Given how frequently I tinker with different web-based app installs (WordPress, drupal, Magento, etc.), I’ve always found it a bit of a pain to regularly backup the databases for those installations. Of course, however painful it may be, it’s always worth it in the event of a disaster!

I’ve found many MySQL backup solutions but none of them seem to be perfect in my eyes. (Hey, what is perfect these days?)

DESKTOP APPS

There’s Backup Watcher for MySQL but a) it costs $$ and b) you have to “activate” the software in order to use it. For someone like myself – who is constantly reformatting the various machines on which I work – that’s far too annoying given that you have to wait for a new activation code from the company. Of course, if you’re just gonna set this up on a server or desktop that you touch maybe once every three years – it may very well be worth it. Setting up automated backups is fool-proof and the interface isn’t too archaic. Plus, support usually responds within one business day – even if they aren’t that fluent in the English language.

One benefit to the above app is that it runs on Windows. For me, at least, that makes administration much easier. Another such app is Auto Backup for MySQL. (I’ll try and download and install this to post a review here soon.) This one also costs money (still less than $100) but the fact that it appears to be continually updated – it’s now Windows 7 and Server 2008 compatible – puts my mind at ease.

For more advanced MySQL DB management, you might also look at Navicat for MySQL – an all-in-one mgmt app that not only enables scheduled database backups but also provides you with options to interact with the data itself as well as the overall structure of the database. Pricing is much better than I remember. You can probably stay close to the price-range of the apps mentioned above and wind up with many more features at the same time. Plus, the interface is quite a bit more polished than the other apps.

WEB-BASED SCRIPTS

A more universal option (for those on different platforms beyond Windows) is a self-install script like Backup2Mail… which costs absolutely nothing. (The song “Born Free” from the last episode of the first season of Dexter is now running through my mind.)

Scripts like this one reside on your server, alongside your MySQL install, and regularly emails you backups of your database(s). The company recommends that you use a secure email environment given the risk involved in sending potentially-confidential data through email.

AutoMySQLBackup is a free script that’s been around for a while. Much like Backup2Mail, this script enables scheduled backups via the web but, with this one, you can not only send backups by email but also dump them to a directory on your web server. That way, if you’ve got the available space, you never need worry about the size of your DB backups.

What backup solution are you using/do you recommend? Let other readers know in the comments below.

It was inevitable. Twitter has entered the gaming arena. (If it hasn’t already, that is – and I’m sure it has… I just don’t keep up that much with in-gaming Twittering.)

Recently added to the CodePlex (Microsoft’s version of SourceForge.net) is a little app by the name of TweetCraft. As you’d expect from the title, TweetCraft enables you to both read and compose “tweets” while within WoW. The app is currently on a stable release and can be downloaded from tweetcraft.codeplex.com… and it actually looks pretty cool. Plus, like with any above-average Twitter client, you can schedule your tweets and even send screenshots of your current game using the built-in TwitPic integration.

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If you’re one of those people that reads their email in multiple locations (say, on the Web with Gmail then on your desktop with Outlook) then I’m sure you’ve noticed that some, nay, alot of messages get butchered in one client but look perfectly fine in another.

This is typically a result of two separate problems. First, the developers of the email message that you received perhaps didn’t use Web standards when composing it. Alternatively, the email authors may have done everything right and composed the message using the most modern standards possible but the developers of your email client don’t know what they’re doing. It’s 50/50 for me… I’ve experienced both the former and the latter equally, I do believe.
Regardless of where the problem originated, there is a solution: agreeing to a set of standards and sticking to them.

That’s where the "Email Standards Project" comes in.

The goal of the Email Standards Project is to work with both the design community (to help them "understand why standards are so important for email") and email client developers (to "ensure that emails render consistently.")

More information is available at email-standards.org including info on how you can help with the project. You can even find up-to-date ratings of current email clients like Google’s Gmail (FAIL), Windows Live Mail (WIN) and, of course, everybody’s favorite email client: Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 (you guessed it: FAIL – most likely because it uses Microsoft Word as a rendering engine).

The tests are based on the ever-infamous acid test and go into detail as to what displays properly in the client and what doesn’t.

It’s a noble cause in my personal opinion and I sincerely hope that both Google and Microsoft invest a little more time and money into ensuring that some of their most popular products follow a set of reasonable standards… something that even Mozilla’s Thunderbird can offer.

