http://httpremix.com Dedicated to the craft of professional web development Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:17:02 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Two advanced MySQL tips today:Never use a subquery inside a WHERE field IN(...) list How-to: Update values in a table from a calculation that uses the table's own values, in a single query Let's begin! Never use a subquery inside a WHERE field IN(...) list BAD/SLOW: [sql] SELECT * FORM table1 WHERE datefield IN ... http://httpremix.com/mysql-subqueries-and-inner-joins How fast do your dynamic PHP/MySQL pages load? Answer: probably not fast enough. A truly optimized website should serve pages instantaneously to its visitors. There should be no lag time, even 200 milliseconds of server-side script execution time should be considered a burden worth removing. The keyword for ... http://httpremix.com/page-caching-for-logged-in-users-loading-dynamic-content-with-ajax Everyone knows backups are important, not just for restoring from a system failure, but also for fixing user/admin/developer mistakes. Here's an efficient way to automatically backup files on your Linux/CentOS server using a spare Windows or Linux machine. You should already have a basic grasp of the Linux shell ... http://httpremix.com/automating-server-backups-using-rsync-ssh-cron-on-a-windows-machine Write HTML like it's 1999 – Email clients and web clients such as Gmail love to strip out CSS within <style> tags. For this reason, use inline CSS. Also, using tables to build your newsletters is a safe idea as well, since the float property isn't always supported. ... http://httpremix.com/6-tips-for-sending-bulk-email-newsletters I love databases because I always feel there is a way for retrieving my data in any shape or form I desire. Trying to find the correct syntax can sometimes be frustrating, however. Here are two tricks that have helped me during those special times: Custom "ORDER BY" It's easy ... http://httpremix.com/mysql-order-by-field-group_concat What if you need to grab a string from text, such as the name of the department below: Position #: 08-26 Position: Lab Assistant II Department: Black Mesa Research Facility Status: Full-time Here's a quick way to pick out that string: [PHP] $match = preg_match_all("/Department:(.*)/", strip_tags($body), $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER); $deptName = trim($matches[0][1]); [/PHP] http://httpremix.com/php-parsing-string-from-text There may be a time when a visitor wants to print a page from your website. It's worth spending five minutes to create "printer-friendly" pages using CSS. (Tip: navigate to "Print Preview" on your browser to see how this page looks when printed out.) Some of you ... http://httpremix.com/printer-friendly-pages-with-css How do you write your HTML/CSS? Do you use unordered lists for links? Lots of whitespace in your CSS file? Don't know when to use an id selector or a class selector? Learn how and why to change your coding style. First, let's take a look at ... http://httpremix.com/different-approach-writing-css Here is an example of a default HTML list with no CSS styling: This is what I consider an ugly HTML list. Almost every website incorporates lists. We love to make lists because it chunks data into separate, easy-to-read pieces. There are several problems with the default style of HTML lists: they ... http://httpremix.com/style-perfect-html-lists-ul-li-ol-li A Virtual Private Server is the best hosting solution for any serious website or web developer, next to a dedicated machine. By partitioning a physical server, a hosting provider can offer an inexpensive environment with full root access. This means developers can install whatever custom software their heart desires, as ... http://httpremix.com/virtual-private-servers