• En informática, un campo es un espacio de almacenamiento para un dato en particular. En las bases de datos, un campo es la mínima unidad de información a la que se puede acceder; un campo o un conjunto de ellos forman un registro, donde pueden existir campos en blanco, siendo éste un error del sistema. En las hojas de cálculo los campos son llamados celdas.

• La mayoría de los campos tienen atributos asociados a ellos. Por ejemplo, algunos campos son numéricos mientras otros almacenan texto, también varía el tamaño de estos. Adicionalmente, cada campo tiene un nombre.

• El registro del sistema, o registro de Windows, es una base de datos que almacena las configuraciones y opciones del sistema operativo Microsoft Windows en sus versiones de 32 bits, 64 bits y Windows

Mobile.• Contiene información y configuraciones de todo el hardware,

software, usuarios, y preferencias del PC. Si un usuario hace cambios en las configuraciones del "Panel de control", en las asociaciones de ficheros, en las políticas del sistema o en el

software instalado, los cambios son reflejados y almacenados en el registro.

• El Registro se almacena en varios ficheros que, dependiendo de la versión de Windows, se ubican en diferentes lugares dentro del

sistema local, excepto NTuser (o archivo de usuario), que puede ser ubicado en otra máquina para permitir perfiles móviles.

• El campo clave es único para cada registro, como el número de cédula de cada persona. De esa forma, al colocar algún Nº de Cédula te aparecerá la persona que buscas.

Teóricamente, el campo clave no se puede repetir. De esa forma, podemos garantizar que no estamos repitiendo a alguien y podemos usar ese número para vincularlo con otras tablas que contengan relación a esa persona o registro.

• Un motor de búsqueda es un sistema informático que indexa archivos almacenados en servidores web gracias a su «spider» (o Web crawler). Un ejemplo son los buscadores de Internet (algunos buscan sólo en la Web pero otros buscan además en noticias, servicios como Gopher, FTP, etc.) cuando se pide información sobre algún tema. Las búsquedas se hacen con palabras clave o con árboles jerárquicos por temas; el resultado de la búsqueda es un listado de direcciones Web en los que se mencionan temas relacionados con las palabras clave buscadas.

• Data integrity means that every piece of information that should be identical, even if it is copied to different places, also is identical in fact. The same piece of information can be distributed and kept in different places at the same time: this is called redundant information. 100% integrity is vital, double, triple, or even higher levels of redundancy is much less of a problem.

• You usually use two application pages to update data in a database:

• An update form • An update action page • You can create an update form with cfform tags

or HTML form tags. The update form calls an update action page, which can contain either a cfupdate tag or a cfquery tag with a SQL UPDATE statement. The update action page should also contain a message for the end user that reports on the update completion.

• A database is an integrated collection of related data that represents certain entities

and the relationships between those entities.

• Relational databases are currently the predominate choice in storing financial records, manufacturing and logistical

information, personnel data and much more.

• Paper files is a way of organizing is paper that comes from everywhere: the mail, work papers, school papers, tax forms and even the children's

artwork. We know we have to organize these papers somehow, but the task may seem to be

overwhelming. A few guidelines can help anyone apply their paper "situation" into a more

organized system of paper files, where they can actually find something when they need it.

• Electronic filing or e-filing is a method of filing court documents that uses an electronic

format rather than a traditional paper format. Parties convert their documents into the file format designated by the court and file their

documents via email or over the Internet.

• Simple searches with one Boolean operator• Imagine that you need to find several books about jazz or blues music for a class assignment.

To get an overview of what is available before focusing on some aspect of jazz or blues music,

you perform three Keyword searches in an index to periodicals, such as RILM Abstracts of Music

Literature.

• jazz AND blues This search finds articles that compare jazz

and blues. AND always narrows a search.

• This search locates articles that are about either jazz or blues, or that compare both forms of music.

• Every record in the jazz or blues set contains at least one of the search terms jazz or blues. 9 records that contain both terms appear where the sets overlap.

• These search results demonstrate that you should use OR if you want to retrieve either this term or that term. (Of course, you can OR more than two terms together.) OR always broadens a search.

• NOT eliminates all catalog records that contain the term preceded by NOT, but it is a useful tool when a search word has several unrelated meanings. You also can use NOT to exclude some commonly discussed aspect of a subject.

