₦airaland Forum

Just to add some web info to this very interesting debate (bold emphasis mine):

Should I store images in the database or the filesystem?
I *strongly* recommend storing the file in the filesystem and its LOCATION in the database, though there are several components out there that make storing images in a database really easy. My preference is ASPUpload from Persits Software. You can see how simple the code is by looking at AspUpload.com - User Manual. Chapter 4.

You can also handle this type of task without a component, but it's a lot more code. There are good examples available at ASP 101 and StarDeveloper.

Here are the arguments for each methodology.

[b]Keep images on the filesystem, and the location and other data in the database

   1. if there is any chance that you will migrate to a different database platform, your current BLOB format might be incompatible with, or at least a pain to convert to, the new format -- since, like web browsers, each vendor has implemented things with their own slant.
       
   2. when your database really goes south, to the point where even the backup is useless, you still have the files on the filesystem (though their usefulness is questionable, depending on how much related data was kept in the database). Which is arguably better than losing all of your data *and* all of your files.
       
   3. having the images in the file system allows you to access the images from many different standard applications (FTP, web browser, etc) without having to write application code to pull the data out of the database, since you can't just 'SELECT image FROM table' and have the image appear in Enterprise Manager or Query Analyzer.
       
   4. with some databases, e.g. Access and MSDE, the data inside is limited to 2 GB (SQL Server Express 2005, as of July 2004, is planned to support 4 GB), whereas the file system is only restricted by the size of the volume. Also, most hosts charge a premium for SQL Server storage space, so in that case it would be cheaper to store them in the file system.
       
   5. in SQL Server 7.0, when a table has an IMAGE or TEXT column, a page is reserved for every row, whether or not that column has any data,  so if you don't have an image for each record, there is potential to have a lot of wasted space. There are workarounds to this, of course, such as splitting the image data into its own table with a foreign key to the main table. SQL Server 2000 *can* combine multiple images < 8kb on one page (but typically, high-volume sites with plenty of images are not focusing on file sizes < 8kb anyway). Also, in SQL Server 2000, if your images are less than 8kb, you can use the text in row option by running the following code:
       
      EXEC sp_TableOption N'TableName', 'TEXT IN ROW', 'ON'
       
      Of course you will have to be careful with this option if you have other TEXT / IMAGE columns in the table.
       
   6. performance wise, including an <IMG SRC> tag generated by the database and pointing to a file that already exists is going to be faster than pulling the file out of the database, generating a temp file on the web server, and streaming that to the user. Also, table scans take more resources when there is an image datatype as opposed to a varchar that simply holds a 'pointer' to the file's location.
       
   7. can be quite complicated extracting images, say from an Access database, since it adds OLE header info to the file (see KB #175261). With SQL Server it's not so bad; see KB #173308 for an example that works right out of the box, KB #258038 for a VB example using ADODB.Stream, and KB #194975 for samples that use ADO's GetChunk and AppendChunk methods.
       
   8. The number of KB articles involving BLOB/IMAGE columns in SQL Server is astounding. Here is a brief subset:  [/b]

          KB #152805, KB #162032, KB #164972, KB #170296, KB #171369, KB #177067, KB #177114, KB #187966, KB #192489, KB #193640, KB #195530, KB #195539, KB #197043, KB #198487, KB #207396, KB #217102, KB #223758, KB #230044, KB #244962, KB #254253, KB #252948, KB #255632, KB #257767, KB #263553, KB #271344, KB #272220, KB #276041, KB #280684, KB #286257, KB #298835, KB #308775, KB #317670, KB #324432, KB #834604, KB #888494, KB #890759, KB #895203

      So, this should give you some idea of the number of problems associated with using the IMAGE datatype.

Keep the images and associated data in the database

   1. you can protect your images better with SQL Server and file system security, as opposed to simply file system.
       
   2. it can be challenging to keep database and filesystem in sync with each other - if the record is deleted in SQL Server (e.g. through an ad hoc query, or a rollback) how does the file system portion of the application know to also delete the image in the file system? One approach is to use extended stored procedures in SQL Server to encompass the file system operations into the database transactions, however this can become as complex, or more so, than storing the BLOB directly in the database - which gives you greater transactional control and consistency.

