Almost every website owner tracks the statistics of their websites with the free and powerful Google Analytics.

The service has made a huge step forward with its "live stats" feature which shows the instant activity.

There are very few reasons left to use another solution to track stats where one of them is the lack of "live overall stats" (as Google Analytics still displays the overall stats with a delay) and the other is the need for using an open source system.

For anyone looking to see the overall stats in real-time and needs a simple/lightweight solution (compared to other options like Piwik), ChiliStats is an alternative.

The application is free, open source, built with PHP and uses MySQL for storing the data.

It presents a snapshot of the statistics -supported with charts- in a "OneView" page and sub-pages for viewing top-referrers, visited pages or referring keywords exist. And, a "History" page allows digging the statistics of past months.

ChiliStats also offers a stats counter widget to be integrated inside web pages.

GoCart is an open source e-commerce application which is focused on offering an easy to use/customize solution and not having a huge number of features but only the important ones.

It can have unlimited categories, tiered categories with any depth, unlimited products-product images-options and can display related items.

The built-in shipping methods include a flat or table rate, USPS, FedEx + UPS and has support for Paypal, Authorize.net and "COD (collect on delivery)" payment methods.

Users can have multiple addresses with the help of an address book and use giftcards or coupons with the system.

A plain admin panel empowers the store owner with features like the ability to configure categories, products, export user + sales data, get sales reports, implement promotions and create/edit content within the site with a simple CMS.

AB testing is great for fine-tuning almost anything in web pages (design items, content, etc.) to find out which ones convert the best.

Instabir is a jQuery plugin for quickly implementing AB testing with a few lines of code.

It works by simply applying 2 different designs, content, etc., hiding one of them and defining these HTML elements, plugin displays only one of them randomly and records the activities into a MySQL database.

There is a PHP file provided for handling the requests and recording them to the database.

Instabir also has a paid service which records all the activities itself and can present the results visually.

AMPPS is a software for quickly installing Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl and Python and creating a web server environment.

What differentiates it from other similar solutions is the built-in Softaculous package which makes 1 click installations of popular web apps possible.

There is a huge list of installable apps (250+) including WordPress, Joomla, Magento, phpBB and much more.

Using the AMPPS panel, the server resources can be configured and all the installations can be managed.

It has versions for Windows + Mac OS X and also installs phpMyAdmin + SQLite manager for controlling databases.

selfoss is an open source and lightweight web application that can fetch content from any number of sources.

RSS is the content type supported by default, however, with its plugin system, any new source types (log files, e-mails, etc.) can be implemented by adding a single class.

The application has a simple-yet-functional interface which also supports navigating via keyboard.

It is also flexible in means of the database used; you can either go with MySQL, SQLite or MongoDB.

There is a "getting stronger" opinion and movement on web users having their own self-controlled, free and open source clouds where data belongs to the users, can be transferred easily and privacy is not an issue.

ownCloud is supporting this movement with a cool app which works as a:

• file manager/explorer with share option, WebDAV support, the ability to play music files
• calendar
• contacts manager
• and has planned features like image gallery, online text editor, online task manager, encryption, bookmarks, desktop sync client, Android&webOS apps and server-server sync.

It is built with PHP-MySQL (or SQLite) and is definitely a good option for users willing to move their data to the web + manage easily.

For MySQL users, phpMyAdmin -the popular MySQL admin tool-, is probably one of the most-used apps unless you are fan of a desktop MySQL admin tool.

MyWebSQL is an exciting open source alternative to both as it is a web-based MySQL (and SQLite) manager with a desktop-like functionality.

It is built with PHP and, with the help of a completely Ajaxed interface, tasks can be accomplished pretty quickly.

Creating, editing and deleting tables or records are easily done in a grid mode which also makes working with multiple items at the same time possible. Also, shortcuts for any actions exist inside context menus to make browsing faster.

There are other must-have features like import-export, SQL editor (with syntax highlighting), repair tables, search, process manager, etc.

MyWebSQL is a multilanguage app with lots of ready-to-use languages and has a themable interface.

Imho, what is missing the most is the ability to manage multiple server connections with a single login and scheduled tasks (which I hope would exist in the future versions).

Last week, a post at WRD had announced the giveaway of "3 MONyog Ultimate Single Server with Premium Support" licenses ($399/each) and, today, the winners are selected + announced at the bottom of this post.

In case you missed that post, here is a short re-introduction of the product:

What is MONYog?

MONyog is a Windows and Linux compatible desktop application for easily seeing every detail about a MySQL server and fine tuning variables.

The application displays a nicely formatted "slow query log" for finding out the queries effecting the performance of your apps so you can improve them and check back again.

MONyog is not only a reporting tool but also an advisor. It analyzes the setup of a MySQL installation, tells the possible problems (including security issues) and how to make things better.

The variables like InnoDB cache, thread cache, table cache, index usage (how effective they are), the number of each statement (select, insert..) and many other sub-metrics can be tuned perfectly using the application.

It has a free trial and I definitely suggest you giving it a try.

