How to backup your Mysql database with phpMyAdmin

How to backup your Mysql database with phpMyAdmin

Introduction
It is very important to do backup of your MySql database, you will probably realize it when it is too late.

A lot of web applications use MySql for storing the content. This can be blogs, and a lot of other things. When you have all your content as html files on your web server it is very easy to keep them safe from crashes, you just have a copy of them on your own PC and then upload them again after the web server is restored after the crash. All the content in the MySql database must also be backed up. A lot of web service providers say they do backup of all the files, but you should never blindly trust them. If you have spent a lot of time making the content and it is only stored in the Mysql server, you will feel very bad if it gets lost for ever. Backing it up once every month or so makes sure you never loose too much of your work in case of a server crash, and it will make you sleep better at night. It is easy and fast, so there is no reason for not doing it.

Backup of Mysql database
It is assumed that you have phpMyAdmin installed since a lot of web service providers use it.

0. Open phpMyAdmin.
1. Click Export in the Menu to get to where you can backup you MySql database. Image showing the export menu.
2. Make sure that you have selected to export your entire database, and not just one table. There should be as many tables in the export list as showing under the database name.
3. Select”SQL”-> for output format, Check “Structure” and “Add AUTO_INCREMENT” value. Check “Enclose table and field name with backquotes”. Check “DATA”, check use “hexadecimal for binary field”. Export type set to “INSERT”.
4. Check “Save as file”, do not change the file name, use compression if you want. Then click “GO” to download the backup file.
Image showing step 2-4.

Restoring a backup of a MySql database
1. To restore a database, you click the SQL tab.
2. On the “SQL”-page , unclick the show query here again.
3. Browse to your backup of the database.
4. Click Go.
Image showing step 1-4.

mysql_restore.gif

Without phpMyAdmin
phpMyAdmin has some file size limits so if you have large databases it may no be possible to backup using phpMyAdmin. Then you have to use the command line tools that comes with Mysql. Please note that this method is untested.

Mysql backup without phpMyAdmin
PHPMyAdmin can’t handle large databases. In that case straight mysql code will help.

1. Change your directory to the directory you want to dump things to:

user@linux:~> cd files/blog

2. Use mysqldump (man mysqldump is available):

user@linux:~/files/blog> mysqldump –add-drop-table -h mysqlhostserver
-u mysqlusername -p databasename (tablename tablename tablename) | bzip2
-c > blog.bak.sql.bz2

Enter password: (enter your mysql password)
user@linux~/files/blog>

Example:
mysqldump –add-drop-table -h db01.example.net -u dbocodex -p dbwp | bzip2 -c > blog.bak.sql.bz2

Enter password: my-password
user@linux~/files/blog>

Or use:

mysqldump –user=dbusername –password=yourpassword dbname >/folderonserver/dbbackupfilename

The bzip2 -c after the pipe | means the backup is compressed on the fly.

Mysql restore without phpMyAdmin

The restore process consists of unarchiving your archived database dump, and importing it into your Mysql database.

Assuming your backup is a .bz2 file, creating using instructions similar to those given for Backing up your database using Mysql commands, the following steps will guide you through restoring your database :

1. Unzip your .bz2 file:

user@linux:~/files/blog> bzip2 -d blog.bak.sql.bz2

Note: If your database backup was a .tar.gz called blog.bak.sql.tar.gz file, then,

tar zxvf blog.bak.sql.tar.gz

is the command that should be used instead of the above.

2. Put the backed-up sql back into mysql:

user@linux:~/files/blog> mysql -h mysqlhostserver -u mysqlusername
-p databasename < blog.bak.sql

Enter password: (enter your mysql password)
user@linux~/files/blog:>
Written by Jon Berg turtlemeat.com

Yamaha S90 ES – Best Touch Keyboard

 yamaha-s90-es.jpg

I spent several hours at Guitar Center in Seattle, WA yesterday playing all of their 88-key keyboards. I was looking for the best overall controller; a keyboard that I could play legit piano on, but also fast synth runs, control zones and utilize aftertouch for samples. The internal sounds were not important to me.

From their selection I like the Yamaha S90 ES best for overall touch for all applications as a controller keyboard. Players that have to do piano and complex synth on the same board know what a challenge this can be. For piano tracks you need the weighted action so you don’t realize it’s not a “real” piano, and for synth you need a quick action to do the fast sixteenth note runs without getting bogged down.

Some nice extra perks on the Yamaha S90 ES include four zone control sliders on the front that are easily accessible for mixing samples. Also has variable velocity curves for different styles of playing (light for synth work and heavier for legit piano feel). When I clicked on the Performance bank to just check out the sounds too, I was surprised that I really dug the internal drum samples. Found myself actually jamming for a bit with the grooves and most important of all: Forgetting I was playing a synth, not a piano. To me that’s the bottom line. If I have to think about the instrument, it’s no good to me. I need to get lost in the feel and lines of what I’m doing.

