Rapid Web News

What are the differences between MyISAM and InnoDB?

Jordan Hall — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:21:47 +0000

Wait… hold on. Firstly, what are MyISAM and InnoDB?

MyISAM and InnoDB are the two commonly used MySQL engines for database tables. MyISAM is the default database engine for new tables created in MySQL 4 and 5.

So, why would I want to use one over the other?

Good question. Perhaps it is best answered by going through the differences between the two database engines.

InnoDB is a more modern database engine than MyISAM, so some could say MyISAM is more reliable due to this, although there is very little evidence to support this.
However! Even though InnoDB is newer, it has much better error recovery. Corrupt tables are (with all hope) quickly restored to a functional state when the InnoDB engine is in use, however recovery of MyISAM powered tables is significantly slower and less reliable. Corrupt MyISAM tables have been known to hold up the starts and restarts of the MySQL daemon.
InnoDB supports foreign keys natively, meaning you can enforce referential integrity at a database level rather than ensuring integrity at the application level.
Insertions and updates in InnoDB utilise row level locking, whilst MyISAM only supports full table locking. This means that mass inserts and updates, MyISAM table access can become significantly slowed down as MySQL has to wait for the database engine to release the lock on the table caused by the insert or update. InnoDB defaults to locking only the rows which are affected by the insert or update query, meaning the rest of the table can still be accessed without waiting for a lock release.
MyISAM supports full-text indexing. This means MyISAM tables can have text fields indexed, which significantly increasing SELECT queries which contain text type fields. The InnoDB table has no support for full-text indexing.

It looks like there is no clear winner?

You’re right. Even though InnoDB is, as said, much more modern, both database engines still have their place in modern database structures. In fact, your choice should be dependant on how you anticipate the table will be used.

So, when would I want to use an InnoDB table?

If data integrity is important to you, multiple related InnoDB tables inherently take care of the data integrity between tables due to their support of foreign keys and enforcement of referencial integrity. Additionally, if your table will be used for intensive write operations (inserts and updates) the InnoDB engine can handle this much better than MyISAM, due to row level locking.

InnoDB does fall down however in the fact that it does utilise more memory than MyISAM and as previously mentioned it lacks full text indexing.

InnoDB sounds great. What need do I have for the MyISAM engine?

You don’t need to deal with referential integrity or building DBMS enforced relationships between tables with MyISAM, simply because the engine does not support it. One could argue this makes MyISAM tables quicker to create and useful for smaller, quicker tasks as well as initial system prototyping.

MyISAM also tends to be faster at many operations, especially large scale SELECT queries returned many results. For tables which will be used mainly for data retrieval with less in the way or inserts or updates, the performance of MyISAM may be a deciding factor. As well as this generalised speed, the MyISAM engine supports full-text indexing, which would be useful for large tables that contain textual data that needs to be fully searched and/or sorted on a regularly basis.

Okay. So, which would you suggest? Give me a quick summary.

InnoDB should be chosen where data is written reguarly and data integrity and security is critical.

MyISAM is the best choice for tables in which there is large amounts of data, especially textual data, that is read from significantly more than written to.

Thanks!

No problem.

HTML 5 Content Tags

Jordan Hall — Fri, 28 May 2010 10:54:14 +0000

HTML 5 introduces several new tags which focus of defining the content of a page in a machine readable fashion.

In today’s websites, if a computer program attempts to pick out a particular part of a page, such as the main article, the sidebar or the top navigation, it would have difficulty. This is because every website structures its HTML differently, and most modern websites use

and tags to surround their content. These tags generally define style. The new HTML 5 tags define content.

Defining content makes websites easier to parse by computer programs. This could benefit accessibility readers for the blind and allow content aggregating systems and ‘mash-up’ websites to easily parse, link to and cite your articles.

Here is a list of some of the HTML 5 tags that define content.

– Defines a main article on a page. Can include cite (citation) and pubdate (publishing date) attributes.
– States content details for a specific section. Can include an open attribute defining whether or not the details within are visible to the end-user.
– States the caption for a figure as defined by the figure tag.
– Usually used to group a set of elements.
– Footer layout element. This is used to contain the footer content of the page, usually contains the website name, author and copyright information.
– Header layout element. This tag is designed to contain the top header of a document, usually showing the website logo, page and/or company title and subtitle.
– A tag used to group together heading tags such as
,
,
and so on.
– A key generation tag which defines a generated (encryption) key that can be associated with a HTML form.
– The tag contains content which is deemed to be a measurement of some sort.
– The
tags stands for navigation and is designed to surround navigation links, such as those present in a sidebar bar or navigational header/footer.
– The
tag defines the title of a
element.
– This tags contains content which is a statement or measurement of time and/or date/time.

More information about HTML 5 tags is available from W3Schools. See the HTML 5 Tag Reference for more details on these tags and the other new tags in HTML 5.

