MySQL has become the ideal choice of database for projects within new companies or new projects within existing companies. Most of these companies are choosing LAMP architecture for multitude of advantages that it offers.

The main criteria for choosing a database comes down to four factor namely: Reliability, Performance, Scalablity and Ease of deployment and maintenance.

A lot of times I hear people asking this question : “Based on my requirements , do you think MySQL is good enough for me?“. Thus, I thought maybe it will be a good idea to find out some instances where MySQL is being used and then let the clients do the comparison themselves.

Here are a few places where MySQL is being used:

1. YouTube
2. Craigslist
3. Flickr
4. Habbo Hotel
5. LiveJournal
6. Technorati
7. Second Life
8. Trulia
9. FeedBurner
10. Right Now
11. Google (for AdSense and AdWords)
12. Wikipedia
13. Travelocity
14. Weather.com

Some other places where MySQL was used:

1. Earth Unit of NASA’s Mars Rover used MySQL
2. Special effects of The Lord of the Rings
3. HotorNot

Some mission critical deployments:

1. Google and Yahoo run mission critical applications on MySQL
2. Nokia’s and Alcatel’s mobile phone networks
3. Emergency systems during the tsunami in South East Asia
4. During Hurricane Katrina

So, let me ask that again - “Is MySQL good enough for you?”

In March 2006 we launched Submit2Please.com - a service that manually submits your website to hundreds of Search Engine Optimization friendly directories.

It was an instant hit as it addresses a fundamental service gap! It is difficult to find reliable, honest and quick vendor to go out in the field and actually do the link building exercise at a reasonable price.

Since we have launched, I have got one question several times. Therefore I have decided to answer this on my blog-

Question>

Does it help to submit my site to not-so-popular web directories? If yes, how?

Answer>

It does help to submit your site to not-so-popular web directories. There are several reasons to support this claim:

1. The directory may not be popular today and therefore offering free submission. They might become popular in days to come and then they might not allow free submission. Therefore you should catch them young!

2. Every incoming link is valuable. A listing in any quality directory will get you an additional incoming link, which adds to the “importance” of your website.

3. Even if the directory is not very popular, it will send some traffic your way. There is no harm in getting some extra visitors for free!In fact the probability of you getting a visitor from a not-so-popular directory is higher. They have lesser listings, giving you higher visibility and thus higher probaility of being visited.
4. Every directory is owned by a webmaster. So whenever you are submitting your website to a directory you establish a link with another webmaster. It is up to you how seriously you take it. I have experience of getting business and personal referrals from webmasters whom I came to know during link exchange or submission of my site to their directories. I know it was not a fluke, as this was not a one-time experience!

5. It is “too much of work” to revisit the directory in future and then submit the site to the directory when it has become popular. Submitting a site to a directory takes few  minutes. It is useless to keep it pending for future, when doing the submission does not cost you anything and is not going to hurt your website! So, just do it.

For the same reasons, I will also prefer to partner with link-exchange partners who has lower pagerank and popularity. If a company is agressively doing link exchange campaign, it is not far from a good pagerank. So better join hands now!

I hope this helps.

To your link-building success -
Abhishek

Hello Folks,

We constantly take feedback from our customers. It helps us keep improve (where we are wrong) and gives us the firepower to excel (from the praises).

Some of these feedbacks are very touchy! - Specially if they define the exact purpose of our existance. Recently, we got a letter from Steve. This email has been put up in its entirety below.

———

Well, where do i start, i have been using design2please.com for the last 4 years. My designer Subhro has created 3 first class websites. Through having these websites my gross turnover has gone up by over 400%.

He truly is an amazing designer, he listens to your every need, and comes up with ideas
that completly stretch your imagination.

i remember one chrstmas where he was working on my websites every day, no matter what the hour, thats dediaction for you, you would never get that in the U.K

I see subhro as a friend, even though he`s the otherside of the world, he brings that personal touch. Design2please even though based the other side of the world, display better comunication skills than some companies in the U.k that are on your doorstep.

Each designer will work and work until the website is done, constantly adapting to your every need.

If you want dedication and a personal service then no other company matches
design2please.com there creative designs are second to none, just look at my websites,

www.stpersonaltraining.co.uk
www.stcircuittraining.co.uk
www.show33.co.uk,

if your looking for a design team that will produce you a website that is unique, exactly how you want it, and for the most amazing value anywhere in the world - trust me anywhere, then design2please is your company.

i had been told by many companies in the U.K that certain flash displays on the website couldnt be done, but as always design2please proved them all wrong by producing me 3 websites of class, that have in fact won worldwide rewards for design.

my latest website, show33.co.uk is amazing. Everything from logo design to the complete layout.

Every single customer that purchases tickets from our wesbite mentions how fantastic the wesbite is.

Whatever your business, whatever your market is, design2please will creat a website that will increase your gross turnover to new levels.

i highly recomend design2please.com as a website design company, you wont find a better company around.

Steve Tunstall
www.show33.co.uk
www.stpersonaltraining.co.uk
www.stcircuittraining.co.uk

—————–

We decided to publish this letter here because we feel that this is more than a testimonial from our respected client. This is exactly the “purpose” with which we built Design2Please and other Indus Net Technology brands.

Thank you Steve for your wonderful feedback. I look forward to serve you for years to come.

Abhishek

Webstock 2006 presentations have been archived and uploaded live for public viewing. You can watch and hear the webgurus speaking about the latest trends, process, technologies etc.

http://www.webstock.org.nz/recordings.php

Enjoy and learn!

Unlike Search Engines, the process of review of directory submission is carried out manually, by “Experts”. They also have stringent rules and guidelines for listing your site. You may ask why; but these rules are there to ensure good directory submission and effective review procedures. It helps the editor to evaluate a site and decide whether to accept or reject it. All these combined results in a great deal of scrutiny being carried out before your site gets listed on directories.