And a little plug for Guitar Center. As much bad press as they get for customer service, I had a salesman who got me all the manuals for everything I wanted and was there to answer any question I had. I never felt like I was bothering him. I’m not exactly a salesman’s dream at a music store – I’m very picky, always want to read manuals and don’t care for small talk. Thank you to Jovonn who helped me out.

Often people ask me what the best keyboard is to get. You really can’t go wrong with any board by Roland, Yamaha or Korg. In general, Korg has the best variety of sounds and Yamaha has the best feel. But my overall favorite is usually Roland, so I was surprised to see that a Yamaha board won my heart (I own several keyboards by all three manufacturers).

OVERVIEW

Is the S90 ES an 88-note weighted action digital piano with the sonic flexibility of a synth or a synthesizer with the best sounding piano samples ever available? Actually, it’s the perfect balance of both. The new multi-velocity stereo samples of Yamaha’s hand-built S700 grand piano, the damper reverb effects, and half damper capability all ensure the S90 ES has the most expressive acoustic piano sound Yamaha has ever offered in a synthesizer.

The 128-note polyphony tone generator based on the award winning Motif ES (including 8 inserts, 2 system and separate mastering effects) and Studio Connections, mLAN, and PLG expandability give it all the sonic power and control flexibility of our Motif ES workstation lineup. The new S90 ES, the perfect balance of synthesizer and piano.

Q-Ray Bracelets

qray.gif

I used to sell Q-Ray Bracelets. You know the ones that improve circulation and all sorts of other magical things. I sold a lot of different things back then, this was just another in a massive catalog of products. I sold it because I believed it helped people and yes, I made money. A lot.

But several years ago Q-Ray started to get into some legal problems. It seemed the claims they were making for what the bracelets did was not backed up by anything, in fact – as a judge inferred in a court case, it was mostly made up. His exact words in the case were:

Defendants might as well have said: Beneficent creatures from the 17th dimension use this bracelet as a beacon to locate people who need pain relief and whisk them off to their home world every night to provide help in ways unknown to our science. (Source is http://www.randi.org/joom/content/view/145/1/#i1 )

So I stopped selling them several years ago. It wasn’t a tough decision, not a big moral stand – I just didn’t want to sell something that people were buying under false pretenses. Who would? The money’s just not worth it. Since that time way back then, things have gotten worse for Q-Ray – legal cases against them not by individuals, but by the US Government. Read the link above for an overview from James Randi’s website.

But that’s not the real focus of my article here. Not a major deal for a product reseller. It was just a product sold, turned out to be not what people thought it was, so it was discontinued (with me anyway). The weirdness was my experiences afterward.

Back then the bulk of groups I circulated in were New Thought (“New Age”) circles. These Q-Ray bracelets were EVERYWHERE (even my minister back then swore by them and I’d bet good money still does). Seemed like everyone owned one. (For the record, I sold them online – never pushed products on friends or wore one myself). But after the legal cases were surfacing against the company for false advertising, I would let people know about it. But sadly (and as I’ve been slow to learn, not surprisingly), people didn’t care.

Back then I was having dinner with a good friend who was wearing the bracelet. I let them know the bracelets didn’t work and got the response, “Yes they do. I just love it. I wear it everyday.” But I would tell that I sold them and stopped because the government was taking them to court for false advertising. “The government doesn’t want to know. It really works.” But they don’t! It’s all made up. They were ordered to pay back millions of dollars. If they bracelets did work, they could have hired a lab to prove it for a fraction of that amount and kept their millions. But they couldn’t – because they don’t work.

All it did was make my friend a little angry with me. But I didn’t understand it. We weren’t arguing about politics or religion or ideology. This was a pretty straight forward thing. Even when I told them I sold them and stopped selling when I learned of the false advertising – it had absolutely no pull with them. Suddenly I became the one who “didn’t get it.” “The bracelets work.” I wasn’t expecting people just to take them off right away – but I DID expect they would be thankful for the info and check it out for themselves. To my knowledge, not a single person did. Not one.

That scenario was repeated dozens of times. I never had a SINGLE person say “Oh really? Thanks for the info I’ll check that out.” These QRay incidents came back to me recently because I was at a party and one of my friends there was wearing a QRay bracelet. I started to say something then just stopped when I remembered that people don’t really care. Why bother?

You should know that people don’t wear these bracelets passively as just jewelry. They wear them because they have been led to believe it makes them healthier by improving circulation. They believe they are actively taking steps to improve their lives. That’s the part that gets my goat.