The Nudge (beta)

Jordan Hall — Tue, 18 May 2010 16:05:32 +0000

“The Nudge lets you exchange and manage brief reviews with people you know on everything that’s happening in your City, and beyond.

Let your starting point in choosing anything (from a hotel in San Francisco or a restaurant in London, to a new book or a concert in New York) be the reviews of people you know, whose opinion you trust.

The Nudge is also launching weekly City Editions for London and New York. These can be accessed through the site or subscribed to via email and will combine our favourite member recommendations with some insider knowledge of what’s new and happening in your City each week.

The Nudge will launch over the summer of 2010. If you’d like to be involved as one of the first to have access to the beta version of the site, please let us know by subscribing below.”

Rapid Web is proud to be working with The Nudge, to create a new social networking abstraction, which focuses on the recommendation of consumer products and services, dependant upon a well defined and focused network of local social knowledge.

The Nudge teaser site is now live and contains a custom made web design, a themed blog system and other dynamic contact, such as a form to allow users to sign up for the up and coming beta.

If you are interested in what The Nudge will have to offer in the future, take a look at the new blog post on The Nudge Blog, ‘Why Subscribe to Join the Nudge?‘.

To apply for The Nudge beta, just head to thenudge.com and fill in the ‘Apply for the beta’ form.

Body Sculpt Gravitational Training

Jordan Hall — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:28:41 +0000

Rapid Web is pleased to announce the recent redesign of a long term client’s website, Body Sculpt UK.

The new web design of Body Sculpt UK features an entirely custom web design, templating and integration into both existing and brand new textual content. The new website design also features the use of a dynamic blog system to go alongside the static content of the main site. Links also exist to various social networking and social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter allowing easy promotion of the the Body Sculpt brand.

Body Sculpt UK have been working with us at Rapid Web for several years now, and we are delighted to see them continue to work with us into the new development of their brand and website.

If you’re interested in getting a new web design for your website, feel free to give us a call on 01785 250222 or contact us directly.

Nokia releases first open-source Symbian device

Jordan Hall — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 09:03:49 +0000

I previously posted on how Nokia open-sourced the Symbian mobile operating system and the advantages this will bring to mobile web developers. Nokia has now released their first mobile device based on the open-source version of Symbian, the Nokia N8 phone.

It is the first version of the software since the Symbian foundation announced that it had made its code open source in February.

The Foundation – which includes Nokia, Motorola and Samsung amongst others – gave away the code to developers for free in the hope that it would help speed up the pace of improvements. Any organisation or individual can now use and modify it.

The software in the N8 allows the phone to have multi-touch and multi-tasking, meaning more than one application can be open at any one time.

The device will be Nokia’s flagship smartphone. It can be plugged into home theatres and supports surround sound as well as high-quality video.

Social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, can be displayed on the home screen in a single application.

Lee Williams, executive director of the Symbian Foundation, said he was “stoked” that Nokia had chosen to use the operating system on its phone.

BBC News article

The Nokia N8 will ship in the third quarter of this year, 2010. Hopefully the improved software will bring advantages both for its end-users, and the software ‘app’ and web application developers.

DAT 595 – Faulty McAfee Anti-virus update disables computers

Jordan Hall — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:18:43 +0000

A recent automated update to McAfee Anti-virus software caused the software to mistaken detect a key Windows system program as malicious and move it out of its proper location to a McAfee anti-virus quarantine. Due to the critical nature of the quarantined system program, ‘svchost.com’, affected computers failed to start correctly and were sent into a rebooting loop.

According to Microsoft, the affected file ‘is a generic host process name for services that run from dynamic-link libraries’.

McAfee responded to the problem by withdrawing the definition update and later releasing a clean one. The security giant also published advice on how to manually fix affected computers. The influx of interested parties trying to look up this advice through McAfee’s forum caused the site to become unavailable for a short time on Wednesday evening.

Source: The Register

McAfee had the following to say on the matter.

McAfee is aware that a number of customers have incurred a false positive error due to this release. Corporations who kept a feature called “Scan Processes on Enable” in McAfee VirusScan Enterprise disabled, as it is by default, were not affected.
Our initial investigation indicates that the error can result in moderate to significant issues on systems running Windows XP Service Pack 3.

The faulty update was quickly removed from all McAfee download servers, preventing any further impact on customers. We are not aware of significant impact on consumers.

We recommend the use of ESET Anti-virus products including NOD32 Anti-virus and the Smart Security Suite. If you are interested in a secure, reliable anti-virus and computer security solution for you business, please feel free to contact us for more information.

The Moira Fund

Jordan Hall — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 12:34:40 +0000

The Moira Fund, a grant making charity, has been established in memory of Moira Jones,

…

Following her death, family, friends and colleagues of Moira wished to establish a fund in her memory that would support others who found themselves bereaved through violent death at the hands of another.

Rapid Web have worked with the Moira Fund to produce a custom web design built upon the well established, open-source blogging platform, WordPress. The custom design was integrated into the WordPress system with images provided by the Moira Fund and involved the creation of a custom events administration and management plug-in.