But you can easily make your submissions an instant success with most of the directories. All you need to do is pay a little attention to the details you provide for Directory Submission. Your little efforts will be richly rewarded.

Here are few Golden rules you should always follow before beginning Directory Submission.

Before You Begin Directory Submission

Before you begin directory submission, make you have taken note of the following:

• Do not submit a mirror page; most directories don’t accept mirror pages.
• Do not submit any “Under construction” pages.
• Always submit the top-level domain of your site.
Tip: The correct URL to submit for my site is www.submit2please.com. Do not add index.html or any sub domains.
• Check all your links. Broken links are a sign poor site management which may not go down well with the directories.

Chose the most appropriate Category for your site

Web directories are sorted by topic and editors frequently take great pride in ensuring that everything stays well categorized. So, put up your website in the right category. The search engines look at the various links that are on the page on which you are listed. This can lead to better rankings.

Tip: To find appropriate categories for a site, you can go to Dmoz.org and type in the product/service keyword. You can also search for your rival site and check out the category under which they are submitted.

Pay attention to the description and use of key words

The most common restriction forced by directories is on the size of your description and keywords. The trick is to come up with such a description for your site that can conveniently fit into 100, 150, 200, and 250 characters length. Do all this before you get down to the real job of directory submission. The reason for keeping four lengths of description is that you never know which one will be accepted in which directory. Remember that you may not be able to pen down everything about your site, so write what is unique and relevant. Avoid using a sales pitch and/or promotional language. Try and be informative and friendly.

Here are few more points you should always bear in mind while writing a description for directory submission:

• Do not repeat your title or site URL in the description.
• Do not use all caps; use mixed case.
• Use complete sentences.
• Do not say the word site or website, as in “this site offers”
• Do not use any hype like “the best” or “excellent.”
• Fit your main keyword phrases in but do not repeat them.

Once you have taken care of all these, you have over come the most difficult part of directory submission. The same should be followed for keywords. When it comes to directory submission, all you need to do is to pick up the most appropriate one and hit enter.

Tip: This is what I call an ideal description for my site Submit2Please.com, “We submit Web Sites, Articles, Blogs, Press Releases, Scripts and RSS Feeds to Search Engine Friendly Directories. The directory submission is carried out manually by trained in-house directory submission experts.”

Site Title

Pay attention to your site title. You should ideally not use any URL and key words in it, until and unless they are absolutely necessary to describe your site. Remember, be precise and straight forward!

Tip: You should identify at least 3-4 titles for your site and rotate them during Directory Submission. In this way you can get the maximum optimization benefit for your site through Directory Submission.

All the above mentioned “Golden Rules” stand good for most directories on the internet including Dmoz.org. Thus, by exercise necessary caution before directory submission, you can save a lot of precious time and energy. With the right advice and steps, directory submission may be the most significant thing you will ever do for your website.

“AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” This is what the subject line was. I am sure everyone will be happy to see a mail with such subject from a client.

Subhro and team worked hard to create the promotional website for a UK client and the result is here: http://www.show33.com

The client is very happy and here goes his comments:

“The response we are getting is amazing, everyone loves the website. I m making you very famous back here in the UK. Thank you so so much again for all the hours you have put in, you’ve gone beyond my expectations. My business partner in show33 wants to offer his thank yous so he will be emailing you soon, he is over the moon with the website.”

And amazingly this site was created in 3-4 days.

Celebration time!

This puzzles me!

With a lot of excitement I downloaded both IE 7 BETA and Windows Media Player 11. For all I know, Microsoft is very good at usability i.e. they make sure the interface is really very easy to use.

To my surprise both in Media player and IE 7, the file menu is not visible by default. Why will microsoft do that? Seems like I am missing something here or they are?

IE 7 BETA & Media Player 11 Screenshots

Hello Friends,

Our PHP / MySQL team has recently completed completed and launched the Epictura website (www.epictura.com) on behalf of our client.

The site sells images and CDs of high resolution stock photography. The project demanded extreme level of customization to an osCommerce installation. It included installation of several mods and custom programming on the existing code base to build features which were necessary to aligh osCommerce towards our client’s business.

osCommerce is a FREE, full-featured, off-the-shelf, open-source shopping cart software which provides several advanced features. However as in case of any software, it needs to be aligned to the business process of the organization to maximize its potential.

There are several mods contributed by hundreds of osCommerce enthusiasts and programmers from all over the world which solves most of the common problems, thus making customization easy and less time consuming.

Script2Please, a service brand of Indus Net Technologies can help you in the following ways with your osCommerce project:

• Professionally install osCommerce for you
• Design a custom skin / template for your osCommerce installation based on your inputs
• Apply the skin / template on your osCommerce installation
• Install various mods to satisfy various business needs
• Custom programming and creation of custom mods to fulfill your exact requirements

Contact us at script@script2please.com to discuss your project with our consultants.

Have a great day!

Wikipedia, the world’s largest online encyclopedia relies on millions on users for its content and likewise millions of users worldwide now rely on wikipedia on information about just any topic.

On the other hand, ‘Wikiality’ is the method of making something up, but getting enough people to agree with you so that it becomes reality.

Click here to read how Stephen Colbert caused chaos on Wikipedia and got banned for it. Here are other articles related to wikipedia:

• The Guardian: Can You Trust Wikipedia? (click here)
• The Register: Who owns your Wikipedia bio? (click here)
• The Register: Wikipedia: magic, monkeys and typewriters (click here)
• Why Wikipedia sucks. Big time (click here)

My Point: 90% of the time what you get at Wikipedia is a great information, its the remaining 10% thats concerning. So, readers discretion is advised!