The above culled from here: http://databases.aspfaq.com/database/should-i-store-images-in-the-database-or-the-filesystem.html

@Smartsoft,

Nice CONCEPT for your designs,

Of the two, I prefer the first one, with the white background. The issue with BOTH designs, in my humble opinion, is that the colours you have used, green and black particularly, do not seem
to blend well together - an issue which is more obvious on the second design. And so the phrase 'Josh & Kelly' does not stand out clearly.

I'd choose the first design - but I'd edit it. If you are stuck with those colours (because the client insists, for example), then I'd make the text stand out, especially where the black text overlaps the green circle by giving the 'Josh & Kelly' text a WHITE outline. I don't know what graphic software you have used, but with fireworks, for example you could give that particular phrase a GLOW effect, using the color white, and using a width of 1 and softness of 2. I think that will make your design stand out more clearly and boldly.

Hope that helps - well done.

Thank you, Afam. As usual, a well-rounded conclusion from you.

The poster said:

I personally think the Mozilla firefox browser is helping scammers spam more easily by opening many tabs. and I would like to know what webmasters think about this.

I mean, he did say it was his 'personal' opinion, didn't he, ? Isn't he entitled to at least hold an opinion and publish it?

Dual Core:
damn i'm so tired, need to listen to music, umm. . . what's it going to be, what's it going to be em em em, ooook, lets seeee . . ."Rihanna - SHUT UP and drive" woooohooooo. nice song. . .
brb need to read something constructive.

As expected - believe me, Nairalanders will never disappoint you! Lol - barely two hours, and they fall in it! I quite agree, it's back to more constructive reading, back to my current novel, Mario Puzo's FOOLS Die. Great book, I recommend it to all here!

dragnet:
, mMm' Nokia 5200 for N1,999 . . .stolen or fufu phone??

dragnet:
D. C. Abi now?? Even refurbished sef dnt sell 4 dt price

tobs:
fufu xpensive pass that price

Nigerians. May God open our eyes to recognise signs of progress when we see it.
Anyway - without holding brief for anyone here, did any of the posters of the above quotes realise that the site in question seems to be an AUCTION site? Meaning the prices we see there now may not be the final price those items sell for?
I have seen the site, and I would rather say 'Well Done' to whoever's behind it all than condem something that has the potential of moving the nation forward in the area of e-commerce.
PS: I await the backlash (as has become usual on Nairaland) for my comments above.

Thanks for that, prodgalson. It all looks very interesting - Thermo's bound to be a valuable tool not only for RIAs, but for Rapid Application Development as well. Perfect bridge between design and development.

Any idea when the tool will be ready commercially?

@adeniyi83, check out this link:

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria?topic=86145.msg1587357#msg1587357

Hope it helps.

@nduaj - I like your site! I belong to the 'simple is best' school (unapologetically so too!), and I think the site is very good, well done. In fact, I 'almost' have nothing I'd rather change - but then there's just got to be something, hasn't there

Anyway - the only thing I'd look into is the quality of the smaller photos on the 'newmodels' page. A bit strange, because the quality of the main images on all the pages is very good. Of course I am sure you can deal with that easily. But from a design/functionality/ease of use viewpoint - well done!

Fantastic. Nigeria we hail thee.

Quote from: babasin November 02, 2007, 06:00 PM

abeg leave dimeji alone

See full post here: https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria?topic=90496.msg1643812#msg1643812

Quote from: babasin November 07, 2007, 05:39:35 PM

This guy smells like a big fraud.

"Hosanna" today, "crucify him" tomorrow - anyone remember that song??

Okay @sweet T, we are not going to split hairs over this. Yes, we should exercise caution over purchasing stock - as we indeed should any endeavour we engage in.

Sweet T:
@Xanadu
Who in the world told you that some companies do not cook books. The only companies that do not cook their books are the monopolies, socialist oriented or non-profit companies !

Your view is that ALL companies HAVE [/b]to cook books to be successful (though in one breath, as shown above, you repeat that view but also concede that [b]ONLY big monopolies have no need to cook their books, more or less agreeing with me that companies DO NOT have to cook their books, monopolies or not) ) - my view is that companies DO NOT HAVE to cook book to be successful, and that I believe there are companies, even in Nigeria, that DO NOT cook their books. I am also of the view that companies do use loopholes in existing regulations - something that is not 'illegal'.

