Over the past 10 years, the MySQL database has become incredibly popular on the Web. Every WordPress blog is driven by a MySQL database, which contains the blog’s posts, settings, comments and much more.

While plug-ins and even coding hacks can solve some problems and achieve some tasks, sometimes you don’t have any other choice than to execute SQL commands in phpMyAdmin or directly to the database via SSH. Let’s take a look at 8 useful SQL hacks for WordPress. Each section of this post presents a problem, suggests a solution and provides an explanation to help you understand the solution.

1. Creating a Backup of Your Database

The problem. While the tips in the rest of this post have been tested, you should definitely not try any of them without first having a proper backup of your MySQL database.

The solution. To create a manual backup of your WordPress database, follow these simple steps:

1. Log in to phpMyAdmin and select your WordPress database.
2. Once done, click the “Export” button located in the horizontal menu.
3. Choose a compression method (personally, I use gzip), and click the “Execute” button.
4. Your browser will ask you if you want to download the backup. Of course, select “Yes,” and then store it on your hard drive.

Explanation. Note that creating a backup of your WordPress database can be more easily executed with the WP-DB-Backup plug-in. WordPress users should install this plug-in if they have not yet done so and create regular backups of their data.

2. Batch Delete Post Revisions

The problem. Post revisions, a new WordPress 2.6 feature, can be very useful, but they also increase the size of your MySQL database. Sure, you can manually delete posts revisions, but that’s very long and boring work.

The solution. The solution to this problem is simple: we batch delete post revisions by using a simple SQL query. The result can be almost unbelievable if you have a lot of posts: Your database size will be reduced by half!

1. Log in to phpMyAdmin and select your WordPress database.
2. Click the “SQL” button. Paste the following code in the SQL command window:
   
   

   • DELETE FROM wp_posts WHERE post_type = “revision”;
     

   DELETE FROM wp_posts WHERE post_type = "revision";

3. You’re done. Depending on how many posts you had in your WordPress database, you may have saved lots of precious space!

Code explanation. The wp_posts table has a field named post_type. This field can have one of many values, such as “post,” “page” or “revision.” When we want to get rid of post revisions, we simply run a command to delete any entry in the wp_posts table in which the post_type field is equal to “revision.”

Source:

• How to: Batch delete post revisions

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DetectMobileBrowsers.mobi is a website providing a function & information on how to detect mobile browsers.

It can detect:

• iPhone
• Opera Mini
• Android
• Blackberry

It has an online function generator that guides you to create a personalized function according to “how you want to treat every browser”.

P.S. The code is free to be used on non-profit websites.

Website: http://detectmobilebrowsers.mobi/
Download: http://detectmobilebrowsers.mobi/#download

This video tutorial will walk you through setting up a registration and login system for your web pages. You can then password protect any pages you desire on your website.

The script allows a user to register, log in, log out, change their password, and retrieve a forgotten password. It also makes sure the user submits a valid email address by sending them a link to their email that they must click before the registration is completed.

There is no need to know coding the video will walk you through setting it all up. All the files you need are available for download on this site.

User Registration

• Log in
• Log out
• User can change password
• User can retrieve forgotten password
• Password protect any pages on your site with a small snippet of code
• Of course it’s free

Click Demo to try out the registration system.

Click Download to download files.

Open Web Messenger is an open source live support / chat application.

It enables customers / visitors to chat with an operator & get support (where all the chats are logged).

The application supports unlimited operators, visitors & chats. With a web-based admin interface, operators or admins can:

• Send canned messages
• Track where visitors clicked from
• Search porevious chat conversations
• Reassign/transfer chat to another operator
• Mark/highlight nuisance visitors
• View active chats (admins) & more

When there is no available operator, visitors can leave a message & they can be contacted later.

The look & feel of the chat window can be totally customized with the theme support.

This free live support application requires PHP 5 & MySQL 5 to run.

Context menus are very helpful, specially in admin pages & web applications, for easier navigation. With just a click, you get the options / shortcuts.

This is a jQuery plugin for creating effective context menus with ease.

The menu can produces valid XHTML & can be customized totally via CSS.

Items in the menu can be disabled & they can be browsed with keyboard too.

For users without JavaScript enabled, it gracefully degrades.

Eyesis Data Grid Control is a PHP class for creating a datagrid from a MySQL database almost instantly.

With 6 lines of code, you can connect to the database, mention the table & define the query, rest is automated.

It has nice features like:

• Filtering and searching
• Changing column headers
• Can displaying images
• Ajax supported
• Automatic row paging
• Row selection
• Look & feel can be customized via CSS
• Ability to add controls
• Checkbox support
• Specify column format types (such as percent, dollars, etc)

This Ajaxed PHP grid works in all major browsers & requires PHP5 to run.

pChart is a PHP class oriented framework designed to create aliased charts. Most of todays chart libraries have a cost, pChart is intended to be free. Data can be retrieved from SQL queries, CSV files, or manually provided. This project is still under development and new features or fix are made every week.

Focus has been put on rendering quality introducing an aliasing algorithm to draw eye candy graphics. In fact, quality is slowing down the renderer engine… this is one of our way of improvment!

LightForm is a free Ajax/PHP contact form. It also uses FormCheck2 for fields validation and NiceForms to style text fields and textareas. Features of the form are listed below:

OpenCart is an open-source PHP-based online shopping cart system. A robust e-commerce solution for Internet merchants with the ability to create their own online business and participate in e-commerce at a minimal cost.

This open-source shopping application supports unlimited categories, different currencies & languages. Users can also review the products and buy them.

OpenCart is designed feature rich, easy to use, search engine friendly and with a visually appealing interface.

Firefox is a fastest growing popular web browser. There are lots of ease provided by the firefox and this is the main reason for its popularity. There are lots of free download able extensions and add-ons available on the internet for firefox and there demands are increasing every day. In this post, I am listing down 9 Amazing Firefox Add-Ons That Will Save Your Time.

Read It Later

It lets you save articles and webpages so you can read them later, even when you’re offline. Now the internet is your bitch. Firefox add-on

Chunkit

This add-on is so badass, that if search engines made a superhero movie, this would be the Batman. Basically, you get to search any website with sonar vision and see through all the links at once. Firefox add-on

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