I have about 15-20 websites that I manage, and most of them are database driven these days. Managing databases adds another whole level of complexity to moving and backing up websites that didn’t exist when everything I managed was plain html years ago. Only having to deal with MYSQL databases these past few years,
admittedly, I’m not a pro. But I’ve managed to get the hang of things, for the most part.
So the old process was really cumbersome. At times, I had to install PHPmyadmin if it wasn’t already on the server, then worry about conflicting versions or settings between PHPmyadmin on different servers. Frequently, I got errors when importing SQL files that were dumped from another server. It really became a nightmare when I was trying to move sites from Media Temple to Liquid Web recently.
Then I found
Navicat (
http://www.navicat.com). Navicat is a program for Windows, MAC, or Linux, that allows you to manage MYSQL databases with a nice GUI and easy to use, straightforward features.
Have you ever purchased software, when you really didn’t want to spend the extra money, and then afterwards you thought to yourself, “wow, that was the best investment I’ve made in a long time?”
That’s how I felt after purchasing Navicat. It stores al of my DB settings, and I can backup,
transfer, sync, edit, import & export, all with just a few clicks. It’s literally cut my DB management time by about 75%. Talk about “making an amateur feel like a pro.” Another good thing was that they had a fully functional 30 day trial available for download. So I got to use it for a while before I actually made the purchase.
I just wanted to pass this on because Navicat is “good stuff.” It seems rare these days that I run into products that work out of the box, and help me to accomplish my goals easier.
