Background Knowledge

I’m running PHP v5.2.9-2 with SQL Server 2005 Express on Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2.

Error Message

Warning: mssql_query() [function.mssql-query]: message: Unicode data in a Unicode-only collation or ntext data cannot be sent to clients using DB-Library (such as ISQL) or ODBC version 3.7 or earlier. (severity 16)

Solution

Specify the database columns within your database query (select filed1, field2 from foo). Avoid doing queries with the wildcard (*), select * from foo.

Source: PHP Manual on MSSQL_Query()

Attending the MySQL Users Conference in 2006, I had one of the best days of my career. At the morning keynote, my name was called, and I found myself on stage, together with Markus Popp, Roland Bouman, and Rasmus Lerdorf, being awarded a Community Member of the year crystal ball. That day is permanently in my mind as a very fond memory.

For this reason, it is a particular pleasure for me to be in a position to suggest the next ones who will hold the community awards. It is a collegial decision, not my own. Each member of the community team submits a few names, we discuss the pros and the cons, and then we settle for the first three names in the list.

This year, the agreement fell on three names, who were included for different reasons.

I have uploaded the presentations to the MySQL User Conference website where it says these will be made available, once I have done just that, uploaded them. That didn't seem to happen, at least it seems to take some time, so I decided to do what Guiseppe Maxia did, try out SlideShare, which seems to work just great. Cool!

So my presentations from the MySQL User Conference 2009 are available here:

• Introduction to libmysqld
• MySQL HA Using different solutions

/Karlsson
Who is finally home again

This Thursday (April 30th, 14:00 UTC), Giuseppe Maxia will give a MySQL University session on Testing Multiple Servers With MySQL Sandbox. Giuseppe is the creator of MySQL Sandbox, and has recently announced a new Sandbox version and other interesting changes, for example the --query-analyzer option to make_sandbox (but note the date when this was announced!).

For MySQL University sessions, point your browser to this page. You need a …

Just before the MySQL User Conference, Dups implemented a small little feature for Planet MySQL: “voting”. We wanted to see what a voting system might mean to you, our PlanetMySQL readers.

The question is now how to improve the voting mechanism to make it more useful. The goal is for everyone to see what you and your peers think are the best PlanetMySQL entries over a given week.

Here are some of the options:

1. Open up voting to everyone regardless of whether they are logged in or not. Currently you can only vote if you are logged in with a MySQL.com account. Let’s face it, a login gives a barrier to entry even as much as it gives us the security of knowing we won’t get spammed.

One option is to allow all to vote, within the constraints of spam control of some kind. Another option …

Another day, another application that insists on having to count every single object in the db/filesystem/whatever, just to show me a progress bar as it copies/updates/deletes something.

I. Don’t. Care.

Really. I just want you to get started on your task and get the job done.

If you insist on showing a progress bar, fine. But then get the counts you need in parallel with the operation you’ve been asked to perform. Perhaps you’ll find that the job you’ve been asked to do is completed before you finish counting.

User-friendliness my ****.

Getting the job done is user friendly. Wasting my time isn’t.

While I can not consider myself a member of MySQL's community of developers, I've been watching those developments the same way I follow the development of Linux and many of the Java and Apache projects our own services depend on. It was great to meet many of the core members of the development community and get some insight into their thoughts about the future.

Baron Schwartz called in his Percona Performance Conference keynote on Thursday for a new, active MySQL community to take the driver's seat in the development of the database, not just in the incremental improvements way of bug fixing and performance improvement, but also by setting a vision for the next generation …

MySQL has deep roots in open-source software development communities and code contributions to MySQL keep flowing in, being reviewed and integrated into the MySQL. 

During our BoF at the MySQL Conference and Expo, Lenz Grimmer talked about our work to make MySQL (even more) contributor friendly, with some more focused effort starting on February 1, 20091.

The desire to contribute code to MySQL remains as strong as ever as evidenced by this year's MySQL Conference and Expo, where I had an opportunity to speak with some contributors and partners who wish to contribute to MySQL. Of course, there are a lot of strong and varying opinions in this area.

As I said above, code has been contributed and absorbed in MySQL (according to either the MySQL …

Attending the MySQL Users Conference in 2006, I had one of the best days of my career. At the morning keynote, my name was called, and I found myself on stage, together with Markus Popp, Roland Bouman, and Rasmus Lerdorf, being awarded a Community Member of the year crystal ball. That day is permanently in my mind as a very fond memory.

For this reason, it is a particular pleasure for me to be in a position to suggest the next ones who will hold the community awards. It is a collegial decision, not my own. Each member of the community team submits a few names, we discuss the pros and the cons, and then we settle for the first three names in the list.

This year, the agreement fell on three names, who were included for different reasons.