The Benefits of a Content Management System

A content management system (CMS) is software that enables end-users to create and manage content on a website. They are designed to make content management easy for non-technical users. One of the key features of a good content management system is that no coding is needed to create or modify content. CMS handles all the basic coding, so users can concentrate on what visitors to the website will see, rather than what goes on behind the scenes.

A content management system consists of two main elements. First, there is a content management application (CMA). The CMA is the part of the application that allows users to add content and manage it. The second element is a content delivery application (CDA). This is the backend application that formats the content and makes it available to visitors to the site.

The Benefits of a Content Management System

The main benefit of a content management system is that it allows non-technical people to publish content. This dramatically cuts the cost of maintaining a website. You may still employ the services of a web developer to design and set up a site. But, with a CMS system, you will be able to publish and modify content yourself.

The second major advantage of a CMS is that it allows collaboration. Multiple users within an organization can create and publish content. The user interface of a CMS is usually browser-based so any number of users can access the system from anywhere.

Examples of Content Management Systems

One of the most popular content management systems is WordPress, but there are hundreds of other CMS platforms. WordPress is an open-source CMS tool that is used by large businesses, small businesses, and individuals. It is estimated that WordPress is the CMS behind more than 30% of the world’s websites. Some of the other popular platforms include Drupal, Joomla, and Magento.

Important Things to Consider CMS Platform

While WordPress is popular, it is not the only option. Before you choose a content management system, you should look at what your overall goals are.  You will need to think in detail about the functionality that you will need. This will help you choose a CMS platform that is right for your business rather than simply opting for the best-known CMS. Here are some things to consider when choosing a CMS platform.

Ease of Use

Ease of use is the main thing to look for in a CMS platform. However, some CMS systems cross the line between ease of use and lack of functionality. Make sure that the CMS platform use is intuitive and easy to use. But, remember to make sure that it has sufficient functionality to meet your needs.

Availability and Cost of Add-ins

You can usually add functionality to CMS platforms with modules, which are often called plugins. These are usually made available by third parties. They may, or may not, be free. When you are researching CMS, investigate the availability and the cost of plugins. If the CMS platform you choose only has limited out-of-the-box functionality, then you will be relying on plugins to customize your content management solution to your own needs. Plugins expand functionality, but they can lead to maintenance issues. Because they are written by third parties, they may not always be compatible with your version of the CMS platform.

Look and Feel Flexibility

It is important that your website looks different from all the rest. This can be difficult with some of CMS platforms. If there are only a limited number of themes or templates, and a few customization options, it will be difficult to make your website uniquely your own.

Responsive Design

More half of internet traffic now comes from mobile devices. So, responsive mobile design is essential in a CMS platform. Make sure that the CMS platform you select supports responsive web design. That will ensure that your web pages will render properly across different types of devices.

Speed

Speed is an important consideration in several areas. The first aspect of speed relates to ease of use. How easy will it be to install the software, configure the website, and publish content. The second aspect is the speed that the site will operate. The speed at which web pages are rendered is vital. If a website is slow to load or refresh, visitors will become frustrated and move on to another website.

Integration

The ability to integrate a CMS platform with third-party applications can also be very important. You may want to integrate your website with an e-commerce solution, a CRM package, or an automated marketing system. Investigate the availability of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and find out what support there is for integration. Even if you don’t want to integrate your CMS with third-party applications now, you may want to in the future.

Scalability

Another factor to consider is how scalable the CMS platform is. Will it handle large spikes in traffic? Can you add resources to cope with increasing traffic? If you plan on having more than one website, does the CMS application offer multi-site support?

Security and Support

You should also check what security features come with the software, and what extra third-party security applications you may have to use. All websites are targets for hackers, but some platforms have much better security features than others. The support services that are available for CMS platforms vary as well. High-end open source applications like WordPress are typically built with sophisticated security mechanisms but do not provide support service for CMS installation and maintenance so you may have to use a third-party support service.

To choose the right CMS platform for your business, you will need to assess both your current and future requirements. There are plenty of CMS options, but making the right decision at the outset will save you a lot of time in the future. Content can be migrated from one platform to another, but it can be very time consuming to do so.

It is advisable to seek advice from a company that specializes in digital marketing. If you can, it is also useful to test drive the software before you commit to using it. The decision you make now on a CMS platform could have a major impact on your organization in the future.

The most dangerous command in SQL

Vijay is a SQL Server/Microsoft Data Platform professional with over 10 years of experience working in various fields such as financial, healthcare, and Manufacturing Domains. He has worked in various DB-related roles from database Modeler to database developer to Data Warehouse.

The most dangerous command in SQL

There’s one command, in particular, that has been effectively hidden since it was introduced pre-SQL Server 2000.

I present to you DBCC WRITEPAGE – the most dangerous command you can use in SQL Server.

Well, no danger of death 

DBCC WRITEPAGE allows you to alter any byte on any page in any database, as long as you have sysadmin privileges. It also allows you to completely circumvent the buffer pool, in other words, you can force page checksum failures.

The purposes of DBCC WRITEPAGE are:

1. To allow automated testing of DBCC CHECKDBand repair by the SQL Server team.
2. To engineer corruptions for demos and testing.
3. To allow for last-ditch disaster recovery by manually editing a live, corrupt database.

It’s not advised that you attempt #3 unless you’re confident you know what you’re doing and the side-effects on the Storage Engine from the byte(s) that you’re changing.

It is a very dangerous command because:

1. It is an entirely physical change to the page – nothing is logged in the transaction log, and it cannot be rolled back.
2. You can change any page in any database. For instance, you could use it to modify a page in master so that the instance immediately shuts down and will not start until the master is rebuilt and restored.
3. Anyone with sysadmin privileges can use it and there is no way to stop it.
4. It breaks the support of your database.

You can very easily shoot yourself in the foot very badly playing around with this command. This isn’t hyperbole – it’s just the truth.

dbcc WRITEPAGE ({‘dbname’ | dbid}, fileid, pageid, offset, length, data [, directORbufferpool])

The parameters mean:

• ‘dbname’ | dbid : self-explanatory
• fileid : file ID containing the page to change
• pageid : zero-based page number within that file
• offset : zero-based offset in bytes from the start of the page
• length : number of bytes to change, from 1 to 8
• data : the new data to insert (in hex, in the form ‘0xAABBCC’ – example three-byte string)
• directORbufferpool : whether to bypass the buffer pool or not (0/1)

DBCC WRITEPAGE does the following:

• Checkpoints the database and flushes all its pages out of the buffer pool
• Unhooks SQL Server’s FCB (File Control Block) from the data file
• Creates its own FCB for the file
• Does a direct read of the page into DBCC’s memory
• Modifies the page directly
• Writes the page directly to disk, bypassing the buffer pool and any page protection generation (i.e. not recalculating the page checksum)
• Fixes up the FCBs again

The syntax is:

12 3 4

DBCC TRACEON (2588);GO DBCC HELP (‘WRITEPAGE’); GO

If you’re going to play with it, please do not use it on a production system, and be very, very careful. It’s very easy to do something disastrous. And remember, if you use DBCC WRITEPAGE, you do so entirely at your own risk.