December is half way through the budget year for the MySQL Community Team and we carefully meter out our small budget to make the most effective use from it. But December is also the time when existing conferences start the tasks of preparing for next year and brave souls who have never been part of a conference start out from scratch to create a new show. The MySQL Community Team would love to help with your conference.

First we need to know about your conference. We do scour the announcement sites like callingallpapers.com and lanyrd.com but your show may have been inadvertently skipped. Tell us the dates, the location, how many people you are expecting, your target audience (PHP Developers, DBAs, left handed actuaries from the Pacific Rim), and what makes your show unique (at least for your area). We spread the word about shows to …

This week I am presenting at the All Things Open conference (be sure to drop by the booth for some MySQl stickers!), the next is Strata in NYC, and then the North Texas MySQL Users Group on November 4th.

Last may I wrote about Reestablishing a MySQL Tradition where we used to have shirts just for those who contributed code to MySQL. Unfortunately that tradition was not kept during various transitions. But Antony Curtis

This is Antony Curtis in the original Community Contributor shirt

impressed me at a conference with his shirt and so the Community Team started the process of getting shirts for our contributors. Today I am proud to announce the first shirt has been ordered and in the post to Antony.

So if you have contributed to MySQL, have an OCA on file, AND are going to be at …

The MySQL Community Team has one and a half new members! Welcome back Morgan Tocker who many of you may remember from MySQL Training. And welcome Jara Jr, Lenka Kasparova’s son, whom mom informs us is ‘really sweet’.

I am speaking today at Djangocon, Dallas PHP on Tuesday the 10th, and then next weekend at Ohio Linuxfest.

The Texas Linuxfest might be the ‘little brother’ of the SCaLE show. While a smaller shower in length, it fells much more muscular. I had a full room for a session on The Proper Care and Feeding of a MySQL Database. The audience was sharp, asked amazingly great questions, and hungry for MySQL 5.6 features. And at the booth I was pleasantly inundated with MySQL questions and proud DBAs bragging about their instances.

If you missed the this show this year, please make the trip to Austin next year. You’ll not be disappointed.

Thank you for all of you who dropped by the MySQL booth at Drupalcon to say ‘Thank you’ for MySQL. At every show there are several folks who do this but at Drupalcon it seemed like half the 3,000 attending dropped by to say ‘thanks’, grab MySQL stickers, OurSQL Poscasts disks, and talk about MySQL 5.6. I’ll see all y’all next year in Austin.

Speaking of Austin, the Texaslinuxfest.org is this weekend. I will be talking Saturday in Track D at 11:25 on the Proper Care and Feeding of a MySQL Database.

And the FREE Southeast Linux Fest is June 7-9 in Charlotte. This year featuring a ‘Zero to DBA’ track to get all …

The PHPTek Conference bills itself as the premier professional PHP conference with a community flair. Having been to dozens of PHP conferences, I thought that was a pretty bold claim.

MySQL Boogiebot

But as they say in Texas, it ain’t bragging if you can do it.

MySQL plush dolphins and BoogieBots. The wind up dancing robots were popular in Chicago

And the organizers picked perfect weather for this Chicago based show.

The quality of the presenters and presentations was amazing high. Most of these sessions covered intricacies with the PHP language. The talks covered the range from beginning Symfony 2 to advanced security. The presenters were indeed the cream of the crop and the material covered very well developed.

Oracle’s own Ligaya …

Every so often you see something from the past and wonder “Why don’t we do that anymore?” Well, in this case it was a former co-worker wearing his MySQL Contributor shirt.

This is Antony Curtis in one of the original MySQL Community Contributor shirt

So the MySQL Community Team had a quick meeting and the result is that we are reestablishing the tradition. So if you have a signed Oracle Contributor Agreement and have contributed to MySQL, you should have in your inbox a request for your shirt size and a shipping address. If you do not see an email and you qualify for a short, let us know (we probably have an old email on record for you). And if you are working on some code for MySQL and have that OCA ready but not filed, please expedite your actions so you do not miss out on this batch.
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Come see out new cool ‘cryogenic dolphin’ at the MySQL Community Reception Monday. Come hear about the latest 5.6 news from MySQL Engineers, see Cluster on Raspberry Pis, and walk away with our giveaways. And did I mention it is FREE?!?!

Collaborate is a huge show that is the Independent Oracle User Group’s big yearly show and for 2013 it will be in Denver. There are several MySQL sessions of note and I have noted some below. By the way i will have new MySQL stickers available at the MySQL Demo Pod on the show floor but rules say I can not just leave them around — you will have to ask for them.

• Session #464 – Demystifying MySQL for Oracle DBAs and Developers
  Mon. Apr. 8 11:00 am – 12:00 pm
  Mile High Ballroom 2C

  Abstract: MySQL continues to be the world’s most popular database management system for the Internet. This session provides a fast-paced introduction to the MySQL architecture, core features, best practices, and core performance areas. A MySQL version of OFA will be shown as a best practice. MySQL features will be taught from a perspective that is easy for attendees …