An article I wrote for Peachpit Press titled Using an Encrypted Local Database in Adobe AIR was just published at Peachpit’s Web site. In this article I discuss and demonstrate a feature added to Adobe AIR in version 1.5. This addition allows you to securely store data in a database on the client’s computer (previous versions of AIR supported both databases and encrypted local storage, but not encrypted local databases).
Archives For database
I’ve just recently come across a piece of software called Jet Profiler for MySQL. This is a program that runs on Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows (it’s runs on Java), and comes in both a free and commercial version. Jet Profiler for MySQL is a diagnostic tool, used to analyze and report upon your database’s performance, specifically in terms of the queries run, the tables used, and the MySQL users. It also has more advanced capabilities, like reporting upon master/slave relationships, locking, threads, and so forth. One particularly interesting feature is that it doesn’t require any special server configuration; in fact, it doesn’t even need to be installed on the server. You can install the application on your desktop computer, create a new MySQL user on the server, and the software will connect through it. Software like this is another good way to better understand your database and your Web application.
One of the more common MySQL-related questions I get is how to transfer a database from one computer to another, or just how to recreate one in general. There are command-line tools that come with the MySQL server expressly for this purpose (mysqldump and mysqlimport). However, most people prefer to avoid using command-line tools, if they can. You can also use the GUI MySQL Administrator. This application has Backup and Restore options. (I write about the MySQL Administrator in my MySQL, Second Edition (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Later this year I’m going to write an e-commerce with PHP and MySQL book for Peachpit Press. This is a topic that’s often been requested by my readers and one I’m happy to finally address. I have written e-commerce chapters in my PHP 6 and MySQL 5 for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide
UPDATE: I’ve just posted the rough table of contents. My apologies for the delay on this and my sincerest thanks to those interested in the book!
I haven’t formally written about MySQL Workbench in any of my books (I don’t think), but wanted to give it a quick mention here. MySQL Workbench is a visual database design application (an entity-relation/modeling tool) for creating and managing database schemas. It runs on many operating systems and is being released in both free and commercial versions.
If you haven’t used a visual database design tool before, you’ll need to spend some time reading up on it. The application can be used to design and then create new databases or create documentation for existing ones. This kind of software is especially useful if you:
- prefer visual design tools
- may need to create databases on one server, then recreate them on another
- want to package along an excellent resource when turning a site over to a client
MySQL Workbench is currently in an alpha release. That means not all of its features are quite there yet and the documentation will need to be much improved (some of the links on MySQL’s pages seem to be inconsistent). But if you have some spare time, you may want to play with this now. If you don’t have the time, or prefer more developed software, keep the MySQL Workbench in mind for later in the year.
On MySQL’s Web site, you can find links to download the software for Windows and Linux. An alpha version for Mac OS X was released just before Christmas. I didn’t find any obvious links to it on the MySQL Web site, but did find them at this post.
