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SQL SELECT Clause Order Cheat Sheet & Other Opinionated Site Building Tips

Gregory Milby — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:47:13 +0000

Have you ever been building a SQL statement, and tried to remember which order your, “ORDER BY” goes in. This short quick reference saves me some time – it’s not difficult, but if you’re like me, and do not use it everyday – it’s cumbersome to remember.

These are the “mostly used” statements:

FROM (Table to retrieve data from)

WHERE (Row-level filtering) 

GROUP BY (Group specification)

HAVING (Group-level filtering)

ORDER BY (Output sort order)

If anyone is interested, i’ll post the rest of my notes here on SQL(?). The order varies some depending upon use. Another useful item of interest is that the SQL (“mostly-regardless” of the flavor [mysql, mongo, oracle/etc...]), is that they all speak ‘SQL’. That may sound redundant, but it is actually interesting to start discovering the approaches that are implemented that all basically ‘do the same thing’ or ‘place higher priorities on certain operations’.

Once you learn what each flavor of SQL is doing, what their design goal was, it’s interesting to learn you may be using something totally overkill for a simple purpose. In most cases for a small production website, SQL Lite may be perfectly acceptable for lower traffic/connection sites (which are the vast majority of all sites on the web). Some ‘family-type- websites have even been known to use flat-text files.

The downside to using a larger-scale SQL solution is that most people do not use it correctly in the first place. That’s fine to use it, but it’s kind of like driving a NASCAR to the supermarket. Just because you “have and use” more power, doesn’t make it faster for the end client/customer. A basic website (3-10 pages), using Apache, NGINX, Lighttpd (webservers), along with basic HTML(preferably HTML5 + CSS3), and maybe jQuery (if you need some pzazz), is more than enough for the basic website. It’s fast, secure, presentable, and allows the author to maintain their focus (do what they were trying to do in the first place [get their message onto the web]).

If your goal is to see how much horse power you can use – see how flashy and widgetized you can get, then you’re missing the point of web development on the internet. It’s cool to use the latest thing, but it’s cooler to get your message understood. Even if your message is to sell something, save a puppy from being put down, or getting your beliefs/blogging your experiences. If your page loads quickly, is easy to read, is obvious what you expect the reader to ‘get from your web presence’, then you and your web page reader/browser will enjoy a good relationship.

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Why “TAGS” Are So Critical To Improve Your Google Search Ranking

Gregory Milby — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 18:23:29 +0000

Many times it is easier to write 1000 words for an article than it is to create 5 unique words to make the article valuable (/findable) to people who would potentially be looking for it. Using basic formulas, like the ones people use for creating articles, can provide a helpful way to make a summation of tags that will turn out to be useful, and statistically rewarding.

Creating tags is not a magical task, but tag creation is critical if you’re doing any content publishing or blogging. Search engines, plugins, and even crawlers look for instances of the reuse of key terms and index your page/post accordingly. Getting ‘tagged’ can be the difference of your site coming up in search results, and leaving you in the dust. Using some generic logic can help you discern which words to latch on to, which words can help you to get closer to the top of the search results.

One method that is common is to search for the words and phrases that you want to use [inside your search engine of choice]. Place yourself amongst those who you want to be compared against. If you want to be a fine dining result, then find like-minded sites, and study their keyword source – see if it’s pertinent to what you can, factually, offer as a word to ‘be known by’.

Anyone who wants to come up on a page of results needs to tag their site. If you’re using templates, use the meta keywords tags in the head, if you’re using a blogging structure, then take advantage of the seo/keywords/tag features that come default on almost any blog framework. CMS (content management systems) have even incorporated a tagging logic, allowing each page of the system to be able to be crawled, index, and make it a contender for a pertinent search query.

Example of the Meta Keywords tag:

Blogging systems like WordPress, have input boxes on the side, where you can enter keywords, one at a time, called “Post Tags”. The use and common advice is to repeat features that may ‘best describe the point you want to get across’. For this post we chose, “metatag”, “keyword”, “seo”, “example”, “how to”, “html” and “blog”. Just by even stating what my keywords are will increase the ranking of the post (the frequency).

