Web Design Articles - web design tips and advice

Very Simple Regular Expressions (Starting with Numbers)

If you want to validate strings, text, or whatever it may be, validating with Regular Expression is an easy way to determine that the data is valid. Whether it’s an application or a web-site, you can validate users’ input to ensure it has met all requirements before continuing, or validate your own data.

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Installing IPMITOOLS on Debian or Centos 5

Introduction

Had a dodgy disk playing up in one of our production servers, thought that the quickest way to check it out would be to use the  servers’ Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) interface.  I am running Debian Etch server on a DELL 1850 with a Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) card.

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KND vs Google Analytics

The Problem

A strange query came in the other day from one of our clients. They wanted to know why our custom statistics package was reporting more click throughs to their site than Google Analytics was. The margin of error I may add was in the order of 30:1.

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Apache Redirect vs Rewrite

How to Redirect

Nicki mentioned redirects this morning and that started me thinking (light strains of banjo). There are many ways to change the destination of a URL to another URL depending on language and access to the web server. Let’s look at the implications of some of these methods. [Read more →]

Installing MySQL (OurDelta Build) Replication

Using Replication as Backup

This is just a quick run down on getting replication going as a mild form of backup. It WILL NEVER ever replace a good backup strategy, but it at least ensures that most of your SQL data is in two places.

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MySQL and SQL_MODE Strict and Package Blindness

The many configurations of MySQL Servers can be tricky. A real problem can arise when a development database server is not identical to the production one. Obviously, one can’t cater for every possible deployment environment; especially when you use other ISPs servers.

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Passive/Active FTP and LVS

Introduction

FTP is pretty much taken for granted, and is the often overlooked de-facto method for back-end updates and scripted data transference. In fact, I personally only ever use SFTP and if I need to automate such things I use rsync tunneled through SSH. So, it comes as no surprise that a lot of programmers (read that as developers) use what’s easiest and most prevalent, hence a lot of client applications using the far simpler FTP protocol.

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Stretching the LVM on a VMware Debian Virtual Appliance - live!

Introduction

A common scenario occurs when you have more data to store than the original analysis indicated. How do you expand your storage or shift to a more capable machine without disruption to the site? I always use Logical Volume Manager (LVM), where possible. You never know when you might need to increase the size of your disk.
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Version d7 of MySQL by OurDelta Released

If you are like us and like a good stable build of Debian (Etch 4.0), you may have had trouble locating a recent build of MySQL as a DEB package. Arjen and the kids over at OurDelta have rolled a magic build of MySQL (Release 5.0.67.d7).
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The Website Sales Funnel

Discover the secrets to building a successful website strategy.

 
icon for podpress  The Website Sales Funnel [15:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Downloads 51

eBusiness marketing is no different from marketing a bricks and mortar business, except you have more accurate numbers to work with through every stage of the sales process. My advice at this stage is to just find out some numbers relating to each of those funnel stages as it relates to your e-Business.

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