Basic SQL Questions and Answers

What is DBMS?
A Database Management System (DBMS) is a program that controls creation, maintenance and use of a database. DBMS can be termed as File Manager that manages data in a database rather than saving it in file systems.
What is a Database?
Database is nothing but an organized form of data for easy access, storing, retrieval and managing of data. This is also known as structured form of data which can be accessed in many ways.
Sample Databases: School Management System, Bank Management System, Time Sheet Management System.
What are the Popular Database Management Systems in the IT Industry?
Oracle, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, SyBase, MongoDB, DB2, and Microsoft Access Etc...

What is SQL?
SQL stands for structured query language. It is a database language used for database creation, deletion, fetching rows and modifying rows etc. sometimes it is pronounced as se-qwell.
SQL is an ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standard.


When SQL appeared?
SQL appeared in 1974.
How much time it will take to learn SQL?
As far as time is concerned - I think in 2-3 weeks you can learn the basics and in a month's time (provided you are spending atleast 3-4 hours daily). you can learn to write basic SQL statements. In-depth SQL will need more time and practice.

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Challenges in Developing and Testing PHP Script for Automatic Resume Submission

In this post I would like to share my experience of creating and testing a php/MySQL script for posting candidate resume automatically to a lot of U.S Job sites.

i-e If a job seeker enters his Resume details in one place, the script will automatically create User Accounts in many U.S job sites for him, and it will automatically post his Resume details in all of these Job Sites.

Actually we made this script many years back. Though we are successful in creating the script, we found difficulty in marketing it. So, we dropped that project.

If you want me to develop any similar challenging scripts, you can read this post and contact me rajamanickam.a@gmail.com


This Kind of Script development is NOT an easy task. It involves lot of complexities. And, we haven’t started doing it properly. Initially we did similar script for one particular customer as a custom development, and later we enhanced it further to bring this Automatic Resume posting script.

Since we were a small Team, we just did Adhoc Testing only.

The important Steps involved in this kind of script development are,

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Outsource Your Software Development and Testing Tasks to save Money

Running any kind of Small Business involves many tasks. Automating some tasks using Software systems can help the small business owner to focus on his core business. For example, timesheet software can help to study and improve the performance of the Employees and Projects without requiring the Business Owner to spend his own time much.

And, a lot of free open source tools are available to help the Small Businesses. But setting up them and customizing them to their own needs will require some experience in handling them. So, it is better to outsource that kind of tasks to save time.

It may be difficult to outsource all the tasks across countries, but you can easily outsource the IT related tasks to other Countries.

I am having around 20 years of experience in IT Industry. So, if you are interested to outsource any of your IT tasks like Web development and Software Testing, you can contact me (rajamanickam.a@gmail.com) and you can check my LinkedIn profile here.

Past few years, I was engaged with my own projects like, timesheet, Quotes Site, Apps, YouTube Channel, News Site, and Books.
Now I have decided to spend few Hours per Day for doing Client projects also.

Many years back I was doing Software Development Projects through Freelance websites. I stopped using them to avoid unnecessary fees and complexities introduced by them.

So, Now I will be working for the clients who are willing to pay directly to me through paypal instead of using any freelance sites. I plan to charge $12 USD per hour.


You can read below some feedback comments from the Clients for the Projects I worked many years back through Freelancing website.

And,find below the Linkedin Recommendation from one of my direct Clients.

Let me know if you have any questions. I prefer to work on PHP/MySQL and Software Testing Tasks though I can work on various IT tasks including SEO and SEM.

Apart from helping Small Businesses in IT Tasks, I can guide  anyone to start any profitable small scale online business as I had explored a lot of things in the past 20 years.
If you are really interested you can mail me your requirements to rajamanickam.a@gmail.com

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PHP Code to have different number of rows in first page of PDF file generated by FPDF Library

A few years back, I had published this post to explain about resolving the Wrap text issue in FPDF table cell. At the end of the post, I had specified a sample code for adding new page using addPage() on every n-th row using modulo operator.
It was working fine without any issue. But this approach won't be useful if we need different number of rows in first page of PDF than other pages. For example, in our timesheet application, the PDF report will be having some summary information at the first page of file. So, obviously the first page can hold less number of rows comparing to other pages. So, just using Modulo operator won't help in this situation. Either we need to start writing the rows from the second page, or if we want to start from first page, we have unnecessarily waste some space in all other pages.

I thought of updating the code to handle this scenario. Initially I thought it can be done very easily. After making some attempts, I realized the complexity of this scenario. I tried various approaches. But every approach is failing with any one of various test scenarios. We can imagine a lot of test scenarios.
For example,
1. Total number of rows is 0
2. Total number of rows is 1.
3. Total number of rows is less than the desired First page row count.
4. Total number of rows is exactly equal to the addition of desired first page row count and desired other pages row count or multiples of it.
5. "Greater than" instead of "Equal to" in the 4th scenario.
6. "Less than" instead of "Equal to" in the 4th scenario.

Finally I came up with below code. Based on my testing, it is working fine in all test scenarios, except when the first page row count is greater than the row count of other pages. Practically this scenario won't happen. So, I can say that it is working fine in all practical situations. Please let me know if you find any issue with this code.

$j=1;
$firstpagerowcount=14;
$otherpagesrowcount=20; //should be greater than first page count
$m=1;
foreach ((array)$data as $row)
{
$pagedata[]=$row;


if($j==$firstpagerowcount || $m==$otherpagesrowcount || $j==count($data))
{

if ($j>$firstpagerowcount)
{
$pdf->AddPage();
}
$pdf->FancyTable($header,$pagedata);

$pagedata=null;
$m=0; //start fresh

}

$m++;
$j++;
}

$pdf->Output();

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The Danger of using Ad Blockers. Let us Stop using Ad Blockers to keep Free Internet.

The Internet is filled with a lot of useful information in various formats including Text, Audio, Video, Slideshows, eBooks and Mobile Apps. Most of these Contents are available Free for anyone to access them at any time from anywhere.

Apart from this Free Content, a lot of useful Tools are also available for Free on the Internet.

We refer Internet for learning any Technology or to know about any places or to communicate with others, even many people are getting their Jobs with the help of the Internet.

Online News Providers are giving news with deep analysis and quickly than traditional News Providers. All these things are possible because of the Hard work of a lot of Developers and Bloggers who are getting compensated from online Advertisements for their Work. This Ad-based Free Internet Model is giving benefits to everyone.

For Example, this blog is showing Google Adsense ads which will automatically show advertisements based on the content you read. So, obviously the ads will be relevant to you, and Google will mark the Advertisements with labels like "Ads by Google" so that you can easily separate it from the actual content. In summary, you as a Reader will be getting free content without any major inconvenience. And, I will be paid by Google for showing the Ads. And, the Advertisers will be getting relevant potential customers to their website by spending the Money effectively, and Google will get the commission for developing and running the ad delivery system.

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