Website Designers and Webmasters

Although I primarily use MySQL on linux servers, I’ve had a couple clients using MSSQL databases for all sorts of things from email marketing to order tracking. For these clients, I use Microsoft SQL Sever Management Studio Express and have saved many of the MSSQL queries I’ve had to create. Some of these will work fine in MySQL as is or with minimal tweaking.

Here’s a collection of the useful MSSQL Queries I’ve used and saved. This is by no means a comprehensive list of all the MSQL Queries and MSSQL statements, but I hope they can be useful for you.

MSSQL Variables

Being able to declare MSSQL Variables has saved so much time for sets queries that I need to run multiple times with slight variations.

This is a very basic example, but has everything you need. MSSQL Variables must begin with a “at symbol” (@). You first declare the MSSQL variables and assign it a character type (in this case, I’m just using varchar(55). 55 is the maximum number of characters to be stored in the variable. Then you set a value for the variables.

Declare @email1 varchar(55), @name1 varchar(55)
set @email1 = ‘%websitesinaflash.com%’
set @name1 = ‘%Ashton Sanders%’

SELECT *
FROM   email_database
WHERE email_address LIKE @email1
AND first_name LIKE @name1

MSSQL UNION

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AWeber is a very popular web-based email marketing service.

What is an email marketing service?

An email marketing service is a company that does all of the technical aspects of maintaining an email/newsletter list. If you want to start sending out an email newsletter, since it is one of the best ways of marketing on the internet, there are many email marketing services that will handle the removes, bounces, ESP whitelisting, and all of the other tasks a large email newsletter sender would have to do.

The down side of using any email marketing service is that you have to follow their rules and do thing their way. So it’s very useful to know how the different email service providers work so you can make an intelligent decision on which one to use, as there are many of them.

AWeber

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It has been a crazy year so far, and we barely finished the first quarter. Websites in a Flash has been keeping me very busy, so I have been neglecting all of my blogs.

But at least I do have something to show those who ask “What has Ashton Sanders been up to?” This blog is the first unavailing of the new Websites in a Flash logo and website design branding. It’s been a long process, and it turns out: Ashton Sanders is the pickiest client I’ve ever had to deal with.

They say the cobbler’s children go without shoes, and that has really happened with Websites in a Flash. It has been years since I was able to update it. (Some of the spacing is even mixed up on the Website Clients in Internet Explorer 7.0… that’ll give you an idea of how long it’s been.)

Other things to note: I have joined a group called Montana Programmers which has quickly grown to 12+ “extreme programmers” (of all skill levels). We have monthly meetings where we can connect with and share ideas with other website programmers in the area. I’ve been working on websites for 4 years in Polson Montana, but only knew of 2 other website developers in the area.

Tomorrow will be the second meeting I will attend and will be doing a 45 minute “brain dump” (seminar) on CSS. I’ll be covering the very basics and some more advanced items.

That seems to be a good update for now. I plan to finish the new website design for Websites in a Flash, and then will be back to routine updates on this blog!

Enjoy,
Ashton Sanders

(P.S.  I’ve got a great new project in the works for those looking to learn everything there is to know about CSS!)

To preface this rant, I thought I would tell you a little bit about myself:

1) I’ve only ever had PC’s. My father had a 286 and a 486 while I was growing up, and I’ve always been very into computers. My brother and I built our own computers for under $300 each while we were in high school. We were never presented with the opportunity to build a Mac.

2) Growing up, my friends and I played a lot of computer games, and I’ve tried to connect a Mac with a PC over a network… If you want to play a computer game at a LAN party, don’t bring a Mac.

3) I’m also very thrifty (stingy even) and never spend more than $1000 for a computer.

Those are three reasons whey I’ve never owned a mac. Please notice that there isn’t a “Mac’s are for idiots” reason. I don’t have any problems learning how to use a Mac, but I’m not going to drop a couple grand on a computer just to re-learn how to do things. (I use iTunes as my only music playing program.)

Now that you understand that I am pretty neutral on the Mac vs PC issue, here’s my rant:

Ordering a Simple Mac Product

I needed to purchase QuickTime 7 Pro to edit some videos for a client, and I needed to get it done in a couple days. No problem, right? On December 21st, I log into the Mac store, and purchase the registration key for $30. Immediately I get an email saying:

Hello Ashton Sanders,

Thank you for shopping the Apple Online Store. Your order is complete and your purchase information is located below.

Be sure to keep a copy of this email for your records. It may contain your software key(s), which you can retrieve at any time by visiting Downloadable software purchases in Your Account.

Visit Order Status to view your order details.

Best regards,
The Apple Store Team

Even though this introduction email refers to possibly containing a software key (like the one I need to activate QuickTime 7 Pro), the order details only says:

Product Name: QT 7 PRO WIN ACCESS KEY-INT
Product Number: D3381Z/A
Price: $29.99
Quantity: 1

Registered to: Ashton Sanders

And then it has instructions for how to use the registration code.

Problem: No Registration Code

Solution 1: Okay, maybe I just need to wait a while. So I waited until lunch time the next day before contacting their live chat support in the Apple Store. I explain my problem a couple times before she said, “We can’t help you with that. Go to the support website for QuickTime.” Which obviously shows that she still didn’t understand the problem I was having…. since my problem is that the Apple Store didn’t give me the Registration Key.

FAILURE.

Solution 2: I called the Apple Store Support and they told me, “It usually takes up to 24 hours for the registration key to get mailed to you.” Okay, fine. I’ll wait till 9:00 at night. I waited till 9:00 that night and still did not receive a registration key. The best part was that the support line closed.

FAILURE.

Solution 3: I called the Apple Store Support the next morning and they told me, “It usually takes up to 48 hours for the registration key to get mailed to you.” And you guessed it… still no registration key.

FAILURE.

Finally after 4 days of waiting and 3 calls, someone told me, “It usually sends you the registration key immediately, but sometimes it just breaks. I’ll credit your account (it takes 5 days) and you can purchase it again.”

Thanks Apple Store for being crappy.
-Ashton Sanders

Ah ha! I have finally won something! Last month, Dell had a silly crossword-type game where once a day you can get entered into a drawing for some large prizes, and every time you enter, you also get a chance to win instant prizes. I’ve never won anything and didn’t think I would win something, but there’s always a small chance.

And Voila! I won a computer mouse! Yea, I know, it’s just a mouse, and I thought it was going to end up being one of those crappy, corded dell mouses (mice?) that you get when you buy a desktop from them.

Then today, I got a suspiciously marked package…

It took me a couple seconds to find the “Dell” and then figure out it was my long awaited prize!

Logitech has always been a big favorite of mine, ever since my Logitech mouse died after 2 years, and they replaced it for free. And this mouse is just as awesome as I’d expect from Logitech!

Here’s a picture of the mouse:

This is a compact wireless laser mouse. As you can see it’s red, but the coolest part about it is that small little black/silver thing in the plastic. That is a USB wireless adapter to connect a computer to the mouse wirelessly. The reason that is so cool is because the USB plug is 3 times as large as the actual adapter.

I gave this sweet mouse to my wife as a late Valentines Day Present, she plugged the USB adapter into her computer, turned on her mouse and it worked perfectly. Plug-n-Play for the win!

If only Logitech had an affiliate program, I’d never stop raving about them
-Ashton Sanders