And yet still – this is all not the point of my post here. My point is that even confronted with hard facts that refudiate a New Age belief, (or “New Thought” was inner circles prefer to call themselves) most people will outright refuse to reconsider their stance.

As I look back, Q-Ray was one of the starting points for me to look at all the info out there and really start thinking about pseudoscience and how much quacky, crappy beliefs I had acquired over the years. And those beliefs add up in time to affect the way you make decisions and interact with others in your life. Yes, I think it’s a big deal. Maybe the BIGGEST deal people should consider.

If all the info you get is from loaded sources that only serve to actively support your current way of thinking – then that’s what you’ll get. But there’s a world of info out there you can take in stride and look at openly.

That’s why I’m thankful for James Randi and the JREF Foundation. Don’t know what that is? Check out http://www.randi.org . Some people don’t like him, they say he’s “negative”. I think he’s awesome. I want to have his children (Mmmm…..ok, maybe not that much.) He’s one the forefront of calling out pseudoscience. His purpose he says is to call out those that intentionally mislead and make money off the public – and also for those that have been innocently deluded. That was me. Innocently deluded.

We all have some quacky stuff we believe. It’s human nature. But I can tell you from hardcore experience this New Age stuff is a VERY slippery slope and can knock you on your butt. It can ruin lives.

Because the people that need to know don’t care – like YOU reading right now who’s just about to leave a comment like “Oh, that’s negative” or “You’re blind to the magic” – It’s not my personal Jihad to reach other people about it. I’m more interested in my own productivity and how these sequence of events have helped me get back on track.

I’ve always done cool stuff. But the stuff I’m doing now is going through the roof – thanks in a major way to shedding all the New Age crap.

What you do with it is up to you. I’m not your keeper. I was led to water and I took a drink. I’m thankful for that.

My experience in New Thought circles is that debating the truth of a belief by bringing in MAINSTREAM REAL WORLD SCIENCE will make you THE ENEMY, the dark one, the unenlightened one in two seconds flat.

If this post gets your goat – why don’t you spend a couple hours reading at http://www.randi.org . Is that too much to ask? Oh, I forgot. I’m not supposed to care….

************************

Excerpt on Q-Ray Bracelets from:
http://www.randi.org/joom/content/view/145/1/#i1

Questioned before investigators, Que Te Park testified that his term “ionization” as applied to the bracelet, had no scientific meaning, and that he had no idea what the phrase “ionization performance” meant. Park had simply made up a theory that the bracelet works like acupuncture, or Eastern medicine. He had no testing or studies to support his theory, and there was no scientific evidence to that effect presented in court. The Q-Ray bracelet was marketed as an “ionized bracelet” as part of a scheme devised by Park and the corporate defendants to defraud consumers out of millions of dollars by preying on their need to find a simple solution for alleviating physical pain.

Not surprisingly, the court ordered reimbursement in a minimum amount of $22.5 million up to a maximum of $87 million. Then Park’s appeal was entered, and eventually was considered by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. In his just-announced decision on this matter, Judge Easterbrook wrote that the Q-Ray’s claims about how the bracelets were supposed to work – through “enhancing the flow of bio-energy” – were nonsense.

More information on magnetic therapy pseudoscience available at:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=18 .

Oliver Stone joins rebel hostage rescue team

Director Oliver Stone is in Colombia as part of a mission to retrieve hostages held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

“The FARC really needs a lot of help,” he said in an interview with AP. “Their wardrobe and make-up is ghastly, totally unbelievable for an organization like this.” When asked if the writers’ strike had any play in his intervention Mr. Stone replied, “Absolutely. They need better writers. There are no jokes in their delivery, no physical comedy and nowhere in their run has a pie ever been thrown.”

A representative for Mr. Stone who wishes to remain anonymous confirmed that Jerry Seinfeld and David Letterman were in negotiations to be on the writing team. “They need to keep their plots within 30 minutes including commercials so we can get some TV time on the networks for their cause and reach a wider audience.”

Unconfirmed reports from reliable sources say Dustin Diamond, “Skreech” from Saved By The Bell, is currently doing screen tests to play the rebel leader. “He brings a cozy warm hearted front to the FARC that they desperately need”, the source said.

Music producer Conrad Askland has already started scoring for the project. “We’re doing the whole soundtrack on a $200 Casio keyboard using the auto-chord feature”, he said. “We want this project to be realistic, lo-fi and in your face. To add the to realism, all the music will be recorded in black and white”, he said from his recording studio while sitting suggestively next to a lava lamp.

“They have 30 seconds to give me a plot pitch,” said Stone while sitting with Askland drinking hot cocoa using only the miniature marshmallows with lava lamp nearby. “And it better be good.”