Sweet T:
You said "loopholes". That is exactly what i mean, LOOPHOLES !!! I once had a friend that works at SEC head office and she told me so many methods companies use to stay just withing the boundaries of the law.

Are you equating cooking the books with taking advantage of loopholes?? Enron did not take advantage of loopholes - they cooked the books! If you are (now) saying that by 'cooking the books' you mean taking advantage of loopholes, then perhaps that is what you should have said in the first place.

In any case you have done well and reminded us all of the need to exercise caution. Thanks for that.

Sweet T:
@xanadu
All companies must cook some books to stay in business. It just depend on how greedy or dump they get to be caught. Even govts. cook books !

@sweet T, while I agree with you that one should exercise a great degree of caution where the stock market in Nigeria is concerned, I do beg to differ with regards to your view about companies cooking their books. Companies DO NOT have to cook ANY book to stay in business. Enron stands out as a major example of a company that did cook their books, and was subsequently punished. That does not mean that ALL companies have to juggle their numbers and cook their books. Companies MAY take advantage of existing loopholes in accounting regulations, and still operate legally, but do not HAVE to cook their books.

I think there companies out there, in Nigeria and elsewhere, that do not cook books - I think it is a fair point, though, to concede that they may be in the minority.

Companies that 'get it right' from the beginning - getting decent, disciplined officers, for example, stand a better chance of conducting business without cooking their books. Environments where there is efficient regulation of company activities also make for less opportunities for companies to cook their books.

In fairness also, it can be argued that in the United States, Enrongate happened even though they have a good regulatory system. But then, how good could that system have been, if, after the scandal was revealed, massive and sweeping changes were made by the US SEC, including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (often shortened to SOX) which was enacted in response to the high-profile Enron and WorldCom financial scandals to protect shareholders and the general public from accounting errors and fraudulent practices in the enterprise? With such changes, I am sure it is less likely that many companies would dare go the way of Enron and cook their books.

hbrednic:
@sweet T,
I beg to disagree with you.
the NSE is in no way saturated,infact the market is just opening up.
less than 12% of nigerians are currently involved in stock trading, foreign fund are just coming,so there is still much room for growth.
is there any investment thats doesnt involve risk? stop seeing fantasis and join the train now.

which bank CEO was recently arrested for stock fraud? hope you are not talk ing of spring bank?

Permit me to disagree with you, @hbrednic.
I think that the point @sweet T was making is not so much an issue of the number of Nigerians [/b]involved in stock broking, as it is one of the [b]rate at which companies are going to the market to raise funds. And I do think that a note of warning is indeed in order.

While I agree that there is room for growth in the stock market (as long as there is room for growth in the Nigerian economy, there will always be room for growth where stocks are concerned!), I think it is fair to say that there has been quite a large number of companies raising money lately on the stock market - enough to make one at least decide to 'tread carefully' with regards to buying stocks.

Whatever the case, however, just as in the Enron case, if there is any 'cookery' it will come to light sooner or later. One only hopes that one is not caught up in any such company.

my2cents:
shamass,

I just visited your site. I must confess, "the site" is quite "impressive". I found "the piece" on your cgi-bin directory to be the best feature. Now tell me, which newspaper appears to be in, "serious crisis"? Which newspaper appears to engage in "moonlighting"?

Brilliance, sheer brilliance, my2cents - and I hope it is not lost on shamass. This is one sure case of "Shoot-Him-Down" Syndrome backfiring.

Amenhotep:
Add the current list of looters and emerging looters, and you begin 2 wonder how come there's still peace in nigeria.

Not really hard to figure out why: everyone one is simply content to wait for their 'turn' .

Hi all,

I know it's a long shot - but does anyone know the person who did several intros and radio jingles for the early Nollywood movies? The one I remember for sure is the intro/ad for the movie Domitilla - his style involved speaking very fast and excitedly, in pidgin English, advertising the movie. He also did adverts for several other movies.

Anyone in the house remember him or know who he was?

Thanks!

