Computers Use unsigned numeric values when the application will not store negative numbers. Like the “quantity ordered” of an item in an ecommerce application is never going to be -$125. Use Variable length values instead of fixed length value i.e. used varchar instead of char.Do not use unnecessarily large field sizes. For most ecommerce application “unsigned smallint” is more than enough to store inventory count. A field described as “unsigned smallint” can store a max value of 65535. Business - List of business/finance/loan/mortgage resources more 1 2 3 4 5 Computers - List of computer hardware/software/peripheral resources more 1 2 3 4 5 Internet - List of webhosting/webdesign/internet marketing resources more 1 2 3 4 5 Software - List of software resources more 1 2 3 4 5 Web Design - List of web design/development resources more 1 2 3 4 5 Web Hosting - List of web hosting resources more 1 2 3 4 5 Web Promotion - List of search engine optimization/internet marketing resources more 1 2 3 4 5 Web Resources - List of other web resources more 1 2 3 4 5 Recreation - List of travel/hotel/cruise resources more 1 2 3 4 5 Casino - List of online gambling/poker/blackjack/roulette resources more 1 2 3 4 5 Health - List of online pharmacy/hospital/health resources more 1 2 3 4 5 Shopping - List of online shopping/gift resources more 1 2 3 4 5 Miscellaneous - List of all other resources not stated above more 1 2 3 4 5   Don’t ignore normalization; its helps prevent unnecessary repetition of data. The part B of this is, don’t overuse normalization. If the table will not grow in size significantly, there is no point in normalization. For example, if the user table has just 20 rows (i.e. 20 employees in a company), all attempts of normalization are wasted. Use Keys. Don’t decide keys by “The customer id has to be indexed in the order table”. If the order table is being searched 90% of the times by “order date”, it makes more sense to index “order date”. Remember, how a table will be used should determine how it is designed. Spending time here will save years of frustration.