Configuring A General-Purpose Ubuntu 14.04 Server

Over the years I’ve used many different hosting solutions. From shared hosting, a dedicated server, to several VPSes. These all came with a graphical control panel, most often Plesk, from which the server could be administered. The downside was the cost of the licence. So a little while ago I took the plunge and purchased …

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MySQL String to Time Conversion

Did you ever save dates as a string when you were a n00b? OK I’ll admit it, I did! Want to convert them to DATE or DATETIME fields now? Read on!

MySQL Copy a Table Including Attributes

There is more than one way to copy a table in MySQL, but if you want to include column attributes and indexes defined in the original table you’ve got to choose the correct one!

SQL Query To Delete With Join

Usually our SQL queries use JOINs in SELECT queries. But what about if you want to DELETE using a JOIN? It’s not as straightforward.

Essential MySQL Functions

MySQL can do far more than just insert, update and select data. In fact the world’s most popular open source database has a whole host of incredibly useful functions built in that you might never know about until you find one day that you need them – and then you wonder how you coped without them!

How to Choose the Optimal MySQL Data Type

The MySQL relational database management system (RDBMS) supports a wide range of data types. The data type that you chose for your table columns is important because it determines how MySQL will store your data. It’s possible that any one of multiple data types could be used to store a piece of data, but which one is the best or optimal data type to use?