptation is

Gardening

A gardening update and catching rain

Just realised I haven't done a gardening update in a while. We didn't do much planting last summer - a combination of events, but with a bit more time this summer we're hoping to get more done. Anyway the garden now looks like this

Blogging

Updating your Blog-In-A-Box system to allow themes and plugins to be installed

I have a home blog that's currently hosted on a Raspberry Pi 3 using Automattic's Blog-In-A-Box [https://inabox.blog] WordPress system. So far I've only come across one limitation. When I tried to install a new theme, I was promoted for an FTP user-id

Horses

#HorseSense - Why we always close gates …

Horse people have a high degree of paranoia, and are almost obsessively compulsive about certain things - one of those is always closing gates after you. There are very good reasons for this as a friend of ours discovered this weekend. She took her horse down to the fields through

Dark Data

Dark Data Icons

A set of icons that can be used to denote the different types of dark data.

Dark Data

Gartner's definition of Dark Data

Should dark data be defined as Gartner do that it's data your not using, or is it really data you don't have but can see the effect it's having.

Big Data

Is Big Data & Hyper-Targeting the new Atomic Bomb of Politics?

A friend recently posted an article on Facebook that provides a possible insight on the recent shock vote on Brexit and the election of President Trump in the US. The Data That Turn The World Upside Down [http://motherboard.vice.com/read/big-data-cambridge-analytica-brexit-trump] It's a fasicinating discussion on

Data Science

What is Dark Data?

Dark data is all around us, unseen and unused. Data Science has many buzzwords associated with it: big data, Hadoop, Visualization, machine learning ... to mention but a few. One of the most recent to trend is that of dark data. So what is dark data ? > Simply put, it'

I'm now an Irish Citizen

Well, as well as being a British citizen … and a New Zealand citizen … I'm now an Irish citizen as well. OK, I know I'm a bit unusual – in many ways :-). I was born of an English mother and a New Zealand father in the UK

Productivity

Trello - turning Gold into ...what?

Update: Kudos to the Trello team - they've listened to the feedback and are reversing the latest update to give the Gold customers back their functionality. We all know the story of Midas, who turned everything he touched into gold. In a modern twist to a classic story,

Life

Don't pre-judge, and always give people a change to explain.

A friend posted a link to this on Facebook Father Takes Controversial Picture With Sick Baby In The Shower [http://www.littlethings.com/father-takes-controversial-picture-with-sick-baby-in-the-shower/?utm_source=spots&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=shock] . The gist of it is that a mother took a picture of her sick child

Technology

A jewel in the UK technology crown is being sold.

It's been confirmed today that the UK technology firm ARM Holdings is to be bought by Japan's Softbank for £24bn ($32bn). That they offered 50% more than the market valuation of ARM tells you how valuable they see this company as. ARM processors crop up in

Using... & How To's

Using Windows 7: How to prevent updates on shutdown

One of the big problems I have with Windows is when you shut it down it automatically installs any outstanding updates. On a normal day this is just annoying, but sometimes it is essential you get the machine shutdown as quickly as possible and, by default, Windows gives you no

Life

Why you need to seen as much of the picture as possible

I was reminded of a TV advert that The Guardian newspaper ran back in 1986 during a conversation on Facebook today. It was in three sections. The first showed a skinhead in combat trousers and Doc Martens suddenly start to run away from a car towards the camera. The second

Life

Should I stay, or should I go …

… or 60 seconds to change how you think about the referendum on the 23rd You will hear any number of predictions on what will happen if we vote to leave the EU on the 23rd. Whether they are good or bad depends on who you listen to. Should I stay,

Life Style

Another day, another diet ...

Woke up this morning to yet another report saying that everything we've been told about food is wrong. This one says that avoiding high fat foods is now wrong. Official advice on low-fat diet and cholesterol is wrong, says health charity [http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/may/

Gardening

Compost Bins Lids - Part 2

Managed to get more work done on the compost bins this weekend. It's getting important to get as much done as possible now. Come October we effectively lose half the weekend as we support a local horse club and their activities run on Sundays. Battening up the lids

Gardening

Compost bin lids

This week we're building lids for the compost bins to keep the weather off the compost - but ironically inclement weather stopped us from completing them this weekend :-) It wasn't much to be honest, but even drizzle isn't a good idea when your

Marketing

The art of being subtle, or how to celebrate the longest ruling British Monarch with style

You don't normally think of Google as being particularly subtle. Minimalist, definitely, but not subtle. And yet, that is exactly what they have been today. Look at the screen shot above, notice anything out of the ordinary? The longest serving British Monarh Today, 9th Sept 2015, Queen Elizabeth

Gardening

Putting fronts on the composting bins

Spent a very pleasant Sunday afternoon working on the composting bins. It's nice to be able to make at least some progress on them each week, it stops the project stagnating. This week's target was to get the bins squared up and get the front cladding

Life

UK Knife Law - Pocket Knives, Locking Knives and Multi-tools

Is it legal to carry a multi-tool in public in the UK? That depends if it has a locking knife blade or not. We explain the law in detail.

SQL

Using Teradata SQL: Create a table from another table or select statement

OK, this one is fairly basic for anyone who regularly uses SQL, but it's a neat trick if you're not familiar with it. Normally when you create a table you have to specify all the fields and their formats in the CREATE statement. Then you populate

SQL

Using Teradata SQL: How to find the first or last record in a sequence

If your reading a lot of records from a database and you need to find the first or last record in a sequence, you can do this in MS SQL by using TOP 1, or in MySQL by using LIMIT 1. QUALIFY OVER PARTITION But TOP and LIMIT don'

Using... & How To's

The "Using ..." posts — or how-to do something useful

In this blog you'll find a whole series of posts that come under the collective heading of Using [https://www.muddydogs.life/tag/using/] whatever. Where whatever might be Excel, or SQL or Tableau, etc. I think most people would call them How-To's. So why'