The winners

Winners of the MONyog giveaway are:

• handrus(comment #420739)
• Erhan (comment #419635)
• TyShkan (comment #419360)

Congratulations and thanks very much for joining the giveaway.

Today, speed in web applications is one of the keys to success. It effects the interaction with users, their perception about the website and even how Google ranks websites.

And, database performance is one of the most important factors of speed, as, once there is a bottleneck in it, nothing will function fast.

During the development of Uptime Robot (and still), in order for the application to handle more requests in a shorter time, I needed to optimize 2 things:

• the queries used
• MySQL server itself

Yes, minimizing the number of queries, using indexes smartly or changing the well-known settings of MySQL server makes sense but measuring the results and finding out how each update effects the performance is the hardest thing to analyze.

This is when I started using MONyog, a desktop application (with Windows and Linux versions), that helps tracking everything about a MySQL server. And, most importantly, it comes with working advices at every point.

The application can connect to any number of MySQL servers which is great for working with the test and production server at the same time. And, it only requires the MySQL root login to collect data (nothing to install on MySQL servers).

Its dashboard welcomes you with the most important charts like the availability of the server, number of connections, cache misses, statements and any other metric can be added.

Besides the ability to viewing the process list, disk usage or events, there are 2 menus that saved me so much time:

• Monitors/Advisors
• Query Analyzer

Monitors/Advisors

The menu has multiple sub-menus where each of them helps fine-tuning the server so much.

You can get the number of "current connections" and how effectively they are used, InnoDB cache and logs performance, thread cache, table cache, index usage (how effective they are), the number of each statement (select, insert..) and many sub-metrics.

Each item is explained shortly yet clearly and advices are shown to make them better.

MONyog also scans the settings of the server, displays the values as a snapshot and warns you about any possible security issues (and how to fix them).

Query Analyzer

This is where you can find the popular "slow query log". But it comes with a better presentation (compared to a standard MySQL slow log query) that focuses on finding the issues.

The Query Analyzer is vital in locating the problematic queries and seeing how they perform after optimizing them live.

To sum up

I started using MONyog when I was just about to decide that everything was done for performance, the limit of the server was reached and a 2nd or a much powerful MySQL server was required as the resource usage was ~90% in average.

After the optimizations with the application, the same server responds to a bigger number of queries in a shorter time with lower than 50% of resource usage.

Simply, it saved me renting a new server and providing a better experience to Uptime Robot users. And, totally suggest it if you are managing a busy MySQL server.

The giveaway and how to join?

After my experience with MONyog, I contacted them with the idea of running a giveaway and they were kind enough to giveaway "3 MONyog Ultimate Single Server with Premium Support" licenses ($399/each) to WRD readers.

In order to join the giveaway:

• Share this giveaway with a tweet: "Just joined the MONyog  MySQL Monitor and Advisor giveaway at WebResourcesDepot – http://goo.gl/0O6Eg" (click to tweet easily)
• Follow @webyog Twitter user
• Share your tweet URL within the comments

The winners will be announced 1 week later (3 November 2011) and good luck.

CometChat, a powerful chat application for websites (which was previously shared at WRD), has recently released the 4th version with new features and giving away 4 licences (3 Basic and 1 Pro) to WRD readers to celebrate the event.

In order to join the giveaway, please make sure you check the details at the bottom of this post.

What is CometChat?

It is a PHP-MySQL (or MSSQL) powered application that enables users of a website to easily communicate with each other and interact with the website.

CometChat sits in the footer of a website and supports both text (including group chat) + video/voice chat. It also allows file transfers, screensharing and, with the most recent version, the ability to chat with Gtalk and Facebook friends.

This is an exciting feature as it helps "the activity of users to grow" by keeping them on the website more.

The application also offers more than chat:

• it has 100+ built-in games -including multiplayer ones-
• users can write or draw together on whiteboards or writeboards
• it is possible to publish announcements
• integrates Facebook fan page and displays Twitter activities
• works as a social share widget

There are integrations with many other popular softwares (like JomSocial, vBulletin, SocialEngine, Invision Power Board, phpFox, Boonex Dolphin, BuddyPress, phpBB, WordPress, SkaDate, Elgg and more) exist.

With the new version, there is now a mobile web interface which works in all major devices/platforms.

CometChat can be completely customized to better with the style of any website and it can be controlled very easily with the help of a powerful admin panel with settings for everything.

The discount

CometChat is offering a 10% discount to all Professional Edition or higher purchases until 1st of November with the coupon code: "WRD10OFF" (without quotes).

How to join the giveaway?

CometChat is giving away 1 Pro and 3 Basic licenses to WRD readers. In order to join the giveaway, just comment to this post and the random query below will be choosing the winners:

SELECT * FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_post_id=2537 AND comment_approved=1 AND comment_type='' GROUP BY comment_author_email ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 4

Winners will be announced 1 week later (1 November 2011) as an update to this post. Good luck.

The winners

Here are the winners of CometChat licenses:

• Derek (comment #422062) – Pro license
• NiK Makovka (comment #417901) – Basic License
• MasterChowl (comment #418049) – Basic License
• Dennis (comment #418259) – Basic License

Congratulations and thanks very much for joining.