As a web programming language, one of PHP’s strengths traditionally has been to make it easy to write scripts that access databases so that you can create dynamic web pages that incorporate database content. This is important when you want to provide visitors with information that is always up-to-date, without hand tweaking a lot of static HTML pages. However, although PHP is easy to use, it includes no general-purpose database access interface. Instead it has a number of specialized ones that take the form of separate sets of functions for each database system. There is one set for MySQL, another for InterBase, and another for PostgreSQL—and others as well.
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Businesses currently face the daily challenge of managing content efficiently. These businesses are being flooded with information from web Content Management Systems (CMS) that present an all-too-simple picture. Instead, content management systems should solve the problem of turning content into information and information into knowledge.

Content Management Systems are not just a product or a technology. CMS is defined as a generic term which refers to a wide range of processes that underpin the “next-generation” of medium to large-scale websites. Content management is a process which deals with the creation, storage, modification, retrieval and display of data or content.
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The combination of evolving ICT standards that increase the interoperability between applications and the ever-increasing need for a more seamless access to and exchange of information is a major driver in the OECD ICT strategy. This paper describes the role and use of web services in the context of recent developments at the OECD to improve the accessibility of statistical information. It follows up on a paper presented at the 2002 ISIS meeting about “Improving Access to Statistical Information at OECD in Response to Users’ Requirements” and describes a technology framework – called “dot.STAT” – that has been devised for the implementation of applications that enable easy access to certain OECD reference data. The concepts outlined in this paper have been developed in close collaboration with the Statistics Directorate, specialised OECD-internal groups and task forces 2, as well as members of the SDMX Consortium3.
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A Word About Secure Database Access
Unfortunately, this database access code exhibits insecurities of its own. For example, you should never use the sa account (or an equivalent) to access databases from Web applications. Instead, use weak accounts that lack permission to drop tables, insert, update, and delete records, and the like. In addition, you should use stored procedures or parameterized commands in lieu of dynamic SQL commands for added protection against malicious input parameters. Finally, consider encrypting database connection strings to minimize the risk of information disclosure if your source code falls into the wrong hands. And note that truly paranoid ASP.NET programmers encrypt connection strings and store them in ACLed registry keys. When it comes to Web security, a little paranoia can be a good thing.
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This WEPP software consists of an erosion prediction model (WEPP) written in the Fortran programming language, a climate generator program (CLIGEN) also written in the Fortran programming language, and a Windows interface (WEPPWIN) written in the Visual C++ programming language. The interface accesses databases, organizes WEPP and CLIGEN simulations, creates all necessary input files for WEPP and CLIGEN, and executes the Fortran models when necessary. The interface also accesses and processes output information from the Fortran models for display and access by the user.
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Google Earth™ is Google’s satellite imagery-based mapping product that combines global coverage of imagery with new navigational features including integrated Google search capabilities. It is based on technology from Keyhole, a company acquired by Google in October 2004. Google Earth is a broadband mapping tool that enables users to fly from space to street level views to find geographic information, and to explore places around the world.
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Tagging is an important way for users to succinctly describe the content they upload to the Internet. However, most tag-suggestion systems recommend words that are highly correlated with the existing tag set, and thus add little information to a user’s contribution. This paper describes a means to determine the ambiguity of a set of (user-contributed) tags and suggests new tags that disambiguate the original tags. We introduce a probabilistic framework that allows us to find two tags that appear in different contexts but are both likely to co-occur with the original tag set. If such tags can be found, the current description is considered “ambiguous” and the two tags are recommended to the user for further clarification. In contrast to previous work, we only query the user when information is most needed and good suggestions are available. We verify the efficacy of our approach using geographical, temporal and semantic metadata, and a user study. We built our system using statistics from a large (100M) database of images and their tags.
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Presenting compelling search results depends critically on understanding what is there to be presented on the first place. Given that the current generation of search engines have a very limited understanding of the query entered by the user, the content returned as a result and the relationship of the two, the opportunities for customizing search results have been limited.
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