Today, speed in web applications is one of the keys to success. It effects the interaction with users, their perception about the website and even how Google ranks websites.
And, database performance is one of the most important factors of speed, as, once there is a bottleneck in it, nothing will function fast.
During the development of Uptime Robot (and still), in order for the application to handle more requests in a shorter time, I needed to optimize 2 things:
Yes, minimizing the number of queries, using indexes smartly or changing the well-known settings of MySQL server makes sense but measuring the results and finding out how each update effects the performance is the hardest thing to analyze.
This is when I started using MONyog, a desktop application (with Windows and Linux versions), that helps tracking everything about a MySQL server. And, most importantly, it comes with working advices at every point.
The application can connect to any number of MySQL servers which is great for working with the test and production server at the same time. And, it only requires the MySQL root login to collect data (nothing to install on MySQL servers).
Its dashboard welcomes you with the most important charts like the availability of the server, number of connections, cache misses, statements and any other metric can be added.
Besides the ability to viewing the process list, disk usage or events, there are 2 menus that saved me so much time:
The menu has multiple sub-menus where each of them helps fine-tuning the server so much.
You can get the number of "current connections" and how effectively they are used, InnoDB cache and logs performance, thread cache, table cache, index usage (how effective they are), the number of each statement (select, insert..) and many sub-metrics.
Each item is explained shortly yet clearly and advices are shown to make them better.
MONyog also scans the settings of the server, displays the values as a snapshot and warns you about any possible security issues (and how to fix them).
This is where you can find the popular "slow query log". But it comes with a better presentation (compared to a standard MySQL slow log query) that focuses on finding the issues.
The Query Analyzer is vital in locating the problematic queries and seeing how they perform after optimizing them live.
I started using MONyog when I was just about to decide that everything was done for performance, the limit of the server was reached and a 2nd or a much powerful MySQL server was required as the resource usage was ~90% in average.
After the optimizations with the application, the same server responds to a bigger number of queries in a shorter time with lower than 50% of resource usage.
Simply, it saved me renting a new server and providing a better experience to Uptime Robot users. And, totally suggest it if you are managing a busy MySQL server.
After my experience with MONyog, I contacted them with the idea of running a giveaway and they were kind enough to giveaway "3 MONyog Ultimate Single Server with Premium Support" licenses ($399/each) to WRD readers.
In order to join the giveaway:
The winners will be announced 1 week later (3 November 2011) and good luck.
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A new software library has been added to the Free Graphics Libraries and Source Code page. If you are writing a graphical application, and don't want to reinvent the wheel, this one lets you write an application that runs on multiple platforms like Windows, Mac OS X, MacOS Classic, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD and even game consoles like PlayStation 2 and the Nintendo GameCube/Wii.
For any web project, if it is only the animations we need, wouldn't it be nice to use a lightweight framework rather than a complete and big-sized one?
jsMorph is a standalone JavaScript animation framework which can manipulate stylings of multiple HTML elements.
The framework automatically detects start positions, converts units, adjusts rendering speed and corrects time leaks for smoother rendering experience.
It is only 2.3kb, chainable, well-documented (supported with examples) and works pretty fast (with an optimized browser rendering buffer usage).
And, there is a queuing system which allows morphing multiple items.
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Codrops, a web development blog publishing very nice tutorials, has released a set of creative navigation examples built with pure CSS(3).
There are 10 unique examples, all have the same HTML structure but different CSS styles that make use of CSS transitions and animations.
Icons used are from a symbols typeface, so, no images are used in the examples but only HTML, CSS and a custom font file.
They are definitely beautiful "as is" and also a good starting point to create new ones.
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Slidorion is a jQuery image slider plugin that functions in parallel with an accordion displaying the related contents for each slide.
There are multiple built-in effects ('fade, slideLeft, overRight, overDown an more..) to be used for transitions.
The slide to be displayed on initial load can be defined and it can be set to autoplay (hover-on-pause exists) or only manual browsing by clicking each accordion tab.
Also, few other options exist for a better customization like the speed of transitions and interval between each slide.
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CometChat, a powerful chat application for websites (which was previously shared at WRD), has recently released the 4th version with new features and giving away 4 licences (3 Basic and 1 Pro) to WRD readers to celebrate the event.
In order to join the giveaway, please make sure you check the details at the bottom of this post.
It is a PHP-MySQL (or MSSQL) powered application that enables users of a website to easily communicate with each other and interact with the website.
CometChat sits in the footer of a website and supports both text (including group chat) + video/voice chat. It also allows file transfers, screensharing and, with the most recent version, the ability to chat with Gtalk and Facebook friends.
This is an exciting feature as it helps "the activity of users to grow" by keeping them on the website more.
The application also offers more than chat:
There are integrations with many other popular softwares (like JomSocial, vBulletin, SocialEngine, Invision Power Board, phpFox, Boonex Dolphin, BuddyPress, phpBB, WordPress, SkaDate, Elgg and more) exist.
With the new version, there is now a mobile web interface which works in all major devices/platforms.
CometChat can be completely customized to better with the style of any website and it can be controlled very easily with the help of a powerful admin panel with settings for everything.
CometChat is offering a 10% discount to all Professional Edition or higher purchases until 1st of November with the coupon code: "WRD10OFF" (without quotes).
CometChat is giving away 1 Pro and 3 Basic licenses to WRD readers. In order to join the giveaway, just comment to this post and the random query below will be choosing the winners:
SELECT * FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_post_id=2537 AND comment_approved=1 AND comment_type='' GROUP BY comment_author_email ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 4
Winners will be announced 1 week later (1 November 2011) as an update to this post. Good luck.
Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets
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Professional XHTML Admin Template ($15 Discount With The Code: WRD.)
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