• For example, if you are doing a term paper on the epic poem Beowulf, and you keep getting titles about Linux Beowulf Clusters in computing, you could tighten up your search by using NOT or AND NOT. In the library catalog, you could use this subject search to eliminate books about Linux or computing. beowulf and not (linux or computing)

• A database or search engine processes your search terms from left to right, but it processes all the Boolean AND operators BEFORE processing any Boolean OR operators. To change this order, group synonyms (or terms that belong together) with parentheses. Anything enclosed in parentheses is evaluated first. To see how this works, compare the two hypothetical library catalog searches below:

• lacrosse or soccer and history• Retrieves about 80 items

Combines soccer and historyRetrieves all books about lacrosseThis is not what you wanted!

• (lacrosse or soccer) and history• Retrieves about 60 items

Combines lacrosse or soccer"ANDs" those results with historyThis is exactly what you wanted!

• Of course, you can use more than one OR in a search, as in: (tobacco or smoking) and (cancer or health)

• If you want to search for part of a word or a whole word that may have several endings, use a "wildcard," commonly an asterisk (*), though some search engines use other symbols. It will improve search results and save you time. For example:

• To Find:• Use:• university or universities• universit*• legislate, legislates, legislator, legislators, legislation, or legislating• legislat*•

•

A database is organized through a collection of information stored on to a computer or a CD drive or anything that is portable such as a memory stick and are arranged in a table of columns or rows. A spreadsheet is a table of values which are shown through rows and columns that allows the user to make a formula or insert a graph or place numerical values for necessary purposes.By the definition of these two words we can clearly see why transferring a database upon a spreadsheet has its advantages.

• A database only stores information and therefore might be hard to identify what is what or have a simple understanding what the database is trying to show. For example a spreadsheet can be more useful than a database to show or organize presentations. If a person showed a slide with numbers in no particular order, people will not understand what is going on but with a spreadsheet, we can have a better understanding as we can organize the data with graphs or tables. Another disadvantage with a database is that it cannot make graphs or tables it is only used for storage and therefore database in effect are somewhat limited in what it has to offer.

• Generally, data mining (sometimes called data or knowledge discovery) is the process of analyzing data from different perspectives and summarizing it into useful information - information that can be used to increase revenue, cuts costs, or both. Data mining software is one of a number of analytical tools for analyzing data. It allows users to analyze data from many different dimensions or angles, categorize it, and summarize the relationships identified. Technically, data mining is the process of finding correlations or patterns among dozens of fields in large relational databases.

• Data are any facts, numbers, or text that can be processed by a computer. Today, organizations are accumulating vast and growing amounts of data in different formats and different databases. This includes:

• operational or transactional data such as, sales, cost, inventory, payroll, and accounting

• nonoperational data, such as industry sales, forecast data, and macro economic data

• meta data - data about the data itself, such as logical database design or data dictionary definitions

•Dramatic advances in data capture, processing power, data transmission, and storage capabilities are enabling organizations to integrate their various databases into data warehouses. Data warehousing is defined as a process of centralized data management and retrieval. Data warehousing, like data mining, is a relatively new term although the concept itself has been around for years.

•Data warehousing represents an ideal vision of maintaining a central repository of all organizational data. Centralization of data is needed to maximize user access and analysis. Dramatic technological advances are making this vision a reality for many companies. And, equally dramatic advances in data analysis software are allowing users to access this data freely. The data analysis software is what supports data mining.

• Today, data mining applications are available on all size systems for mainframe, client/server, and PC platforms. System prices range from several thousand dollars for the smallest applications up to $1 million a terabyte for the largest. Enterprise-wide applications generally range in size from 10 gigabytes to over 11 terabytes. NCR has the capacity to deliver applications exceeding 100 terabytes. There are two critical technological drivers

-Size and Complexity.-

• Size of the database: the more data being processed and maintained, the more powerful

the system required.

• Query complexity: the more complex the queries and the greater the number of queries

being processed, the more powerful the system required.

• Relational database storage and management technology is adequate for many data mining applications less than 50 gigabytes. However, this infrastructure needs to be significantly enhanced to support larger applications. Some vendors have added extensive indexing capabilities to improve query performance. Others use new hardware architectures such as Massively Parallel Processors (MPP) to achieve order-of-magnitude improvements in query time. For example, MPP systems from NCR link hundreds of high-speed Pentium processors to achieve performance levels exceeding those of the largest supercomputers.

