Ben Forta sent me a copy of his latest book: MySQL Crash Course a book based on his: Teach yourself SQL in 10 minutes book.

MySQL Crash Course is a concise guide (it's actually about the size of a novel, but 300 pages) to MySQL. I am a big fan of short and to the point books. Good job keeping it short Ben, I know you have written some hefty ones. ;)

The book doesn't focus on the system administration of MySQL, but rather the programming side of things - SQL.

I think this book would be great for someone who doesn't do a …

The Linux Format magazine is having it’s annual reader awards in a number of categories.

These include (I’ve include my picks after each category):

• Best Desktop Application (Gnome)
• Best Distro (CentOS 4.2)
• Best Development Tool (Eclipse 3.1)
• Best Hardware Support (NVidia for my Dell Laptop)
• Free Software Project of the Year (Gaim)
• Embedded Linux Award
• Best Server Software (MySQL 5.0)
• Best Office Software (Open Office …

Total cost of ownership (TCO) for relational databases is, in my opinion, comprised of 3 parts. License cost, support costs and the people costs of maintaining and managing the database.

The first component, database license cost, is a one-time fee paid to the vendor for the right to use the database on one processor. The license is generally perpetual, so youll need to work this out over the expected life time of the application or the time you’re going to continue to use database software. In some cases, if this money has already been spent, you might not include it in the TCO estimates.

Second, the ongoing support costs must be included. For Informix, DB2 and Oracle the support cost is usually a percentage (typically between 15% and 23%) of the initial license purchase price. In my experience it can range between $5k and $10K per CPU depending on which database you’re using and the initial purchase price for the licenses. …

MySQL V5.0 has been out for a while; it addresses most of the major objections people have had about “MySQL is not a ‘real’ database”. With support for XA transactions, triggers, stored procedures and support for views, i think MySQL has the feature set that will enable people to migrate to MySQL.

The only thing that’s still missing is resolution of the InnoDB storage engine problem, and some additional work to get on-line transactional backups if InnoDB goes away. I previously wrote a post about these issues; i’ll dredge it up and re-post it. Innobase is a problem because it’s (currently 12/28/2005) the only transactional storage engine, and since Oracle bought the company that owns InnoDB (Innobase Oy), it’s going to be a licensing challenge until the dust settles. InnoDB is the only choice for applications that require transactions.

As far as the choice of what database to select as a migration candidate, my first …

I took the chance today to order some books from Amazon today to add to the library. Of course I’m still reading 2 current books Spring in Action and the MySQL Certification Study Guide in order to site the second MySQL Professional Certification Exam.

As with most things, you start off looking or reading on the web for something and you end up completely somewhere else. In this case, it was looking at Linux Software Labs (Australia) at the price of their Linux Distribution CD’s, which lead me to the book Beyond Java listed on their site. …

I’ve been accepted to present at the MySQL Users Conference 2006 held in Santa Clara, California next year. My paper will be particularly targeting Oracle Developers, and will be combined with another presentation targeting Oracle DBA’s.

I’ll also be developing demonstrations with the upcoming MySQL Sakila Test Database by Mike Hillyer from MySQL AB.

I’m preparing to speak at the next MySQL Brisbane Users Group in Febraury 2006. My topic will be Know your competitor - A MySQL Developers Guide to Using Oracle Express Edition.

Having a strong background in Oracle, and having been using MySQL for the past 5 years, the release of Oracle Database 10g Express Edition (XE) as a Free offering (with limitations of 1 CPU, 1GB Ram, and 4GB disk) is an interesting move by Oracle.

I’ve written a number of recent comments on various Oracle/MySQL things including Responses to some Oracle v?s MySQL Questions, How can Oracle 10g …

In the “Australian Technology and Business Magazine” - December 2005 edition there was an article on comparing database products. Here are my comments, which I also plan to forward to the editor.

BTW: I’ve since also found this articles content on another site here. It seems that most if not all is the same.

In response to your cover story article “The Usual Suspects Four databases we suspect your business could be quite interested in.” which appeared in the December 2005 edition, I would have to sum up your article in one word “Disappointing”. Let me provide some feedback from my perspective.

You start by defining a scenario, which is the only approach you can take for a suitable comparision of database products due to diversity of features available in …

There has been a lot of press coverage of MySQL recently, since Oracle’s purchase of Innobase Oy (all your Innobase are belong to us hahaha) in early October, and the recent release of MySQL V5.

Here are links to some of the stories I’ve read

• MySQLs announcement. (link to PDF)
• Charlie Garry’s opinion on Oracle’s Innobase purchase.(link)
• Lisa Vaas’s article on Oracle’s purchse. Lisa suggests MySQL can get back together with Sleepycat and work on an enhanced bdb engine type. One item in the story stands out as flawed; Michael Stonebraker’s quote: “If I were the MySQL guys, I would be terrified that that engine was owned by somebody …

I was asked a few questions by a reporter thru a collegue, here is an extract of the discussion.

1) Based on your initial experience with Oracle Database Express Edition, what are your initial thoughts on the product in terms of meeting developer needs?

Installing Oracle 10g Express Edition was a breeze. (Article). In the past Oracle products have been more difficult to install, however this has gradually improved with the more recent version releases of 8i, 9i and 10g. This easy installation via rpm under Linux, in particular the inclusion of HTMLDB provides an ideal database environment that is functional in just a few minutes. This is an important first step in gaining initial developer support.

With the database installation, the Web Based HTMLDB Interface and a sound amount of developer articles online at the Oracle Technology Network ( …