My problem was that I needed to find a way to exclude certain tables’ data because they contained information that was not important to the dump. I did not want to exclude the tables completely because I wanted the truncated tables in the dump. The solution was to make two dumps and combine them into one dump.

The first dump we use the ignore-table parameter to exclude tables that we do not want data for.

mysqldump -u USERNAME -p DATABASE_NAME --ignore-table=DATABASE_NAME.TABLE_NAME > quick_dump.sql

The second dump makes use of the no-data and tables parameters. The no-data parameter specifies that the dump should not include any table data. The tables parameter limits the dump to the tables you supply. The final special thing we use here is “>> quick_dump.sql” to concatenate the two dumps together.

mysqldump -u USERNAME -p DATABASE_NAME --no-data --tables TABLE_NAME >> quick_dump.sql

For instance, some people write their tables primary id name as ID, id, or table_name_id. While people may argue about the appropriate way to do it, all of these are correct as long it is constant throughout the project.

The problem I see developers running into is naming reference table IDs. This can cause confusion for other developers. The appropriate way to reference another table’s ID is to include the table full table name. You never know when you are going to have similar table names that will cause confusion for another developer.

Here are some example reference IDs and the tables that they would link to the IDs from.
user_id is from the user table.
user_group_id is from the user_group table.
client_group_id is from the client_group table.

Here is an example of where another programmer might have trouble easily understanding your database. If you have a database with several tables including user, client_group, and user_group. And the user table references the user_group table with a column named group_id. Another programmer may assume that group_id is actually referencing the id from the client_group table.

Getting Started

How much are you worth? This varies depending on your experience, skill, and location. Ask some locals of your skill level what they charge for their services and start there. You can also undercut their prices and offer to do work for them. This way they can make a profit and you have a source of income. In my field I have seen freelancers charge $15-$300 an hour. Do not ask clients how much you should charge. Not only does this show your inexperience, but makes them feel like you are not worth what they are paying you.

Where do you find clients? Contacting development and design firms or other freelancers is a great place to start because many of them need “part-time” freelancers. The majority of my business is from word of mouth. By keeping clients satisfied they tell others about me. About 5% is from business cards that I give out to people who are interested. I have about 100 of 250 cards from two years of business. Finally, 5% of my business is from this website. I do not compete directly with the thousands of other web development websites. Instead I refer clients who want to see my portfolio and resume. I compete for local clients because people prefer someone they can meet. The blog and other content on my site are to help other programmers and introduce them into the world of web development.

What about invoices and taxes? FreshBooks handles tracking time on projects, business expenses, and invoicing clients. I use timerSync with FreshBooks to make time tracking even easier. I have both a business checking and savings accounts. I use the checking account to pay for business related expenses and use the savings account for taxes. Once a month I review the checking account history and categorize my expenses in Freshbooks. My categories include: lease, utility, travel, service, invoice, supplies, fees, depreciating assets, and software. These are grouped to make my taxes easier to file at the end of the year. Here are a few things I write off as expenses: Miles driven and meals when meeting with clients, a percentage of my home utilities and rent that I use for my office, hosting, domains, cell phone, and office furniture. If you buy it for use in your business you can usually write it off. Check with a tax adviser if you have questions.

A fellow freelancer, Dan Decort, recommends getting a Certified Public Accountant. He says “They are worth every penny and do wonderful job at saving me money on taxes”.

A CPA will manage all of your money and handle your taxes. I don’t have a CPA out of personal choice, it is possible however that in the future I might get one. I am responsible enough to put 25% of all my income into business savings and not touch it until after taxes are paid. I use TurboTax to do my personal and business taxes. I setup a LLC and have a prepared W9 in case a client requests it. The W9 is the appropriate form for contractor work. It basically states that you are paying the taxes on the money that the client gives you.

What projects do you like to work on? At first you may not get much of a choice of what you work on but as business gets moving you will get more of a choice. You should always strive to take projects that will challenge you but not overwhelm you. It is important that your client thinks you are the smartest programmer in the world.

Keeping things moving

What about financial stability? Find a steady client or two (development firm or another freelancer) who can pay your cost of living. If your cost of living is $1,500 a month and your rate is $50 an hour, your client should consistently buy 40 hours per month. Where is the extra $500 going? Taxes. Do not forget about taxes. You may have to give them a discount on your rate to get them to spend the amount you need. Any other clients you can get are extra money. Try to save 6 months of your minimum living expenses in a savings account to use if you lose clients.

How do I keep my sanity? Working from home is challenging. It is nothing like working in an office with people, phones, and lunches. Instead you have silence, radio, and YouTube. It can and will drive you crazy unless you enjoy silence or radio. However if you have this urge to be around people one solution is to voice chat other freelancers. The conversation is usually small talk because we are working, but it is knowing that they are there helps me a great deal.

What do I do in my downtime? If you need more work start looking for new clients. Try craigslist, other job offer websites, and freelancing websites. If you are expecting clients with work in the near future try learning something new that you would not feel comfortable doing for a client. You can also write a blog to help others with problems you may have had or something you feel very knowledgeable on and can teach it with your own twist. Everyone learns differently, so your perspective may help.

What happens when I have too much work? Clients start emailing you about the same job. You are sleep deprived (I’ve been up for 27 hours as of now). You are on the programmers diet, meaning, if nothing is within reach you forget to notice you have not not eaten in the past 12 hours. If you find yourself working for more than 40 hours a week on a constant basis and you have enough clients, raise your prices. I raised my prices by $15 and lost no clients. Try not to do this often, you just gave yourself a well deserved raise. At this point you can either find a freelancer to take on the extra work and make some money off of them. Or you can decline work of clients that have another freelancer to go to. To grow you must find, teach, and trust other freelancers to work with you.

