Pete Hindle

As part of my research, I’ve been maintaining a list of Hackerspaces, Medialabs, and other related initiatives. But the problem of storing the data about them is one of storing it in a useful manner – how can I create a relational database of my research?

Thankfully, I have two database experts on hand. My parents – even my mother is known to crack the odd database joke (most often at the expense of Microsoft). And as far as I’m concerned, that’s awesome.

One of the things I was concerned with was putting multiple entries into a single field, and how that would affect my dealing with those entries in the future. And, as soon as I starting thinking that relational databases of my research were a lot more possible, then I started realising that all my research could be put into relational databases.

Of course, I do have some previous experience in databases…

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=146296&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=ffffff&fullscreen=1
Spreadsheets and Databases – An Informal Lecture from petehindle on Vimeo.

(RSS subscribers go here to see the video)

Now I should have to ponder the question of sharing those databases… it’s possible to embed them, of course, in frames, but is that the best way? Ben Fry likes to share his as CSV format, which is a pretty standardised format. We’ll cross that bridge later though: it’s time to start pounding the spreadsheet program first.