Is it important that we wear ties to meetings just to make it 'FORMAL'?

What exactly do you want to make FORMAL??

Thanks, Wumfab - I have replied to yours.

Discussing the other day with a couple of colleagues, we went down the much-trodden path of defining exactly who a webmaster is.

It appears that here on Nairaland, the term Webmaster is sort of interchangeable with Web Designer/freelancer. In fact, some web hosts [/b]seem to put themselves in this category!

I thought I'd put the question to all and have a good old debate (and go back to my colleagues armed with the right definition!).

So: [b]Who is a Webmaster?

Is he the one who has created/designed a website, uploaded it on to the WWW and handed it all to the project owner?
Does the role of a Webmaster stop when design and uploading of web pages are complete?
Or does the Webmaster's role also include things like regular site maintenance, liaising with ISP or web host to ensure there is little or no downtime?
Does the Webmaster ensure that web pages are backed up, etc?

Can a freelance web designer be correctly referred to as a Webmaster?

Let's kick off with these definition links:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1306/is_5_67/ai_75090829
http://www.clickfire.com/viewpoints/articles/webmaster_become.php

Looking forward to your contribution!

@akenmi, thanks for that! I am based in London, and I should be grateful if you would post the address/contact details of DDB (is that the name of the company?). Do they have a website? Or have you got a phone number for their Adeola Hopewell Street office?

Thanks again!

Hi DevDel,

Far as I know, PHP is not really compiled, as you would C or C++.

What most programmers who are concerned about protecting intellectual property do, is actually encode/encrypt the source code of their applications, before deploying them.

Arguably the most popular of such 'encoders' is Zend Guard, formerly referred to as Zend Encoder. You can find more info here:

http://www.zend.com/products/zend_guard

Another one is Ioncube Encoder: http://www.ioncube.com/

However, it may be possible to do some sort of 'compilation' of PHP using Visual C++. Of course I am not at all sure about this, but you can read about it yourself here:
http://elizabethmariesmith.com/2006/11/15/how-to-compile-php52-and-php-gtk2-on-windows-using-visual-c-express/3/

Hope that helps.


Matrix
Do you mean a standard matrix/table, for instance, that displays the contents of some fields in a mysql table?

Hello all,

Hope I am posting this in the right section of the forum.

I am looking to publicise a new venture of mine, and am looking for information on how to go about doing a few tv/radio jingles for the venture. Is there any one on the forum who could point me in the right direction?

I am looking specifically for people/companies who can actually do these jingles, costs, duration etc.

Thanks!

Brilliant, simply brilliant!

Is this really a true tori?? Did she ashually said all those statement??

My bestest ones:

6) When the Spanish ambassador paid her a courtesy visit

with a fairly large delegation, an impressed Etteh spared

no effort to "welcome the strangers".

7) When officials of FERMA visited the House, speaker Etteh

urged them to urgently "make our roads habitable".

Great collection, @Aussie

No stress, I believe you don't meant it in a negative way, @Mckren.

I have indeed read the story, I guess where you going is that the claims are yet unsubstantiated, and the fact that it appears there is some vendetta going on against the Senate President: that is why I put a link to the story, anyway.

But that is just my point - when will all the rumour-mongering and vendettas; the mud-slinging and back-biting; the fisticuffs and (hopefully, never again!) death in our legislative houses - when will it all stop?

I do hope my explanation satisfies your curiority.

Again, I ask - what is going on in Abuja??

Well, here we go again - same story, different House.

Reports about an alleged 3bn fraud, against the Senate President - what exactly is going on in Abuja??

Read the story here:

http://odili.net/news/source/2007/oct/19/215.html

@smartsoft, well done!!

I know it's just a demo and there are still lots of things you are yet to implement, but I SIMPLY love the layout. Why? In this era of 'cinemas' on web pages with flash etc, the site is very refreshing. I think the design is clean, and the three images on the left look good too.

However (of course, there's always a 'however', isn't there?), you might want to look at starting to fade the main image at the top of the page a bit later - i.e. start fading perhaps about halfway towards the right. Hope you understand what I mean. The issue with that is, where your text ('one must be out of doors etc) overlaps onto the image, it may not be clear/visible enough. Perhaps you can consider increasing the outline of the text to about 1 point, with a black colour, so it stands out where it overlaps onto the image.

