Why is it that running a monitoring system is such a marketable skill? In every company, having servers up is important. So why doesn’t everyone have a monitoring system? Sure, folks implement scripts, but those are always one-off solutions. And what IS it with folks writing scripts that e-mail them when they’re successful? Just touch a file and have a simple script check to see if the file was touched, that way you know when it failed and do not have to rely on “did I get that e-mail?”

I was lucky to have worked on Nagios while at Tufts, and have set it up everywhere else I’ve worked. I should definitely remember to check up on the plugins site from time to time, so I do not duplicate efforts. Of course, submitting plugins would also eliminate the problem of “I wrote that check at my last company, and now I want it again!” I have not yet come across that, although I did come …

I‘ve been running Fedora Core 3 (and 4) for my “daily driver“ for the last year and a half or so, and have been relatively happy with them, but am moving back to Windows (specifically Server 2003) for awhile for my development work, mainly to become familar again with the platform from a users‘ perspective to help the folks working on making MySQL a better Windows product.

Don‘t worry, I still run Linux (at least 3 flavors currently in the house all the time, along with OpenBSD), so I‘m not a total defector!

Things I‘ve noticed since moving back:

1) It starts quicker than Linux (although this may be related to bit rot, this is a brand new 2k3 install)

2) Eclipse seems snappier (although this doesn‘t surprise me)

3) I have to pay for antivirus support, and unfortunately there aren‘t a lot of vendors that don‘t charge through the nose for a server OS even though I‘m using it as a …

I've been running Fedora Core 3 (and 4) for my "daily driver" for the last year and a half or so, and have been relatively happy with them, but am moving back to Windows (specifically Server 2003) for awhile for my development work, mainly to become familar again with the platform from a users' perspective to help the folks working on making MySQL a better Windows product.

Don't worry, I still run Linux (at least 3 flavors currently in the house all the time, along with OpenBSD), so I'm not a total defector!

Things I've noticed since moving back:

1) It starts quicker than Linux (although this may be related to bit rot, this is a brand new 2k3 install)

2) Eclipse seems snappier (although this doesn't surprise me)

3) I have to pay for antivirus support, and unfortunately there aren't a lot of vendors that don't charge through the nose for a server OS even though I'm using it as a desktop :p

4) The …

I‘ve been running Fedora Core 3 (and 4) for my “daily driver“ for the last year and a half or so, and have been relatively happy with them, but am moving back to Windows (specifically Server 2003) for awhile for my development work, mainly to become familar again with the platform from a users‘ perspective to help the folks working on making MySQL a better Windows product.

Don‘t worry, I still run Linux (at least 3 flavors currently in the house all the time, along with OpenBSD), so I‘m not a total defector!

Things I‘ve noticed since moving back:

1) It starts quicker than Linux (although this may be related to bit rot, this is a brand new 2k3 install)

2) Eclipse seems snappier (although this doesn‘t surprise me)

3) I have to pay for antivirus support, and unfortunately there aren‘t a lot of vendors that don‘t charge through the nose for a server OS even though I‘m using it as a …

I often when reading articles end up where I never started on the web. You can find some amazing things, and of course lose a lot of time. I think it’s about time to document my degrees of separation from time to time.

• Guide to Open Source Software in Government
  Open Source and MySQL @ Work in Applications
  • The One or Zero Open Source Helpdesk and Task Management System
    • Open Source Initiative OSI - The Open Source Definition
      • Open Source Initiative OSI - …

Having used Oracle, DB2, Postgres, Sybase, Informix, and MSSQL, I always enjoyed that MySQL just named everything “MySQL”. Sure, it can get confusing — there’s MySQL the server, MySQL the client, MySQL the database instance. . . .MySQL the flamethrower (the kids love this one). . . .But seriously, the ‘big guys’ have all this complicated jargon for really simple ideas.

MySQL has joined them. Granted, I’d been out of the MySQL world for about a year, and some wonderful things have happened in that year. Even a year ago, the company I worked for wasn’t using the most recent software nor taking advantage of all the features their versions of MySQL did have to offer. But I digress.

I’ve been working on MySQL knowledge, particularly with the free webinars. Today I attended the “MySQL Network and MySQL 5.0″ webinar, where I learned that MySQL is packaging (better) software, support, tools, access to developers, and a …

I am not interest in your software patent pledges. I want you to freaken burn them, I want you to freaken stop lobbying for this crap and I want you instead to lobby to ban their very existence. So I am very much in agreement with Florian Müller's (who has been working hard in cooperation with MySQL to prevent a legitimization of software patents in Europe) assessment of the state of affairs.

I do not buy into the thought that patents, especially in the software industry do anything for innovation. Would any software company really stop investing in innovation? I think not. The software industry is moving too fast. Its about being the first mover and for most of us innovation is just part of our day to day lives as we solve real customer needs.

We do not have time to write up shady crap that covers everything and says nothing. We …

I recently finished the first stage of a new chapter for the MySQL reference manual to help developers write their own custom storage engines.

The chapter is now online at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/custom-engine.html and, while being pre-release documentation regarding pre-release functionality, it will hopefully be of use to anyone looking to write their own storage engine.

In the next few weeks I hope to improve the existing work and add information on implementing indexing, transactions, and other advanced storage engine features.

While reading http://www.futhark.ch/mysql/109.html, at first I thought by “add to set” they meant “add to the definition set”. Wouldn’t it be great to have an easy command to alter the table and change the enum or set definitions? Is there something like that?

may have already noticed this. But I changed the CAPTCHA in my blog from the rather obnoxious and very hard to read image generated by the code I picked up from the PEAR::Text_CAPTCHA sample to a fairly simple math problem. It seems to hold off spam well for now. Expect the math problem to increase in difficulty once I get spam (or stupid comments) but for now all is well. Now even Wez should be able to solve it on first try :-)

I have also added a FSFE fellow button. I have actually been a FSFE fellow since LinuxTag this summer and I cannot stress enough how important the work of the FSFE is to ensure that open source can stand up to …