Rapid Web has sponsored The Moria Fund and continues to wish them the very best in all their future fund-raising and support efforts.

To donate or find out more information about The Moria Fund, please visit The Moria Fund website.

Fantastic Specialist Sports Cars

Jordan Hall — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:13:57 +0000

At Rapid Web, we are very happy to announce the launch of the Grinnall Cars website!

Grinnall Cars manufactures specialised sports cars, trikes and kit cars, from the Scorpion III, IV to the BMW 1200CL. I would be lying if I said they did not look like tempting purchases!

For Grinnall Cars, Rapid Web put together a custom web design which was then integrated into a custom developed website. Each product featured on the Grinnall Cars website, has several related information pages and a full dynamic photo gallery.

The Grinnall Cars homepage also features a custom made Flash banner, created by one of our excellent in-house Flash developers and previews several of the top products from Grinnall Cars. The Flash animation features many aesthetically appealing visual effects such as focus blur which compliments the design and provides additional promotional information without overly distracting the end-user.

If you are interested in website design, development or Flash animation development, please feel free to browse our portfolio – Grinnall Cars being one of our newest additions!

If you wish to, please feel to get in contact with us and discuss exactly what you’d like!

Love at First Bite Cakes

Jordan Hall — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 14:37:59 +0000

Here at the Rapid Web offices, we all like cake. Rightly so as well, because cake is fantastic.

On a related note, we’re deliciously happy to announce the launch of the ‘Love at First Bite Cakes’ website.

Here’s a quick snippet from the website describing the personal history of Love at First Bite Cakes.

A lot of people ask me if I’ve been to college to learn my skills, but my training was more traditional… I’ve learnt them through the family business! Just before I was born my parents opened Parkside Bakery, which they owned until about 5 years ago. Most of my happiest childhood memories are being there, cleaning and helping make the cakes. When I finished school I began working at their shop in Stafford hospital making all the shop cakes (flapjack, shortbreads etc) and got creative by changing recipes and design. Eventually I moved to their main bakery as head of confectionary, helping with all food production and started making birthday cakes, with help from my dad.

Seeing how interested I was in celebration cakes, and once showing me everything he knew, he sent me around the country for a year, working for the countries top cake decorators and chocolatiers. Therefore my training was informal and experienced based. In 2006, they opened a cafe in Stafford town which I became manager of. The shop before used to sell a lot of birthday cakes, so I had a small base of customers asking me to make cakes for them, and from there my cake business grew. Within a year I had enough customers to call cake decorating a full time job!

In recent years, I have been looking for the perfect shop to move my business into, and start on my own officially, and I got the keys last week. I open ‘Love at first Bite’ in two weeks time and I can’t wait! I’ll let you know the rest as it happens…

The Love at First Bite Cakes website is a fully custom web design and template based on a provided logo which was well integrated into the desired colour theme and style. The website promotes some fantastic celebration style cakes primarily and the custom web design reflects this target audience.

We also gave Love at First Bite Cakes business specific advice in the web presence promotional fields of social networking and social media, meaning you can now follow them on Twitter, Facebook and soon flickr.

If you’re interested in putting together a fantastic website to promote your business or if you just want some advice on how to promote your existing website, feel free to get in touch. There is a lot we can help you with - take a look at our portfolio.

Rapid Web – turning cake into code.

WordPress 3.0 Beta 1 has been released

Jordan Hall — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 11:36:25 +0000

WordPress, the super popular open-source content management and blogging software has recently gone into beta. Version 3 of WordPress looks to bring many new features to the system including a revamped administration system and the ability to deploy a network of WordPress powered blogs simultaneously on the same domain in either seperate directories or subdomains.

WordPress 3.0 Beta 1 also comes with a new default blog them called Twenty Ten which comes with custom background and header options built-in.

The official WordPress development blog gives the following information about what to expect in WordPress 3.0.

You Should Know:

The custom menus system (Appearance > Menus) is not quite finished. In Beta 2, the layout will be different and a bunch of the functionality will be improved, but we didn’t want to hold things up for this one screen. You can play with making custom menus, and report bugs if you find them, but this is not how the final screen will look/work, so don’t get attached to it.

The merge! Yes, WordPress and WordPress MU have merged. This does not mean that you can suddenly start adding a bunch of new blogs from within your regular WordPress Dashboard. If you’re interested in testing the Super Admin stuff associated with multiple sites, you’ll need some simple directions to get started.

We’re still fiddling with a few small things in the UI, as we were focused on getting the more function-oriented code finished first. For example, we’re getting a new icon for the Super Admin section.

Things to test:

Play with the new default theme, Twenty Ten, including the custom background and header options.

Custom Post Type functionality has been beefed up. It’s really easy to add new types, so do that and see how it looks!

WordPress MU users should test the multiple sites functionality to make sure nothing broke during the merge.