Common Issues In Responsive Design Development Process

Making sure a website renders optimally on various device screen sizes via responsive design is a satisfying exercise for a website developer, and I went through this exercise recently. Of course, I ran into my share of bugs during the process. Below are 3 of the issues I ran into and what (if anything) can be done about them.

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Converting to Responsive Design With CSS

Recently I went through the process of converting several websites into responsive design. For those who are not familiar, the concept of responsive design is to make sure the website renders nicely on both desktop and mobile devices by serving up different CSS stylesheets depending on the screen width.

Below are the steps I took to convert the sites (the starting point is a non-mobile optimized website):

1. Add the following code into the <head> section:

<meta name=”viewport” content=”width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1, minimum-scale=1″ />

This statement will make sure the website renders correctly on your mobile device.

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Top 25 Influencers in Business Intelligence

Here’s the list of top 25 influencers in the field of business intelligence. The ranking is based on Klout score. We used the Klout’s top business intelligence influencers as the starting point, and we checked the top influencers for these accounts (sometimes going out to multiple levels) to arrive at the list below.

1. MicroStrategy @microstrategy
Klout Score 79
Business Intelligence and Mobile Intelligence Software. For better, faster business decisions.

2. Mico Yuk @MicoYuk
Klout Score 66
Founder http://BIDashboardFormula.com &http://EverythingXcelsius.com, Entrepreneur, BI Influencer, Global Speaker, #dataviz Geek, #BIDF Coach, #Xcelsius Guru.

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Surrogate Key In Database Design

In database design, it is a good practice to have a primary key for each table. There are two ways to specify a primary key: The first is to use part of the data as the primary key. For example, a table that includes information on employees may use Social Security Number as the primary key. This type of key is called a natural key. The second is to use a new field with artificially-generated values whose sole purpose is to be used as a primary key. This is called a surrogate key.

A surrogate key has the following characteristics:

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Rename Table in SQL

Sometimes, it may be necessary to rename a table. There is no standard way to rename a table, and the implementation varies by RDBMS. Below we discuss how we can rename a table in MySQL, Oracle, and SQL Server.

MySQL

In MySQL, we can rename a table using one of the following methods:

Method 1

RENAME OLD_TABLE_NAME TO NEW_TABLE_NAME

Method 2

ALTER TABLE OLD_TABLE_NAME
RENAME TO NEW_TABLE_NAME

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Find 2nd Largest Value Using SQL

We all know that the MAX function can be used to find the largest value in SQL. How, then, can we write a single-pass SQL that can be used across different database systems to find the second largest value in a column? Single-pass means only one SQL query gets executed, as opposed to having multiple SQL statements using temporary tables to store intermediate results.

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Find Duplicates in SQL

SQL does not provide a built-in capability to find duplicates in a table. Fortunately, it is fairly easy to write a SQL query that does it. The idea is to count the number of occurrences for each value, and then use the HAVING condition to show only the values that appear more than once.

SELECT COLUMN_NAME, COUNT(*)
FROM TABLE_NAME
GROUP BY COLUMN_NAME
HAVING (COUNT(*) > 1);

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File Transfer Between Android and PC

There are many occasions when we want to transfer files between our Android device and our PC. One way to do this is to connect the Android device to the PC via a USB cable. On the other hand, sometimes this does not work for a variety of reasons. Below I describe how I set up my Android and PC so I can transfer files between them.

File transfer from Android to PC

I use Bluetooth for this, and there are two components: Hardware and software. On the hardware side, you’ll want to make sure your PC is Bluetooth-ready. My PC did not have Bluetooth capabilities, so I bought a Bluetooth adapter (IOgear IOGBU421) to make sure my PC can communicate via Bluetooth. On the software side, I used Bluetooth OBEX File Transfer from Medieval Software. I downloaded and installed the PC version, and then I downloaded and installed the Android app version to my Android phone. Both versions are free. Once installations are complete, start the app in Android, and then open the file transfer program in PC. You’ll be able to connect to your Android device and download the files from your Android device.

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