There are different guidelines for each crawler, but as a general rule, you can usually use 10 keywords safely, and up to 25 – each separated by a comma. With this in mind, place (what you feel are) the most critical keywords up in the first 10. Likewise, make your site description short and sweet – usually one sentence. If possible, include your region – even your address if possible.

references: Seomoz | webmarketingnow.com |

Need a “Pick-Me-Up?”

The Who’s Who List Of Streaming Video BIG List Of Links

Gregory Milby — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 05:33:01 +0000

Here’s a list of all the “video-type” sites i could find from a few sources. It’s worth bookmarking just for the sake of finding shows/vlogs that are sometimes hard to find. Some offer full episodes or webcast of events.

Broadcast Networks

Cable networks with full episodes and / or live streams

Show specific full episodes

Independent Internet-only networks

Aggregation sites

Pay Per View

Sports

Special Thanks to geekybit‘s site for the bulk of these links.

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The Top 10 Essential WordPress Plugins Quick Start Updated October 2010

Gregory Milby — Wed, 27 May 2009 17:35:36 +0000

Headspace2
HeadSpace is a powerful all-in-one plugin to manage meta-data and handle a wide range of SEO tasks. With it you can tag your posts, create custom titles and descriptions that improve your page ranking, change the theme or run disabled plugins on specific pages, and a whole lot more.

Google Sitemap Generator
This plugin generates a XML-Sitemap compliant sitemap of your WordPress blog. This format is supported by Ask.com, Google, YAHOO and MSN Search. If you have any intention of using the webmaster tools – you should get this plugin so you can keep your sitemaps current & prevent any hold ups from your site not being current with current tags/etc…

Digg-Digg
This is another program that gives your blog visitor’s the opportunity to make it accessible to share a post in a network that can potentially drive more traffic to your site. The integrate “Digg Button” , “Reddit Me Button” , “Dzone Button” and “Yahoo Buzz Button” Into WordPress Content. Setup screen provided to let user choose where user want to display Digg , Reddit , Dzone and Yahoo Buzz buttons.

Awesomepixgallery
Let’s face it… there isn’t a perfect gallery out there. If it looks good, it’s slow – if it’s ugly is fast and no one wants it anyway. APG is a good compromise between all the features out there. APG does have a superior intergration interface (after you upload pics you have quite a bit of control immediately to place/shape the image).

Email-Users
A plugin for wordpress which allows you to send an email to the registered blog users. Users can send personal emails to each other. Power users can email groups of users and even notify group of users of posts. The best part about this plugin is that you can specify mailing by group, so you only hit the publishers, subscribers/etc…

All in One SEO Pack

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/

http://semperfiwebdesign.com/ I keep going back between this and the headspace2 plugin, both have their advantages. Even though I’m currently on headspace, this is still worth checking out.

Simpler-Contact-Page
Are you tired of all the “bells and whistles” of most WordPress contact forms? Are you exhausted from modifying CSS for hours just to get a contact plugin to display with your theme?
WP-Cache

WP-Cache is an extremely efficient WordPress page caching system to make your site much faster and responsive. It works by caching Worpress pages and storing them in a static file for serving future requests directly from the file rather than loading and compiling the whole PHP code and then building the page from the database. WP-Cache allows to serve hundred of times more pages per second, and to reduce the response time from several tenths of seconds to, supposedly, less than a millisecond.
Google Analytic Plugin

Google Analyticator supports the following features:
Standard Google Analytics tracking support
Provides a widget that can be used to display visitor stat information on the front-end
External link tracking of all links on the page, including links not managed by WordPress
Download link tracking
Support for hiding Administrator visits without effecting Google Analytics’ site overlay feature
Support for any advanced tracking code Google provides
Easily installable only requiring the user knows their UID
Allows code to be placed in the footer to ensure faster load times
Complete control over options; disable any feature if needed

Socialble Bookmarking Plugin
Social bookmarking sites allow your blog visitors to save, catalog, and share interesting pages they find on your website. The Sociable plugin appends links for your readers to use those sites to the end of each of your blog’s posts – making each post as accessible as possible. I’m currently using Digg Digg, but it doesn’t hurt to stay familiar with updates to the social networking sites. Sometimes what one plugin misses – the other will catch.

*Edited on 01October 2010:

A must see plugin for WordPress:

After the Deadline, you will wonder how you’ve lived without it (seriously)… it’s not just a real-time spell checker, it checks language specific usage, grammer and language syntax (comparative dynamics).