Final Tips

Keep a good relationship with your clients. If you need to end a relationship, keep it as civil as possible for future business and referrals. Quote high and beat your quotes, it will make your client feel like they are getting a deal. If you have a client that is trying to price gouge your work do not put up with this. Explain that your rate is the standard for the quality of work they are receiving. If they feel they can get a better deal some were else tell them to go for it. I find it best to have hourly fees with detailed quotes so the project does not lose you money. If you have to have a flat price on a project, bid high and detail the work that will be done for the price.

If you have questions feel free to hit up the comments below or contact me.

In my regular expression, I only look for a very select few characters and the rest get thrown out. This allows the user to use characters that are not a-z, 0-9, or underscores to separate the values in the string. New lines will also work to separate the values. I’ve also added indentation in my example to make easier to read, this does not affect the parser’s ability to separate the values. If the user wanted they could put this on a single line and separate the values by commas or another character.

This is the example input:

$string = '
personal_information[
	first_name
	last_name
	email
	private_information[
		birth_day
		mothers_name
		fathers_name
	]
	previous_employers[
		company_1[
			company_1_name
			company_1_start_date
			company_1_position
		]
		company_2[
			company_2_name
			company_2_start_date
			company_2_position
		]
	]
]
how_did_you_find_us
comments
';

The output is a multidimensional array that is built by a recursive function and a recursive regular expression.

function parseInput ($string) {
	$array = array();
	// The pattern searches for string[*] recursively finding the appropriate closing and opening brackets
	// It does this by the use of ?R which makes it a recursive regular expression
	$pattern = "/([\*a-zA-Z0-9_]+)(?:\[((?:[^\[\]]+|(?R))*)\])?/";
	preg_match_all($pattern, $string, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE);
	// $matches[0] is the value and children: value[children]
	// $matches[1] is the value
	// $matches[2] is the children if they exist
	$countMatches = count($matches[0]);
	// loop through the matches
	for ($i = 0; $i < $countMatches; $i++) {
		// Check if the value has children
		if ($matches[2][$i][0]) {
			$array[] = array(
				'header' => $matches[1][$i][0],
				'children' => parseInput($matches[2][$i][0],true)
			);
		} else {
			$array[] = array('name' => $matches[1][$i][0]);
		}
	}
	return $array;
}
// Parse and print the $string
print_r(parseInput($string));

Here is a working example which shows the input text and output array. And here is the source code of the example.

Joomla is a content management system based on the programming language PHP that allows users to create fully functional websites and manage them via a user-friendly interface panel. The interface panels are generally designed and maintained by specific Joomla providers. Partly because Joomla is an open-source program, installation can be extremely difficult for individuals who are not familiar with programming languages, requiring the assistance of an expert programmer. Originally released in 2005, Joomla has since undergone several updates to increase its operation speed and its ability to offer users specifically designed degrees of control. Getting Joomla web hosting can help ease the install because they install Joomla for you.

If you are working with Joomla, be sure to get PHP hosting as Joomla is PHP based. PHP is a bare-bones experience without the user friendliness or rapid adaptability of Joomla. PHP hosting can provide the functionality of a content management system (as it does when integrated with Joomla), but it is recommended for those individuals who write code on a daily basis. PHP 5, instead of PHP 4, should be used in conjunction with Joomla.

Updates for Joomla

Merchant Services

Joomla’s merchant package allows intermediate users to organize multiple-item shopping carts with a minimum of hassle. The shopping cart is pre-installed and pre-configured. The control panel is designed for intermediate to advanced users. Extensive experience with PHP 5 is recommended.

Automatic Twitter/Facebook Updates

Joomla can be configured to send automatic updates about newly posted articles or shopping items via RSS feed to major social networking sites. The control panel encourages intermediate users to create nuanced commands which allow for the dispersal of specific updates across a wide variety of internet sites.

More Sophisticated Access Control List

In version 1.6, Joomla assigns complete functionality to the so-called super user, while giving the administrator, manager, author, editor, publisher, registered users and the public access to different aspects of the software. While a manager has access to most of the tools of the editor and the publisher, for example, the manager does not have access to installation procedures. Editors, likewise, have a sharply defined role as set by the super user, who is the only Joomla user who has access to all panels, modes, and settings.

Article Manager

This increased specificity helps to create a more fluid and productive system, where individual users are able to take charge of those items which require their immediate attention without becoming distracted by options that either do not apply to them, or will only lead to more work for other users. This simplification extends to individual task based areas, such as the implementation of articles on the site. With different levels of control, from the global approach to the administrative level to the individual tab level, editing and implementing an article is quickly broken down into discrete tasks. Permissions can be quickly set and denied depending on the needs of the application.

Faster Overall Implementation

The changes to Joomla ultimately impact how quickly a website can post new content, alter it, or change the look of a major part of the display. In essence, the major changes to Joomla are refinements of its overall structural capability, which leads to cleaner executions of basic tasks, and less duplication and confusion of individual user responsibilities. The code structure of PHP allows for the creation of programming that inserts, protects and files information and corresponding actions in multiple databases simultaneously. Functionally, Joomla has not diminished its power but rather distilled that power in more discretely defined areas.

Kirsten Ramsburg is a senior writer for a web hosting services review company, WebHostingSearch.com.