(For Vista/Windows Server 2008 Only) The Microsoft Web Platform Installer Beta is a single package that contains everything you need to start developing for the Web. The package includes IIS7, Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition, SQL Server 2008 Express Edition and the .NET Framework. You have the option to install the package as a whole or just install individual components.

Once you’ve got the components installed that you want, you can dive right into testing and use Microsoft’s Web Application Installer Beta to install various PHP & ASP-based Web applications including DotNetNuke, Drupal, Gallery, Graffiti CMS, osCommerce, phpBB and WordPress. (For most of those applications, you’ll need to have PHP and MySQL installed. However, Microsoft has some pretty simple directions for installing PHP alongside IIS as well as for installing MySQL.)

That’s it. Two quick installations and you can have everything running on your computer to develop new applications or enhance pre-existing, open-source applications like WordPress.

Of course, to help get you started in the world of Web development, the Microsoft Web Platform site features a plethora of resources available to help you along the way including, but not limited to, getting started with ASP.NET and Silverlight.

To get started, check out microsoft.com/web… but keep us posted as to how these packages might have helped with your own project(s).

In case you’re interested, here are the entire contents of the Web Platform Installer package:

Common HTTP Features:

• Static Content
• Default Document
• Directory Browse
• HTTP Errors
• HTTP Redirection

Application Development:

• ASP.NET
• .NET Extensibility
• ASP
• CGI
• ISAPI Extensions
• ISAPI Filters
• Server Side Includes

Health and Diagnostics:

• HTTP Logging
• Logging Tools
• Request Monitor
• Tracing
• Custom Logging
• ODBC Logging

Security:

• Basic Authentication
• Windows Authentication
• Digest Authentication
• Client Certificate Mapping Authentication
• IIS Client Certificate Mapping Authentication
• URL Authorization
• Request Filtering
• IP Security

Performance:

• Static Content Compression
• Dynamic Content Compression

Management:

• IIS Management Console
• IIS Management Scripts and Tools
• Management Service

Compatibility:

• IIS Metabase and IIS 6 Configuration Compatibility
• IIS 6 WMI Compatibility
• IIS 6 Scripting Tools
• IIS 6 Management Console

WAS:

• WAS Process Model
• WAS NetFXEnvironment
• WAS Configuration API

Deployment and Publishing:

• FTP Server
• FTP Management Console

New IIS 7.0 Extensions:

• Bit Rate Throttling
• IIS 7.0 Manager for Remote Admin
• Web Playlist Release Candidate
• FTP 7.0
• WebDAV
• URL Rewrite GoLive
• Microsoft Web Deployment Tool Beta 1

Microsoft .NET:

• .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1

SQL:

• SQL Server Driver for PHP
• SQL Express 2008

Visual Studio:

• Visual Web Developer 2008 Express SP1

Windows:

• Windows Installer 4.5

If you’ve been itching to finally create a consistent theme for all of your Office 2007 documents (Word, PowerPoint, etc.) then the Open XML Theme Builder (free, open-source) from Microsoft’s Codeplex might just be what you’re looking for.

Using this application, you can instantly choose your (or your company’s):

• default theme colors (text/background/hyperlink/accent, etc.)
• major and minor fonts
• line styles (color, weight alignment, etc.)
• fill styles (solid/gradient, tint/solid, etc.)
• effect styles (shadows, bevels, etc.)
• background styles (solid fill, gradient fill, rotation, etc.)

Here are some screenshots (click to enlarge) of the various theme objects that can be tweaked using this program:

Colors and Fonts:

Line Styles:

Fill Styles:

Effect Styles:
 

Background Styles:

As is apparent from the screenshots above, there’s a ridiculous amount of items to tweak and customize so it might be better to open an existing theme and tweak it instead of starting from scratch.  If you’ve currently got Office 2007 installed, you can find quite a few default themes buried here: “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Document Themes 12.”  (Of course, you need to replace that drive letter with the drive letter on your computer that contains your Office installation.)

This is a great tool to have, especially in a business environment, if you want to present a consistent theme throughout the documents you share internally and externally.

Source: MSDN Blogs [alspiers]
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“The Open XML Theme Builder is a tool that helps with the creation of theme files (*.thmx) that encapsulate the visual appearance and formatting of a document in order to help create a better looking document. Theme files can be used by Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® 2007, Microsoft® Office Excel® 2007, and Microsoft® Office Word 2007.”
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