A few annoyances and design considerations I found:
- Unix servers are case sensitive (for both file names and the MySQL database field names etc). This was a pain when transitioning from my Windows laptop (localhost) to the webserver. I was using Windows to develop since I was using DBQwikSite. I should have just used all lower case!
- Sometimes when copying from Google Docs to PHPMyadmin, the apostrophe wouldn't copy correctly and I would get a MySQL error. I had to retype the apostrophe in PHPMyadmin to fix that one!
- MySQL doesn't have computed fields like Access because it creates redundant data (a database no no). Instead, you can make virtual tables with the VIEW command.
- You can actually reuse the DBQwikSite security script with a little modification. I had made some separate php pages to generate points reports and had to secure those pages. Very nice - can integrate one's own php pages with the DBQwikSite security. I couldn't find any feature in DBQwiksite to import custom pages, so this was a great fix!
- I had to use the same MySQL database for both schools on my free website because I'm not allowed more than one MySQL database on my website. So, the actual database connect would be for the settings on the actual website server, and the DBQwikSite security for users of the database site can be separate. Also, the single MySQL database would have tables from both schools.
- I should make a master document which has the SQL code for create tables and the create views. This would save me time to transfer the MySQL database from one machine to the next. Also, I've been exporting the tables as CSV so that I could re-import the tables on another computer. Exporting CSV files is an easy way to backup a MySQL database (at least for my simple one)!
I really like open source software. I use LibreOffice, InkScape, VUE, Ubuntu Linux and now PHP and MySQL. I know there is a dedicated community of volunteers who make this kind of stuff possible as well as some generous companies like Canonical who finance this stuff. Now, Oracle owns MySQL and I know they're not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts - they can make a buck selling Enterprise versions of MySQL. Open source volunteers are the antithesis of Apple and Steve Jobs. I don't have Apple stuff because I don't like what they stand for.
So, in graduate school I spent a lot of time processing seismic data. Now, I'm processing data again!
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