Gloria Challenge Part V – The Performance

If you’ve been following along with the “Gloria Challenge” then this page has everything you might be interested in. Full instrument and conductor scores, rehearsal MP3’s, final performance MP3 and links to posts made during the process.

The “Gloria Challenge” was to follow the footsteps of JS Bach to compose and perform a full scale sacred work for SATB Chorus and Chamber Orchestra at a church service, and to do it all within one week. The piece I composed was the “Christmas Gloria” and it was performed at the Christmas Eve service at Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church in Mount Vernon, WA.

Here’s an Mp3 of the Christmas Eve presentation:

http://conradaskland.com/downloads/Christmas-Gloria/Christmas-Gloria.mp3

I had setup several high end microphones to get a quality recording, but my tapes would not format for the recording. So as a last resort I set a CD recorder on top of the church organ and recorded off it’s internal mics. I’m disappointed we didn’t get a better recording, but it will give you an idea of the piece.

The “Gloria Challenge” came about as I was Googling “JS Bach” a couple weeks ago and read again how he composed so much music for the entire church year, often preparing a full scale piece in a single week. That has always fascinated me, so I thought I’d take a swing at it and see what I could do. It was a great devotional time for me, and a bit tense to get it all together.

Thank you SO MUCH to all the vocalists and musicians who took the challenge and stepped up to the plate.

The process was gruelling to do this in a week. I was pretty sick the evening of our performance and collapsed Christmas Day. If I did this on a regular basis I think it would go much smoother. But I was pleased with the finished product. From talking to chorus members most of them were pleased as well considering the time restraints. The choir got one three hour rehearsal – then a run-through before the performance.

Of course it’s all just a scholastic game if the piece doesn’t inspire the listener and fit appropriately into the service. From feedback I’ve received people were very moved by the piece. There was a thirty second standing ovation at the end of the piece. That’s a little rare for church services, especially a Christmas Eve service. I take it that people were very moved by the text and music.

For me, the piece brought alive the mystery and nobility of Christmas. It also brought some depth to the season for me as I was huddled in seclusion working on the piece instead of watching Christmas specials on tv.

The dedication for the Christmas Gloria is to Ruth Haines and the Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church choir. I really enjoyed the couple years I spent with all of you as music director at MVPres. And thanks to Ruth Haines who always kept me organized even when I didn’t know it.

So yes, I’d say we did it.

Christmas Gloria Musicians:
Trumpet – Cindy Luna
French Horn – Amanda McDaniel
Tuba – Bruce Hanna
Oboe – Rebecca Wright
Flute – Linda Slone
Clarinet – Michelle Hanna
Harpsichord – Ruth Haines
Double Bass – Marilyn Parman
Timpani – Todd Parks

Christmas Gloria Instrument Scores

MP3 Gloria practice tracks for musicians and vocalists:

Christmas Gloria Final Scores Ready

Final scores are now available for the Christmas Gloria for performance Christmas Eve. Players and singers will receive new scores on Christmas Eve. Would advise that instrumentalists and soloists transfer former rehearsal notes into these new scores. You can print them ahead of time if that’s easier for you.

CLICK HERE FOR PAGE WITH FINAL SCORES

Very few note changes. Most changes were adding phrasing marks.

Here’s an overview of changes:

  • Articulations and phrasing marks added
  • Baroque ornamentations added to Flute and Oboe (trills and mordents)
  • SATB Chorus rephrasing of “Glorificamus Te” section.
  • Note values changed in final section – stronger delineation between orchestra and chorus
  • Trio section – phrasing marks added – added lyrics “bonae voluntatis” to end
  • Tuba part re-scored to anchor on lowest A range.
  • Oboe/Flute parts swapped in first section
  • Timpani part combined to include Timpani, Concert Bass Drum, Triangle and Sleigh Bells

Gloria Challenge Part IV – Press Release

Press release by Vicky McCarty:

Imagine what it must have been like to be there the night Silent Night was heard the first time. Or any of the lasting works of composers who excitedly sat and composed to have special music ready for Christmas. Hearing a major work for the first time – being present at the debut is something that not everyone has an opportunity to experience. But those attending the candlelight service at Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church on Christmas Eve will have such an experience.

Conrad Askland has been working in the mode of the old masters, and an assemblage of musicians and singers will perform for the first time his work, Gloria in D. This is an undertaking similar to that of years past. It will be a meaningful Christmas experience, and a wonderful Christmas gift to the community.

Askland has been music director at MVPC for the last year and has directed the music for several theatrical productions in Skagit county. The Christmas eve performance will be his last before he leaves to be Assistant Bandleader and Keyboardist for Cirque du Soleil in Macau, China.