In March I posted a series of blog posts on my paternity leave MepSQL project, which I called MepSQL. There was still one piece created in the MepSQL buildsystem that I didn't publish or blog about. Since it is generally useful, I wanted to generalize and polish it and publish it separately. I finally had that done last week, when I also found that somebody else, namely alestic.com already published a similar solution 2 years ago. So yesterday I ported my BuildBot setup to use that system instead and am happy to publish it at the Open DB Camp 2011 in Sardinia.

Ok, so let's go back a little... What is the problem we are solving?

Let's …

A couple of years ago I wrote a patch for the MySQL command line client which shows the progress of a import as it happens (I also created a similar patch for mysqldump which later made it into Drizzle).  I don't have the blog archives from back then but Harrison Fisk commented suggesting I use a utility called 'bar' instead.

The 'bar' utility actually is a lot better than the patch I wrote and I highly recommend it when you are importing a large dump file.  To use it simply run:

shell> bar -if=data.sql | mysql

This will generate an output such as:



If you are using Ubuntu then it is a simple case of 'sudo apt-get install bar' to …

A couple of years ago I wrote a patch for the MySQL command line client which shows the progress of a import as it happens (I also created a similar patch for mysqldump which later made it into Drizzle).  I don’t have the blog archives from back then but Harrison Fisk commented suggesting I use a utility called ‘bar‘ instead.

The ‘bar’ utility actually is a lot better than the patch I wrote and I highly recommend it when you are importing a large dump file.  To use it simply run:

shell> bar -if=data.sql | mysql

This will generate an output such as:

If you are using Ubuntu then it is a simple case of ‘sudo apt-get install bar’ to install it.  Enjoy! …

I've been thinking a bunch about email and mailing lists recently... about how to deal with them, how to follow the ones that are important but not get drowned in a sea of email noise. I have a non-tech email account which is where friends mail me personally and where I handle theatre-related stuff. I do not receive a stupid amount of email on this account, and I am almost always interested in reading the messages that arrive there. So on my inaugust.com email address, I've been considering unsubscribing from all mailing lists and setting both Launchpad and github to stop emailing me most things.

For Launchpad and github, most things I care about have status pages of some sort: lists of bugs or branches I need to attend to or whatnot. I really don't need to get an email every time someone files a bug - it's noise.

Mailing lists are the trickier one, because so many open source projects are centered around them in one form or …

To round off my memoirs from the MySQL conference 2011, I'll just write down for the historical record my own activities.

MySQL awards

With the community picking up tasks that used to be handled by MySQL AB, it somehow has fallen on my lap to drive the selection of winners for the annual MySQL awards. This was the second year we did it and we have settled on a format where the winners are chosen by a community panel consisting of 2 previous years winners, plus the conference chair(s). I think having the community nominating and voting the winners have brought forward some truly deserving and sometimes also surprising winners, and it has been a pleasure to be involved in this process. I feel privileged to be part of a process channeling so much goodwill and respect from the MySQL community to the winners.

This year's winners were already …

Friendly and without drama

That's a good way to summarize the MySQL conference 2011. Nobody acquired nobody. There were no volcanoes keeping men away from their wives, dads away from soon to be born babies. I had packed extra underwear just in case, but it wasn't needed.

read more

So while I was at the MySQL UC, The Xeround database came to my attention.  It bills itself as database as a service for MySQL systems and a seamless replacement for standard MySQL.

Of course, since I am a QA Engineer, I could not resist the urge to try to break it >:)  As my friend and former MySQL colleage, Kostja says, “QA Engineers are a unique breed…they like to push all the buttons” : )  I would say that the QA mindset goes a bit further than that, but it is something I will delve into in another post.  I will only say that there is a reason that Microsoft recognizes QA software engineering as a distinct and specialized discipline.

So, let’s get back to Xeround.  It was the first database as a service that caught my eye and I just had to test it!  They are currently …

I apologise to those reading Planet MySQL who will see this twice, this is aimed at a different audience to my personal blog.
Rackspace and Drizzle

If you have read my last ‘Last Week in Drizzle‘ post you will know that Rackspace are no longer supporting Drizzle. They have done a fantastic job so far and have decided to pass the baton to other companies. As for the staff, they wished to redeploy us to other teams which is something I personally was not keen on. I would rather remain within the MySQL/Drizzle sphere which I would have no longer been able to do effectively inside Rackspace any more.

Drizzle itself will go on to do great things without Rackspace, there are a number of companies that announced support for Drizzle during …

The last few weeks have been particularly quiet from me on the blogging front.  Behind the scenes things have been quite the opposite so here is a summary of things past, present and future.
Rackspace and Drizzle
If you have read my last 'Last Week in Drizzle' post you will know that Rackspace are no longer supporting Drizzle.  They have done a fantastic job so far and have decided to pass the baton to other companies.  As for the staff, they wished to redeploy us to other teams which is something I personally was not keen on.  I would rather remain within the MySQL/Drizzle sphere which I would have no longer been able to do effectively inside Rackspace any more.

Drizzle itself will go on to do great things without Rackspace, there are a number of companies that announced support for Drizzle during the O'Reilly MySQL Conference and Expo …

The last few weeks have been particularly quiet from me on the blogging front.  Behind the scenes things have been quite the opposite so here is a summary of things past, present and future.

Rackspace and Drizzle

If you have read my last ‘Last Week in Drizzle‘ post you will know that Rackspace are no longer supporting Drizzle.  They have done a fantastic job so far and have decided to pass the baton to other companies.  As for the staff, they wished to redeploy us to other teams which is something I personally was not keen on.  I would rather remain within the MySQL/Drizzle sphere which I would have no longer been able to do effectively inside Rackspace any more.

Drizzle itself will go on to do great things without Rackspace, there are a number of companies that announced support for Drizzle during the O’Reilly MySQL Conference and …