Again - well done for such a refreshing and clean design.

nuzo:
@xanadu

I am not an angry man like you mentioned. Its only that i do go to a large extent to defend what is right.
But if you have refused to make sense out of what i posted earlier, then so be it. No sweat please.

Unless you are living in a world of fantacies; you will agree with me that it's not totally a fine world like you mentioned. Except your kind of fine world is driving a Rolls Royce accross a street of beggers and homeless

@Prof. BLKRaven

Thanks for the correction my dear. No wonder i had to sit for WAEC 3 times.
But you must know that i didnt try to correct her on the use of grammar, I was trying to let people know what she originally had in mind.
Once again, thank you for the correction. You are another Wole Soyinka in the making. Claim it!!

Actually, @nuzo, you should be the one to be referred to as a Professor - especially since you have the rather uncommon talent to know what people originally had in their minds! What I wouldn't give for such a skill!

And no, I am not living in a world of 'fantacies', as you so creatively call it - I choose to say that life is good. If you disagree, then I am not surprised - that may well be the source of the anger you go to so much length to disguise.

Anyway on another note, I have to commend you for being a champion of 'what is right' - whether the defintion of right is strictly as it suits you or not.

nuzo:
The thread on the homepage was actually corrected by Seun. What the girl actually had in mind was the one inside the thread. And going with that reasoning of generallizing all Nigerians whether in or outside the forum makes her all deserving of what i said she is. She didnt even take a peep in other forums owned by other countries before asking a stupid question.
If she doesnt know what to post next time, i will advice her to just allow her fingers rest. Posting a topic is different from responding to one.

@What is the issue at hand? insulting people indirectly with a question?
The subsequent comments might have made sense, but the innitial thread and how she put it shows that she was all out to insult a nation.

I WILL RATHER ADVICE YOU AND RAVEN TO READ MY COMMENT THOROUGHLY BEFORE CONCLUDING.

At the risk of sounding like some here on this forum, I have to respond to this post.

@nuzo, my friend. Why do you sound so angry? Why on earth are you so angry? Does this post touch a raw nerve in you? I really have to say, you sound so defensive! So in order to make an observation that Nigerians on this forum are abusive one needs to go into every forum the world over?

In order to cover all bases, I have gone back to read your earlier comment again, as you suggested.
My conclusion: yes, I think I missed some things the first time.

I missed that fact that you seem so defensive, it is easy to see that perhaps you are guilty of what this post talks about.
I missed the fact that you were even more insultive than I initially thought.
I missed the fact that you do admit the existence of the 'few' Nigerians who are indeed abusive. But you do not need to advertise your membership of this 'elite' group, thank you very much.
I missed the fact that there are some similarities between your attitude and that of the proverbial Ostrich, who hides its head in the sand and refuses to acknowledge the goings-on around it.

Calm down, my friend. Stop being so angry. Life is good.

If you think its only Nigerians that are abusive and insulting in this whole crazy world of BUSH, BROWN and westernization, then its because you are retarded.

Wow. That's quite heavy, @nuzo, especially considering the issue at hand. Your point seems to be that the subject was too general and all-inclusive. But did you actually read the contents of @etin's post, or you simply saw the topic, and posted your own comments? I'd suggest you go back and read the comments in full - in fact, I'll paste it below:

I have been on nairaland for sometime now and I have noticed a very disturbing pattern. Why is it when a an argument is being lost we result to abusive words or when someone has any opinion different from ours we insult them or shout them down. What happened to freedom of expression. It is this attitude of wanting to hear what suits us that breeds sycophants and makes our leaders lie to us. How exactly our we going to grow as a nation if the enlighten ones do not have basic respect other peoples opinion. This basic respect is the hallmark of civilised society

Let us decided on this forum not to dignify insults with any response no matter how tempting it might be.

I suggest that the post above sounds nothing like what a retard would write, as you seem to suggest. There is, I would suggest, a direct reference to this forum. Basically, rather than speed-reading, which perhaps you did (pls correct me if I am wrong there), read the full post. Perhaps then, you will be less likely - and less quick - to label people with names.
I hope you understand my point.