SACS Idol 2005

03 May 2005

Coming May 12.

Cool MySQL function

03 May 2005

I just discovered that MySQL has a mathematical function called RAND(). It serves two purposes, one of which was relevant to me, the other is just nifty to know.

You can use RAND() as a random number generator (although it’s probably not terribly random) simply by using the syntax

SELECT RAND();

or with a seed value between the parentheses

SELECT RAND(1234);

or (and this is the cool one for me) like this

SELECT * FROM tbl_name ORDER BY RAND();

to retrieve results in a random order.

Nifty, hey?

More info can be found on the MySQL Reference Manual Mathematical Functions page

Statistics for April

01 May 2005

This month past has regrettably been one in which I haven’t spent enough time creating content, although March was fairly good, but the traffic didn’t really falter for it.

Unique: 2091
Visits: 4281
Pages: 14158
Hits: 44419
Bandwidth: 484.76 MB

Unique impressions are up by over 600 from last month, suggesting increased driven traffic (from external sites, search engines, etc., which accounted for 13.1% of total traffic, as opposed to incidental traffic – that is, regular visitors, syndication, etc.). Bandwidth is slightly up on March, exceeding 500MB if non-viewed statistics are included (there was 192.48 MB of non-viewed traffic, which means search engine spidering as well as certain syndication services I think), which is getting fairly sizeable I think, especially compared to last year’s statistics for this month (which aren’t really valid, because there was a holder page up then, but it’s fun to point out) — 2.38MB of traffic and 30 unique visitors!

The most popular post on this website remains the original DashLite announcement, although the updated version doesn’t really get a look in… which is okay, because it was released more out of social responsibility than any new need, and people can choose for themselves what they want.

See also:
February 2005 statistics
September/October 2004 statistics
June 2004 statistics

Political Correctness check

01 May 2005

You’ve probably heard of spell- and grammar-checking, but this one is new to me!

Ah, Microsoft is trying to pluralise the establishment! Take that, monopoly conspiracy theorists! ;)

A more coherent Recreant Strength

01 May 2005

This one should probably even be readable! Seriously, it’s been cleaned up a lot… if the last one was too much, this should be easier to read… and hopefully less dependent upon the original play it’s based on!

I also refuse to use version numbers for a composition, so I’m just going to say this:

Download the ‘revised’ Recreant Strength here.