Why Do I Need A Database?

Written by Dan Grossman


If you're not familiar withrepparttar term as it relates torepparttar 132082 web, a database is a structured collection of data. It can be anything from a list of email addresses to a set of names, addresses and phone numbers.

By farrepparttar 132083 most popular database management system is mySQL, because it is free, works well, and most web hosts have it installed. This can be used in conjunction with a language such as PHP or Cold Fusion to create a website which interacts withrepparttar 132084 database.

PHP is probablyrepparttar 132085 most popular of languages for interacting with mySQL databases. It can be easily used to create webpages for your site dynamically. This means that, rather than a site consisting of many static or unchanging webpages, each page is generated based on information in your database, atrepparttar 132086 timerepparttar 132087 page is accessed by a user.

Creating a web site in a language such as PHP and using a database to storerepparttar 132088 information, or some of it, has many advantages over a normal static site.

One ofrepparttar 132089 most common and most useful ways to use a database in your website is in a content management system.

What Is It And How Does It Work? --------------------------------

A content management system is a set of programs (basically, webpages containing programming code) written in a language such as PHP. The content management system displaysrepparttar 132090 content of your website to your visitors and allows you to easily add, edit or remove content fromrepparttar 132091 site without creating a new webpage.

This is accomplished by storingrepparttar 132092 content ofrepparttar 132093 site in a database. Rather than creating a "page1.html" with a layout, title, content, etc. you would storerepparttar 132094 title and content inrepparttar 132095 database, along with any other information you wanted likerepparttar 132096 author name, keywords, etc.

Then, rather than having a link to "page1.html" you'd have a URL that looked something like this:

http://www.yoursite.com/article.php?id=123

Article.php would be a page you've written in PHP which gets information from your database. The "?id=123" passesrepparttar 132097 fact thatrepparttar 132098 user has clicked on a link to article number 123. The page would access your database, find article 123, and send back a webpage to your visitor with that article inrepparttar 132099 body. But,repparttar 132100 difference between this and a static page is that you userepparttar 132101 same webpage to access other information:

http://www.yoursite.com/article.php?id=124

You're accessingrepparttar 132102 same article.php, but you've told it you want article 124, and a new page would be created and sent to you with article 124 inrepparttar 132103 body.

Is There Spice in Your Websites?

Written by Dr. Denise Bennerson


When someone visits your web site, do they think, “Wow, here’s something to look at!” Or, “Oh, here we go again, same old thing. Boring.” You need to know that a visitor extending their visit or leaving may depend onrepparttar spice in your site.

I remember when I first developed my website, several years ago. I had more animations than ornaments on a Christmas tree, lit in December, on a Christmas morning. I thought I was cooking with gas. But asrepparttar 132079 months passed,repparttar 132080 products on my site were going nowhere. My site just looked and sounded pretty. It had music too.

To help this situation, I soon began to read various newsletters to find out how to make sales with my site. One thing I understood was that I had to get a merchant account to accept credit cards. This led me on a search for a merchant account that would fit my budget. I found one.

Then I asked some consultants onrepparttar 132081 web what wasrepparttar 132082 problem? Why was I not receiving any sales? One said I had to many animations. Another stated that I needed to put as a caption “How to dress as an islander?” He tried to tie this idea into my Island theme. He gave me some other ideas for which I was thankful, since I was a newbie onrepparttar 132083 net. Then someone told me my site was too colorful. It needed to look like other sites onrepparttar 132084 Internet. The look should be similar torepparttar 132085 bigger companies such as Amazon.com.

So, I decided after trying everything andrepparttar 132086 sales were not rolling in, to make my web site look likerepparttar 132087 other companies onrepparttar 132088 Web. I decided to do so forrepparttar 132089 new millennium – January 1, 2000. And I did, much against my better instincts. Wellrepparttar 132090 results winded up being a complete failure. First, every time I checked my web site to make surerepparttar 132091 links worked, I would feel like someone had let me down. It just was not me.

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