Don’t believe me? Give it a try now!

http://www.afterthedeadline.com/download.slp?platform=WordPressAfter the Deadline

The Top 10 Best FREE Image Editors On The Web

Gregory Milby — Sat, 09 May 2009 15:42:45 +0000

There are a lot of free image editors out there if you know which virtual rock to look under.
1. Irfanview has actually been around so long now that it’s a staple in a lot of digital photographers arsenal. It can create html pages of thumbnails on the fly – great for proofs, or quickly delivering the family pictures to impatient relatives & friends. One benefit to Irfanviews longevity is that there a lot of plug-ins for it, and most of them are actually useful.

2. Photobie is one that I recently started using myself… mostly to see if all the plug-ins were as awesome as they seem (so far they are). For a professional, the provided templates may seem ‘beneath them’, but for the other 99% – these templates appear to be useful – at least to inspire creativity if nothing else.

3. Get Paint is one of those editors that you want when you do not want to spend 3 hours getting intimate with the tool set or the logic of how the program works…. it’s simple, direct and does a limited amount of tasks “very well”. A good tool to have on hand for quick photo/pic adjustments.

4. Yes, GIMP has to be on the list. If you haven’t heard of GIMP – I’m speechless. It’s intimidating interface rivals photoshop (yes, it really rivals photoshop for $1200-$1800 less [it's free]). The support, community, and innovative plug-in support is unmatched. If you want to invest time in a tool that will have infinite payoff’s – GIMP is it.

5. Picasa would have to be on the list too. I resisted the google app for many years, but finally caved in once I saw a friend importing over 50 pictures from her digital camera, tagging photos, and choosing/uploading pictures to her online album. It’s not the wicked graphic editor GIMP is, but it’s not meant to be. It’s a good solid vehicle for organizing your photos locally & on the web on a free website. There are permission levels that can be set on web albums, so only authorized people can view the specified albums.

6. VicMan’s Photo Editor is a straight forward editor, I wasn’t able to tell how extensive the support was, but the product worked well – and the twain (scanner/image device) worked much better than my purchased HyperSnap.

7. Photoscape is a great attempt at combining photoshop’ish editor with an old product I used to use by MGI that was basically a bin of effects – which were all good, but way overused by the ‘webmaster’ generation. Yes, there can be tasteful embossing, riveting reversed polarity, and bedazzling beveling without anything blinking…

8. i.Mage is a great paint replacement… it’ll never be a high speed editor, but it’s a good choice if you ever find your resourced peaked, and need to edit something to make a quick change (rotate/touch up a basic shape),

9. Online Image Editor messed with my sense of reality some, but this is a solid little tool if you are trapped like a rat at a remote location, and need to make a change or develop a quick graphic. Defiantly worth bookmarking/xmarking so you can get to the link when you’re on a jobsite.

10. The best for last… Splash Up is when you’re back is against the wall, you need photoshop, but you’re on your friends computer and they don’t have $1200-$1800 dollars to spend on the CS*<--(insert latest version number) master suite either. It's an online app which is key portability, but it also does many of the layering properties that only a high speed locally-installed application like GIMP or PS will handle. I found this application while writing How To Fix Your Sucky Website, and it has stayed bookmarked on my laptop sense.

Best Of The Rest Opensource Image Gallery Software (Part 1?)

Gregory Milby — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:22:16 +0000

There is no doubt that there are a ton of photo gallery scripts out there. When looking for software, it’s easy to fall into the “ooh’s and ah’s” trap. Being mesmerized with features and easily losing track of the original goal or intended use of the gallery. There are gallery applications that literally are their own website – like a Photo Content Management System. Others truly warrant merit and further research because of their usefulness & hopefully their adaptability for multiple applications – as well as – their ability to stand on their own as needed.

Here are my picks for the most versatile PHP gallery scripts. You may be surprised at the findings here as my values are different than the average person who wants to share their pictures. My value is based more-so on the flexibility and adaptability of a gallery script rather than being locked out from customizing it. Gallery scripts are a good asset if you want to show items in a pre-established website/web application and do not want to have to write from scratch. Reusing this code can help deliver an application expediently, but being able to have it resemble the host site is critical – it must be flexible if it is going to be used as “part of another website”.