• Data-matching involves bringing together data from different sources and comparing it. Much of the data-matching done by agencies subject to the Privacy Act aims to identify people for further action or investigation. For example, records from different departments are often compared to identify people who are being paid benefits to which they are not entitled or people who are not paying the right amount of tax. Data-matching poses a particular threat to personal privacy because it involves analysing information about large numbers of people without prior cause for suspicion.

• MacA&D and WinA&D both include a built-in report generator. Dozens of standard reports are ready to run on any project.

• The report generator is fully scriptable giving users the ability to create custom reports with full control over the content and format. Reports can include diagrams, tables, requirements, dictionary information and text specifications. Every piece of data in every project document is accessible to the report generator.

• Generated reports normally use HTML for formatting. Anyone with an HTML Browser can view project reports.

• While HTML is the most common formatting language for reports, the report generator is not limited to HTML. Any text-based document can be generated including XML, comma delimited or tab

• a) Crystal Reports

• Crystal Reports (for Visual Studio .NET) is the standard reporting tool for Visual Studio .NET. It brings the ability to create interactive, presentation-quality content; to the .NET platform. Crystal report is an integral part of the Visual Studio .NET environment.

b) Crystal Enterprise Reports

• Crystal Enterprise is a web-based enterprise report management and distribution system. Crystal Enterprise can add value to the existing .NET reporting functionality since it provides a secure, scalable, multi-tier, web-based, reporting solution. With this framework, users throughout the organization, business partners, and customers can access critical information via the web. Some of the main features of Crystal Enterprise are described below.

c) Active Reports• Active Reports for .NET from Data Dynamics can

be used along with the Visual Studio editor to write code in either C# or Visual Basic.NET to generate reports. Active Reports can be viewed in web browsers. Active Report component includes an ASP.NET server control to setup web client viewer options as well as a Windows Forms viewer control that offers split and multi-page views, text-searches, table of contents and a customizable toolbar. Since Active Reports is not the default Visual Studio item, it is wise to have a look at the key features provided by it.

d) SQL Reporting Service SQL Server Reporting Services is a comprehensive

server-based solution that enables the creation, management, and delivery of both traditional, paper-oriented reports and interactive web-based reports. An integrated part of the Microsoft business intelligence framework, Reporting Services combines the data management capabilities of SQL Server and Microsoft Windows Server with familiar and powerful Microsoft Office System applications to deliver real-time information to support daily operations and drive decisions. SQL Server reporting services is strongly integrated with SQL Server. But it doesn't mean that report data source should be SQL Server. It can be Oracle DB2, Informix, and Sybase etc.

e) Comparative Study

• It is nice to have a comparative study of the features of the reporting tools, we have discussed so far. Since Crystal Enterprise focus is more towards enterprise reporting, here we are comparing Active Reports standard, Active Reports Professional, Crystal Reports, and Crystal Reports Developer edition.

• The following table gives a rough idea regarding the advantages and disadvantages of various reporting tools over the other. The comparison doesn't look into the reporting features; instead concentrate more on the .NET support.

- Security-• Security is one of the key points to consider while

architecting a reporting system. Managing security of the data exposed by the reports is a vital part. .NET Framework's robust support for Active Directory (AD) allows developers to easily implement security across the reporting system by applying AD permissions to report files themselves and granting permission to report processing objects only to those groups that should have access to specific data. Then the administration of all security - including the reporting system - can be managed by administering group membership.

• in computer science and mathematics, a sorting algorithm is an algorithm that puts elements of a list in a certain order. The most-used orders are numerical order and lexicographical order. Efficient sorting is important to optimizing the use of other algorithms (such as search and merge algorithms) that require sorted lists to work correctly; it is also often useful for canonicalizing data and for producing human-readable output. More formally, the output must satisfy two conditions:

• The output is in nondecreasing order (each element is no smaller than the previous element according to the desired total order);

• The output is a permutation, or reordering, of the input.

• A database management system (DBMS) is computer software that

manages databases. DBMSes may use any of a variety of database models, such as

the network model or relational model. In large systems, a DBMS allows users and other

software to store and retrieve data in a structured way.

• An SQL JOIN clause combines records from two tables in a database. It creates a set that can be saved as a table or used as is. A JOIN is a means for combining fields from two tables by using values common to each. ANSI standard SQL specifies four types of JOINs: INNER, OUTER, LEFT, and RIGHT. In special cases, a table (base table, view, or joined table) can JOIN to itself in a self-join.

• A programmer writes a JOIN predicate to identify the records for joining. If the evaluated predicate is true the combined record is then produced in the expected format, for example a record set or a temporary table.

•