Build Custom Templates for Your Data-Driven Web Sites

Most developers dread dealing with HTML tables and cells to build their Web sites. For one thing, tables make it difficult to modify the site later or to change its appearance. Discover some basic techniques for writing Web sites that you can later re-skin by using templates during the site's initial creation. Also, learn why you should use data-driven techniques for your own Web sites.

Ramirez, Ken. IBM (2008). Articles>Web Design>Databases>SQL

Choosing the Right Database System

The Web-surfing public doesn't really care about flashy-yet-useless technology. They want Web sites that do something for them: provide a service or entertainment; help get a job or a date; check bank account balances, stock prices, interest rates, availability of airline tickets, today's weather ... and so on.

Dice, Richard. Webmonkey (1998). Design>Web Design>Databases>Personalization

Developing with Apache Derby -- Hitting the Trifecta

Along with creating a database schema and populating tables with data, being able to selectively modify data is one of the most important skills necessary for a database developer. This article teaches you how to selectively delete or update data in an existing table and how to modify the structure of an existing table. To perform data modifications on a more complex database schema, you'll learn about embedded subqueries, both scalar and table, with data update and data insert operations. You'll also find out how to delete and modify data in complex schemas using the Apache Derby database.

Brunner, Robert. IBM (2006). Design>Web Design>Server Side Includes>Databases

eRuby: Using Ruby and MySQL for Dynamic Web Pages

In a previous tutorial you learned how to get started using the Ruby language as a web scripting language by embedding it in HTML. You need some type of database connectivity to do the cool dynamic stuff. So here is a tutorial written by Markus Jais on how to connect to a MySQL database using Ruby. I will be updating and editing this tutorial to include more windows instructions where applicable.

Jais, Markus. Hiveminds (2002). Articles>Web Design>Databases>SQL

Everything You Wanted to Know About SQL Injection

If you are a CMS user or web developer then you should know what SQL injection attacks are and how to protect your web applications against them. Hackers are using more SQL based attacks, getting smarter about how to attack a website and using better tools. You have to get a good understanding of how their attacks work if you are going to choose the right software and keep your website secure. Here I will review several types of SQL injection attacks and how they occur. Then take a look at what web developers and end users can do to prevent them.

McDade, Carl. Hiveminds (2006). Articles>Web Design>Databases>SQL

The (Free) Script That Saved My Website

I recently purchased a music streaming website, powered by MySQL database full of links to the musical content. In order to transfer the website to my hosting I was going to need to import the database. Unfortunately, I host with GoDaddy.com. GoDaddy offers phpMyAdmin to control your databases which is a great program but it limits imports to 2MBs. My database was over 70MB. I tried it anyways with my fingers crossed but as expected, it wasn’t going to work.

Haig, Anders. ReEncoded (2008). Articles>Web Design>Databases

Introduction to Databases for Web Developers

Unlike previous versions of data warehouses (people and books), that might be considered the australopithecines of the database lineage, libraries crossed over into the modern-day species.

Extropia. Design>Web Design>Databases>SQL

Refining Data Tables

Many articles have been written on what is probably the single most ubiquitous interface element within Web applications today: the form. Forms justifiably get a lot of attention because their design is critical to successfully gathering input from users. Registration forms are the gatekeepers to community membership. Checkout forms are how eCommerce vendors close deals. But what goes in must eventually come out, and the information users provide to Web applications often makes its way back to users in the form of tabular data.

Wroblewski, Luke. UXmatters (2006). Design>Web Design>Forms>Databases

Storing Hierarchical Data in a Database

Whether you want to build your own forum, publish the messages from a mailing list on your Website, or write your own CMS: there will be a moment that you'll want to store hierarchical data in a database. And, unless you're using a XML-like database, tables aren't hierarchical; they're just a flat list. You'll have to find a way to translate the hierarchy in a flat file.

Van Tulder, Gijs. SitePoint (2004). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Databases

Transactions in MySQL

Protect your data from crashes and the confusion of multiple user requests with a transaction-capable database.

Greenspan, Jay. Webmonkey (2002). Design>Web Design>Databases>SQL

VB/MySQL.com

An online resource for people developing database-driven web applications using Visual Basic and MySQL.

Hillyer, Mike. VBMySQL.com (2005). Articles>Web Design>Databases>SQL

Why (Almost) Every Web Site Needs an RDBMS

When your Web application reaches a certain size, it needs a good database design behind it. And in fact, this 'certain size' is much smaller than almost every small-site developer thinks. Relational Data Base Management Systems (RDBMSes) need not be restrictive or over-architected, as their bad reputation sometimes brings developers to fear. A bit of thought toward what your site does quickly turns into a sensible schema design, and it is easy to leave open expandable storage mechanisms like a configuration table within an RDBMS back end.

Mertz, David. IBM (2007). Articles>Web Design>Server Side Includes>Databases

Retrieving Data on a SQL Anywhere Server Using AJAX

The article shows how an AJAX call can be made to a resource on the SQL Anywhere Server using stored procedures and web services.

Krishnaswamy, Jayaram. Ajax World (2008). Articles>Web Design>Databases>Ajax

Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Anywhere 11 Integration

Describes how Panorma (now SQL Anywhere 11) is installed as well as the integration features with .NET Framework.

Krishnaswamy, Jayaram. Hodentek (2008). Articles>Web Design>Databases

Data Pager Control [.NET Framework 3.5] in Visual Studio 2008

When query results exceed the display area then you resort to scrolling and wish you had some way to limit the number of results displayed and comfortable to view without scrolling. Paging functionality which provides an answer to this is therefore a much desired feature. The Data Pager Control in Visual Studio 2008 provides this functionality when you create an ASP.NET web form under .NET Framework 3.5. It can be configured automatically using the GUI, or it can be installed manually after installing the ListView. In this article both of them are described. While the number of items displayed in a list can be declaratively coded, it is possible to set it at page load time as well.

Krishnaswamy, Jayaram. Packt (2008). Articles>Web Design>Databases

Providing Intranet Access to Records

Many organisations are attempting to clarify the relationship between the corporate intranet, and their document/records management system. While this is a broader issue of information management with an organisation, there are some short-term activities that can be taken to create a working relationship between these two platforms. This briefing outlines a simple scenario in which the intranet helps staff find key corporate information, while the documents accessed are stored in the document/records management system.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2005). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Databases

Consistency-Preserving Caching of Dynamic Database Content  

With the growing use of dynamic web content generated from relational databases, traditional caching solutions for throughput and latency improvements are ineffective. We describe a middleware layer called Ganesh that reduces the volume of data transmitted without semantic interpretation of queries or results. It achieves this reduction through the use of cryptographic hashing to detect similarities with previous results. These benefits do not require any compromise of the strict consistency semantics provided by the back-end database. Further, Ganesh does not require modifications to applications, web servers, or database servers, and works with closed-source applications and databases. Using two benchmarks representative of dynamic web sites, measurements of our prototype show that it can increase end-to-end throughput by as much as twofold for non-data intensive applications and by as much as tenfold for data intensive ones.

Tolia, Niraj and M. Satyanarayanan. WWW 2007 (2007). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>Databases