Server Test Environment: These were tested these on Ubuntu Server (LAMP install) – latest version. Approach to install: Every click and drool wizard feature was attempted – no manual configurations were attempted to ensure the ‘as advertised’ feature would be accurate.

Flexible and adaptable come at a price. Sometimes the only method to add a photo is to ftp it up to the folder (that’s raw/flexible), but it is considered flexible because a script can be written for exisisting application to control how/where a photo is uploaded. So while reading these, keep this in mind. So look for “stand-alone” if having an upload mechnism is a must for you.

You’ll find that most gallery scripts will boast of these features – comments will be limited to the most noticable of these features for each source in this post:

Features:

On-the-fly Thumbnail/Low resolution picture generation
Unlimited Categories and Sub-categories (it uses directories)
Integrated fast text database mode (MySQL also supported if prefered)
Users comments
Rating system
Web/FTP picture upload
Top Rated/Last Commented/Last added pictures pages
Slideshow mode
User level support to protect pictures/directories from unwanted people
EXIF/IPTC metadata support (hot!) (Only found in phpGraphy)
Multilingual support (See TranslatorPage for complete list and status)
Web interface management
Lossless jpeg rotation support (via exiftran/jpegtran)
Video, sound and text files support
Layout/Text very easy to change
Highly configurable (Themes/Templates)
Installation Wizard

phpGraphy

http://www.phpgraphy.org/demo/index.php

phpGraphy did everything it boasted of, and was a snap to setup. This will be one that will be kept around to help the next person that asks for a “quick gallery” install. It’s lightweight, easy to modify (theme/css) – logic was easy to follow, and painless (which is a key feature).

———————————————————————-

Plogger

http://www.plogger.org/demo/

Looks great, hard to integrate into an exisisting site, and install was less than bulletproof, but it worked after the 2nd try. Theme’s were not easy, but for a stand-alone, it’s useful.

———————————————————————-

Simple Picture Gallery Manager

http://spgm.sourceforge.net/spgm/index.php?

As most do, it generates it own thumbnails and has a stripped down – very modern look. Makes this script easy to include into another project if a sub-folder install will work for your circumstance. Ironically, it’s more full-featured than it appears to be (looking at the demo had me believing that this was going to be a very light script). Even has a few themes made specifically for the application available through the SPGM website making it intended to be a stand-alone gallery script.

———————————————————————-

Qdig

http://qdig.sourceforge.net/qdig/qdig-demo2/index-Dark.php

It’s a one-pager script, but it’s quite details for being one page. I’m always leary when a script says, “it will adapt to any server environment, but some settings…. http://qdig.sourceforge.net/Qdig/AboutQdig (details of setup). In my case, setup was a breeze, and it shows well – easily themed, and the flash-like thumbnailing across the bottom made it appear to be more of an application. Regardless, it worked well as promised.

———————————————————————-

bolGallery

http://bolgallery.free.fr/

With some hesitation this was added, but there are just times you need this. If you need something that you can just put a pile of jpeg’s into a folder, and send someone a link – this is the ticket…. There are many times where this is the perfect tool. Want to show someone 340 proofs that you have to individually upload? (No one does!) . Integration was quite easy, but I probably wouldn’t use this as an end user application, but the concept is great for the times you just need to show someone images quickly.

The quantity of findings were unending while searching for opensource gallery scripts. Going through all of these gallery scripts will take time, and the task will be split up into parts. These 5, that I felt were worth mentioning, were the result of going through 50 scripts. Please comment on any other projects you would like to suggest. Part 2 will be coming in the near future.

Blogging and Commenting

TechZ — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 04:23:37 +0000

Does the Bloggers blogging platform affect your commenting?

Yes… yes it does.

For me at least, I particularly have a negative reaction to seeing a blogger using Blogger/etc. What do I not like about them?

Interface:
for the Blogger: It’s a bit of a mess, I didn’t like the ‘new’ Blogger control panel (admin interface) and the old one was just terrible. There are just too many things to fiddle around with in this interface and it feels very unlike Google products, which is a big negative.
for the Reader: Moving around in other blogging platforms isn’t as comfortable as it should be, I often am not able to follow the layouts that these other platforms adopt. It has much to do with the fact that WP has hit upon the best way to do it…and now nothing can compare…tsk!

