January 17, 2004 Notes
We covered Chapter 14 ("Bad Design - What Not To Do") of Hernandez's book Database Design for Mere Mortals: A Hands-On Guide to Relational Database Design (Addison-Wesley 1997, ISBN 0201694719) War stories of past database debacles--and what we can learn from them--were shared.

February 21, 2004 Notes - guest SIG leader Paul del Rossi
Paul Del Rossi presented his re-design of a client's existing but poorly-designed real estate database in Paradox which Paul is moving into MySQL. Paul fixed the flaws in the database (including poor table structure, redundant fields, and confusing field names) and implemented an excellent and consistent naming convention for Tables, Fields and program variables in his redesign. Each field name had a prefix indicating which table it is from, and a suffix identifying the data type that the field contains. There is one exception: fields with the most common data type, alphanumeric, had no suffix. This was a platform-independent presentation, as the design, structure and naming could be applied in any relational database management system on any platform.

March 27, 2004 Notes - guest SIG leader John Ashmead
The group covered Chapter 15 ("Bending and Breaking the Rules") of Hernandez's book Database Design for Mere Mortals: A Hands-On Guide to Relational Database Design (Addison-Wesley 1997, ISBN 0201694719) under John Ashmead's guidance and discussed what to do next in the SIG. The overwhelming favorite was to use Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL, Second Edition by Kevin Yank, SitePoint Pty Ltd 2003, ISBN 0957921810 as a text while collaborating on real-life database-backed web projects (learning by doing). This will be a joint project with Web Design SIG, in which we will focus on database aspects in Database SIG, whereas Web Design SIG will focus on frontend/web design aspects.

April 17, 2004 Notes
We began getting acquainted with our new text, Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL, Second Edition by Kevin Yank SitePoint Pty Ltd 2003, ISBN 0957921810, chose an initial project to begin with (Notes from the meetings), brainstormed some potential domain names for our database-backed website project, and donated/pooled money to register the new domain name and buy web hosting services. Homework assigned for the May meeting was for members to install PHP and MySQL and for the SIG Leader, Linda Kalb, to register a domain name. For more details go here.

May 15, 2004 Notes
Both new websites were introduced: databasedrivenwebsite.net and databasedrivenwebsite.com. We discussed our experiences in installing PHP and MySQL following the instructions in the text: Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL, Second Edition by Kevin Yank SitePoint Pty Ltd 2003, ISBN 0957921810. Some members had been successful in installing PHP and MySQL and some not. For more details go here.

June 12, 2004 Notes
We discussed PHP and MySQL installation issues for newer members, and then moved on to database installation, focusing on the "playpen" databases and the joke database in Yank's book. Both sites had added a lot of content. Rich Sias was successful in installing a database onto the databasedrivenwebsite.net site and Ouida and Mark were successful in installing a database on the databasedrivenwebsite.com site. Ouida and Mark replicated Yank's joke database exactly, left it up for other members to see it in action, and encourage other members to undertake the same project. They also shared details of their own database projects (library/database of technical books, genealogy database) Rich did something different ("Sanity Savers") and also encourages members to contribute. Both teams shared URLs and admin-level access details with the group. For more details, go here.

July 17, 2004 Notes We met in the Upper Moreland Library Community Room at 109 Park Avenue in Willow Grove. Ouida and Mark showed their now-completed book database on databasedrivenwebsite.com, went through how they set it up and the problems they faced and overcame, focusing mostly on the PHP code used to communicate with the database rather than the MySQL that the database is in. Admittedly, most of the issues and problems were with PHP; the MySQL was very straightforward and posed no problems for the databasedrivenwebsite.com team. Ouida and Mark also shared their favorite books and web resources that they had used in building the web-database (links forthcoming). Then, thanks to the longer format this time, there was also ample time for questions.

August 21, 2004 Notes
We met in the Community Room at Upper Moreland Library at 2:00 PM following Web Design SIG which met from 12:00-2:00 PM. Web Design SIG covered chapter 2 of Yank's book and started Chapter 3 during the last half of their meeting. Then during Database SIG proper Ouida and Mark showed updates and improvements to the databasedrivenwebsite.com site (Macintosh/Unix team) and Rich Sias showed his Sanity Savers database on the databasedrivenwebsite.net site (Windows team). We could not connect to the admin portion of the .net site so there were some behind-the-scenes things Rich could not show us, but hopefully he will be able to do so at the September meeting. For more detail go here.

September 18, 2004 Notes
We had an excellent turnout for the first meeting of the PACS year. Rich Sias showed and discussed the table structure for his Sanity Savers database which is at http://www.databasedrivenwebsite.net/SS/pacs.htm and we discussed security needs of an opt-in members database and future directions of the SIG. When asked what members needed most from the group, the number one response was to see more of the actual code, the specifics of what other members had done in their database-backed website projects.

October 16, 2004 Notes
Guest SIG Leader Rich Sias showed the PHP code and MySQL that he built for his Sanity Savers database, which is at databasedrivenwebsite.net/SS/pacs.htm

November 20, 2004 Notes
Guest SIG leader John Ashmead led a rousing question-and-answer session on issues and difficulties that SIG members were having with their database-backed web projects, focusing on PHP and MySQL, and with databases in general.

December 18, 2004 Notes
The third edition of Kevin Yank's book Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP and MySQL, Sitepoint, October 2004, ISBN 0975240218, was presented and Rich Sias showed more of the code behind his Sanity Savers database, which is at http://www.databasedrivenwebsite.net/SS/pacs.htm

--Linda M. Kalb