This article was written on July 13, 2006 by CyberNet.
Tutorial Thursday
One concern that many Website owners have is that their site will get hacked into and they will lose everything. That is why backup software normally costs an arm and a leg because people are willing to pay for a peace of mind.
That peace of mind no longer has to break your pocket book, in fact, you don’t even have to open your pocket book! The software I am about to discuss will help you setup a batch file to perfom a MySQL database backup. Then I will show you how to schedule the backup along with a few other details. Okay, I’ll go ahead and walk you through the steps.
–Getting Started–
- First you will need to go ahead and download the FREE software from WFF Systems.
- You can start the installation process by executing the file that you downloaded above.
- After you have completed the installation go ahead and run the software.
–Create A Batch File–
- Now that you have the software up and running you need to enter in the directory that you would like the backup to be stored. Enter this into the textbox located on the right-side of the program.
- Select the Add Database option and enter in the information for your database. Press OK after you have filled out all of the fields.
- Select Backup and make sure the software is able to connect and backup your database properly. If it is successful you should see a backup file in the directory that you designated.
- If you were able to successfully run the backup then you can close the software. Otherwise you will have to troubleshoot to figure out what part of your information is not correct.
–Edit The Batch File (Optional)–
This section will explain how you can add the date and time to the backup’s filename. If you do not perform these steps the backup will automatically overwrite the previous backup.
- Browse to the directory that you installed the software.
- Find the file named tmp.bat and right-click on it, then select Edit.
- Your file should be similar to this:
"C:\Backup Software\mysqldump.exe" example_database -hexample.com -uexample_user -pexample_password >"c:\example_database.sql" - In order to have it generate the date and time for the file name we need to add a little code to the batch file. Place this code before the text above:
for /f "tokens=1,2" %%u in ('date /t') do set d=%%v
for /f "tokens=1" %%u in ('time /t') do set t=%%u
if "%t:~1,1%"==":" set t=0%t%
set timestr=%d:~6,4%%d:~3,2%%d:~0,2%%t:~0,2%%t:~3,2%
echo %timestr%
- Now change the output of your file name to include the date/time variable. That means I would change "c:\example_database.sql" to "c:\example_database-%timestr%.sql".
- My final batch file looks like this:
for /f "tokens=1,2" %%u in ('date /t') do set d=%%v
for /f "tokens=1" %%u in ('time /t') do set t=%%u
if "%t:~1,1%"==":" set t=0%t%
set timestr=%d:~6,4%%d:~3,2%%d:~0,2%%t:~0,2%%t:~3,2%
echo %timestr%
"C:\Backup Software\mysqldump.exe" example_database -hexample.com -uexample_user -pexample_password >"c:\example_database-%timestr%.sql" - Now each time you run the batch file it will generate a file name that looks like "example_database-200612071200.sql". The time is formatted as year/day/month/time.
–Schedule The Batch File–
Now we can schedule the file so that it will automatically perform the backups each day.
- Goto the Control Panel-> Scheduled Tasks-> Add Scheduled Task.
- Select Next to begin the wizard. It will take a little while for it to get to the next screen.
- Select Browse. Browse for the batch file that you created above. It is located in the program’s installation directory and it is called tmp.bat.
- Just complete the rest of the details about when you want to execute the backup…daily, monthly, etc.
–Overview–
I hope that this will help you out because I know this is a big time saver for me! The biggest issue that some people may have is finding their database’s name and the username/password.
| Update: | DavidC commented below recommending the MySQL Administrator software. I haven’t used this before but it does look very powerful. |
Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox
Related Posts:
- CyberNotes: Week In Review With Sunday’s Summary!Helpful Tip: Backup Apple Mail or EntourageCyberNotes: Vista Does Time Machine… BetterCyberNotes: How To Schedule Your Computer To Shutdown And MoreCyberNotes: Backup Files When Your Computer is Idle
Firefox 2
Firefox 2 is now designed to create a scrolling tab bar when there are an abundance of tabs open. It is hard to define “abundance” because some people prefer to have really small and nearly unreadable tabs instead of having them scroll.
The placement of the Close Button has been a very controversial subject for many people. I have run into several individuals who hate that there is now a button on every tab while others say “it’s about time.” I like the feature but if you’re one of the people that don’t then you can easily change it:
Firefox no longer uses the “I’m Feeling Lucky” search by Google. Now it uses the “Browse By Name” which is very similar. In fact, you may not even notice a difference but there definitely is.
In my 
Sick of getting the unresponsive script error messages? In Firefox 2 a script will be given 20 seconds to execute, and anything beyond that it will display the script warning. If you are constantly getting these warnings (common on some slower computers) then you should consider increasing the duration.
Microsummaries have the potential to become extremely useful but they need a little push. For CyberNet I came up with 
If you run into a site that says it is not compatible with your browser there may be a good chance that it’s because you are running Firefox 2. If you know it worked fine in Firefox 1.5 then you should try to change your user agent. By doing this Firefox can identify itself as a previous version, such as Firefox 1.5, which may solve the compatibility issue.
If you haven’t noticed that new Go button can’t be removed from the Address Bar. Well, at least not in the typical fashion of removing buttons from toolbars. There is a configuration option that can be used to remove the button though.
The inline spell checking is probably my favorite feature in Firefox 2 but it doesn’t check the single-line text boxes for spelling mistakes. You can right-click on the field and have it check the spelling or you can permanently turn spell check on by changing a configuration option.
When you go to download multiple files you may notice that Firefox will only let you download two files at a time. If you want to download more you will have to increase the number of connections Firefox can make.
The search box in the upper-right corner of Firefox makes it really easy to search your favorite sites. You can get each of those search queries to open in a new tab with this simple tweak:
This last one is a classic for our site. 
Transferring files from one folder to another, or from computer to computer is something most people do on a regular basis. Have you ever thought about speeding up the process by using a file transfer utility? They’re similar to the download managers in your web browser, except they’re made to be used all around your computer.
Yesterday we announced the new Firefox extension that we launched called 
I’m a pretty slow reader which can get very frustrating when I see long articles that I have to read. I have seen programs before that say they can make you a speed reader in no time. Whether they work or not is a good question; I normally believe them as much as I believe those diet pills that can shed 50 pounds in a week!
Windows only 