Commenting: My biggest issue with platforms other than for WP, commenting….why oh why is it so complicated and cumbersome to make a comment. Why on earth would you allow only a Blogger user to comment on your Blog? How narrow-minded an option is that? The captcha option, why aren’t we past that now! Some WP users have the easy question option like “2+4 = ?”I love commenting, it makes blogs so interactive, but non-WP blogs give me a headache to comment. This entire post is basically because of the horrid comment system in other blogging platforms.

Looks: The common problem, they all tend to be MySpace’d blogs, too many shiny objects and glittering doo-dah’s. WP blogs look so darn professional, they are vivid, colorful, easy on the eyes.

These are my personal views, so enjoy whatever platform you use, ~~even if it’s any of those horrible non-WP ones~~, but be sure to check out WordPress.org (self-hosted) & WordPress.com (freely hosted). After trying Blogger (and the new one) and having my own self-hosted WordPress blog, I can say I’m biased towards WP

Originally posted at techzonline.net

Alexa Ranking: What Is It and Why Should You Care?

Aeriff — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 13:36:49 +0000

My fellow readers, to be honest, I haven’t paid much attention to my Alexa rank, but some recent posts around the interweb have prompted me to start thinking about it.

For those who don’t know, your website’s Alexa rank affects the amount of money that advertisers will pay to be shown on your site. The lower the numerical Alexa rank, the more money advertisers are prepared to pay. It’s not all that they will be looking for, but it’s an important factor regardless.

In short: a good Alexa ranking matters. So how do you go about ensuring a good ranking? Well, recently I’ve watched the Alexa ranking of this site get better and better over time so the waiting game is a crucial part of the rank improvement process.

So how do you go about improving your Alexa rank? Here’s a few simple tips to get you started:

Install the Alexa Toolbar
If you install the Alexa toolbar on your own web browser, then every time you view your own site, you register as a hit (and so does everyone else who vists your site with the toolbar installed). If you are an Internet Explorer user you can download it here. If Firefox is your browser of choice don’t feel excluded because you can install the SearchStatus Extension instead.

Encourage others to follow suit
Conformity isn’t such a bad thing in this case; so encourage your friends, fellow webmasters as well as site visitors/blog readers to install the toolbar or the Firefox extension. Give them motivation by placing a link to it on your site. (Hint, hint)

Install Alexa widgets
It seems every site offers a widget for your site these days and Alexa is no exception. Read all about their widgets here. They look something like this:

Use Alexa redirects
Use Alexa Redirects on your website URL. For example: http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?www.forgedeuphoria.com. Replace forgedeuphoria.com with the URL for your website. Leave this redirected URL in blog comments as well as forum signatures. This redirect will only count each unique IP address once a day.

Write or Blog about Alexa
Webmasters and bloggers love to hear about ways to increase their Alexa rank. They’ll link to you and send you targeted traffic (i.e. visitors with the toolbar already installed). This gradually has an effect on your Alexa ranking.

Give people good links
The blogosphere is generally a nice place, so it’s only simple logic that the more times you give people good quality links with good anchor text, the more times you will get the same high quality links in return and hopefully when clicked, will increase your Alexa ranking.

Try Alexa Autosurfs
Do they work? Everyone says maybe for brand new sites with a very poor Alexa rank. Note that there might be problems when you try to use auto surfs alongside contextual ads like Adsense. They aren’t also long term solutions to improving your Alexa Rank so I suggest using this option with caution.

So there are just a few options/tips to increase your Alexa ranking and start moving up in the interweb hierarchy.

Got any other Alexa tips? I’d love to hear them.

Attackr.com » Developer Portal for web designers, developers and programmers

SQL SELECT Clause Order Cheat Sheet & Other Opinionated Site Building Tips

These are the “mostly used” statements:

Related Posts:

Why “TAGS” Are So Critical To Improve Your Google Search Ranking

Related Posts:

The Who’s Who List Of Streaming Video BIG List Of Links

Related Posts:

The Top 10 Essential WordPress Plugins Quick Start Updated October 2010

Related Posts:

The Top 10 Best FREE Image Editors On The Web

Related Posts:

Best Of The Rest Opensource Image Gallery Software (Part 1?)

phpGraphy

Plogger

Simple Picture Gallery Manager

Qdig

bolGallery

Related Posts:

Blogging and Commenting

Related Posts:

Alexa Ranking: What Is It and Why Should You Care?

Related Posts: