It has been pretty quiet about db4free.net for some time, but now there are news. db4free.net now offers MySQL 6.0 database accounts - in addition to the old (and I'm tempted to even say tested) MySQL 5.1 ones.

So - everybody who registers gets 2 databases, one on the MySQL 5.1 server and one on the MySQL 6.0 server, which runs at port 3307. Connections can be made using the MySQL client running the command

mysql -h db4free.net -P 3307 -u [username] -p[password]

or using phpMyAdmin, right from the db4free.net website.

Users who have set their accounts to allow remote connections can also use tools like the MySQL GUI Tools or …

I’ll be speaking at OSCON 2008 in Portland, delivering my Normalization Session. More details as I get them.

After a month of intense public review by our community users and contributors, we have made the initial “official” release of the DRBD User’s Guide.

This does not only include helpful information about building, installing, and configuring DRBD, but also on DRBD integration with Xen and LVM, Heartbeat, and many other applications. MySQL users will find the example MySQL HA configurations for both Heartbeat R1 and Heartbeat CRM clusters particularly helpful.

The release announcement is here: http://lists.linbit.com/pipermail/drbd-user/2008-March/009071.html

…

When we are learning new material we’re going through the next steps.

• Reading manual, books, trying samples from there
• Doing something, basing on the knowledge we already have
• Solving/answering interesting quizes/questions

But there is not much questions/quizes about MySQL, and the recent one is a popular Carsten’s MySQL Pop Quiz serie. We can get a lot off usefull information from such quizes . So, I’ve translated it to russian. I hope it could be usefull for some of us how doesn’t know english well

After the interesting comment storm on Doug’s blog when he posted some of Tim Gorman’s comments on the value of data in his career experiences as compared to the value of the applications manipulating that data, I hesitate a little to post this.

But, I can’t stop myself because it’s such an interesting insight!

Anand Rajaraman, ex-Director of Technology at Amazon.com posted this useful insight that builds on Tim’s. It’s not data vs software as seen by Tim, it’s one step further - more data vs better software.

I like this idea so much I’m hereby dubbing …

For those of you who have been stuck under the proverbial rock for the last couple months, the MySQL Conference and Expo is just around the corner. The conference's tutorial day is April 14th, which means if you haven't registered yet, you should definitely do so. For a 20% discount, email me at my first name at mysql dot com. Register soon because tutorials are already selling out or entirely sold out.

Hitchhacker's Guide to the MySQL Conference PHP Developer's Edition

This blog post marks the first in a series of guides to the conference that we'll be publishing in the next couple weeks leading up to the conference. The guides are intended to help a specific audience find the sessions that will likely be the most interesting for them. The first edition of the Hitchhacker's …

I’m still looking for new entries. I get quite a few suggestions, but not all of them make it into quiz questions. Do send in your suggestions!

A column defined as CHAR(x) or VARCHAR(x) will allow you to store up to x characters within each field of that column.

What’s the minimum size of x?

What’s the maximum size of x?

(more…)

The Hitchhacker’s Guide to the MySQL Conference
Ruby/Ruby on Rails Developer’s Edition
Following on from the excellent Hitchhacker’s Guide to the MySQL Conference - PHP Edition by Jay Pipes, I’m doing one for the Ruby and Ruby on Rails developer in you. If you haven’t registered yet, remember, I can provide you a 20% discount code, so make sure you get it from me, via emailing me. Tutorials, are selling out, fast.

The Keynotes
A Head in the Cloud - The Power of …

You must have heard about Falcon, the new transactional engine being developed in MySQL 6.0. And for all the buzz, you may want to have a look at that.
If you haven’t had time to download and install it, now you can give it a try, thanks to db4free, a free MySQL hosting service, created by Markus Popp.

So, if you want to test Falcon today, get a (free) account on db4free and start hacking!
Be careful:

• MySQL 6.0 is still alpha software!
• The default storage engine in this db4free server is Falcon. When you create a new table, if you don’t specify an engine, you will create a Falcon table.

A sample session:

$ …

Nothing to do with MySQL, but I just love observing how technology can make us waste more time. Speech recognition is a wonderful idea, but .... oh just watch this:

Of course, watching this video to the end will cost you about 10 minutes, but it could be worthwhile education. Technology can be very useful. But that doesn't mean that all new stuff is useful, or even suitable for your purpose. I don't think that guy was doing anything particularly complicated or wrong though, and I also commend him for his patience - although you can clearly note his frustration as the experiment progresses ;-)