This Thursday (December 11th), Philip Stoev will talk about the Random Query Generator, a new QA tool that generates pseudo-random queries targeted to exercise a specific part of the server being tested. It then executes those queries to check for crashes or assertions or to compare the results returned from two different servers (two versions, two different storage engines, optimizer flags, etc.). It is also able to execute queries against a replication master, constantly checking that the slave is okay and has not diverged.

Towards the end of the session, Philip will share his desktop and show some live examples. Make sure to adjust your volume in case the MySQL Server will utter agonized sounds.

Note that we'll be using a new session address / Dimdim URL:

Yesterday (December 4th), Sergey Petrunia gave a presentation on what's new in MySQL Optimizer. Unfortunately, the slides didn't show up in the Dimdim presentation area, which also means that the recorded session only has Sergey's voice but not the slides. (I've filed a bug in Dimdim's issue tracker.) However, Sergey kept referring to slide numbers in his talk, so it should be fairly easy (just not as convenient as usual) to follow his recorded presentation.

The slides, together with links to the recording and the chat transcript, can be found on the MySQL University session page.

Next week …

This Thursday (December 4th), Sergey Petrunia will highlight what's new in MySQL Optimizer, with a focus on MySQL 5.1. Since Sergey is one of the main developers in charge of MySQL Optimizer, you can expect to get some in-depth insights that only very few people could provide.

This MySQL University session will start at 14:00 UTC / 8am CST (Central) / 9am EST (Eastern) / 14:00 GMT / 15:00 CET / 17:00 MDT (Moscow). The virtual meeting room will open 15 minutes before the hour. Point your browser to this address.

Here's the MySQL University schedule for the rest of this year. Only two more sessions to go in 2008:

This Thursday, Martin "MC" Brown will explain how to use memcached in MySQL deployments.

MC is the author of the memcached section of the MySQL Reference Manual, and does all other memcached documentation in the Sun Database Group, too.

This MySQL University session will start at 14:00 UTC / 8am CST (Central) / 9am EST (Eastern) / 14:00 GMT / 15:00 CET / 17:00 MDT (Moscow). The virtual meeting room will open 15 minutes before the hour. Point your browser to this address.

Here's the updated MySQL University schedule for the rest of this …

Today, Martin "MC" Brown gave an overview of MySQL on openSolaris. Due to Yours Truly arriving late MC had to start a new Dimdim session (sorry for that!). So MC was the host and the presenter at the same time.

Interestingly (and annoyingly), this seemed to have a bad effect on sound quality. To most attendees, MC's voice sounded garbled. To me, he sounded like at least one octave too low. The sound recording, though, sounds all fine. I suspect that being the host of a Dimdim session has a bad effect on voice quality (the same thing has happened to me regularly, but I thought it was due to packet loss over my wifi or something). So, for the next MySQL University session on …

This Thursday (November 13, 2008), Martin "MC" Brown will give an overview of MySQL on openSolaris. MC is an expert on MySQL and Solaris, and has helped the openSolaris team to port MySQL to that platform. The session will start at 14:00 UTC/BST (15:00 CET).

For those of you who've never heard the term before, MySQL University is an educational program for engineers from Sun/MySQL and the MySQL community. It's free and open to anyone. MySQL University focuses on MySQL internals and on Sun technology that can be used in connection with MySQL.

Here's the updated schedule for the rest of this year. Note that 14:00 BST currently translates to 14:00 UTC – sorry for getting this wrong with the last announcement. As always, check out the …

This Thursday (November 6, 2008), Jay Pipes will guide you on a tour of Bazaar and Launchpad for beginners. Since Jay is located in Columbus, Ohio, this session will start later than usual, that is, at 17:00 UTC / 9:00am PDT / 12:00 EST / 17:00 BST / 18:00 CET.

Getting to know Bazaar and Launchpad is certainly interesting for most developers, but it's a "must-know" for anyone thinking of contributing code to MySQL, since MySQL development has been using Bazaar and Launchpad for quite a while now.

While I'm at it: 

On the eve of the Berlin Marathon a few weeks ago, I saw Santa Claus on skates, which reminded me …

Today, Giuseppe Maxia gave a presentation on MySQL Sandbox. This was our second MySQL University session using the new conferencing system, Dimdim.

Most attendees arrived in time, but like with any real-life university, some arrived late, and some left during the session. We had an average of 16-17 attendees, and a peak of 19.

Giuseppe presented using a slide set, rather than using the desktop sharing facility that Dimdim offers. Clicking through slides feels real-time, while desktop sharing requires some time for changes to arrive on the receiving end (as we've experienced with the previous session). Also, clicking through slides requires virtually no bandwidth (after the slide set has been uploaded to Dimdim). Giuseppe's voice came over loud and clear. A few attendees reported …

The next MySQL University session will take place this Thursday, 30th October. Giuseppe Maxia will get you up to speed with using MySQL Sandbox for quick and easy testing of MySQL.

This session will start at 15:00 Central European Time (14:00 UTC, 14:00 BST).

MySQL University is an educational program run virtually on the 'net. Sessions are open to anyone. MySQL University focuses on MySQL internals and on Sun technology that can be used in connection with MySQL, but we're open to hear your suggestions for other topics. Go to this page and fill in your suggestions!

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