I just got word today that I will be speaking at the 2007 MySQL Conference.

I’ll be doing a three hour tutorial version of my popular 2006 session on Managing Data Hierarchies (strangely they backdated my title in last year’s session listing; I was a Technical Writer for MySQL AB at the time).

This year session I plan to add more depth to the existing methodologies I cover as well as cover additional methodologies for managing hierarchical data in MySQL.

Last conference the session was standing room only and I entertained several requests for additional information when the session was complete, so I hope this next session will be equally well received and I look forward to meeting old friends and associates.

See you there!

I promise, MySQL really does care about Debian. Since I arrived ten months ago (and even before that it seems), there's been several hand-wringing discussions about Debian and how we should approach it. The Debian and Ubuntu Developers do a fantastic job packaging mysql server, and I have nothing but respect for their efforts.

With RPM-based distributions, it's easy to tell people to download and install a package file. They expect it. They don't expect automatic upgrades. Creating a RPM file is easy because there's no implicit agreement about how to update it.

Our problem with Debian is that it's just too fantastic. That is, our Debian-using customers know that for almost everything, it's hard to do better than Debian does. We at MySQL wants to be able to give people our own binaries for several reasons, some good and some bad: Timeliness of package arrival; a Not Compiled Here disorder; options and defaults set as …

Looks like I'll be out in Santa Clara, CA in April for the 2007 MySQL Users Conference.

The session I'll be giving is titled Adding INFORMATION_SCHEMA Tables, a presentation about one thing you can do when delving into the MySQL source code. I'm excited about this as fidding in the source code is my latest fascination. There's a lot of interesting stuff you can do once you start poking around.

Excited to see what else is on the program, there wasn't much said this year about folks submitting proposals (myself included). I liked what Mike Hillyer did in years past, posting proposals for feedback as they were being developed. Wait, he did post about submitting a presentation. How did I miss that?

Even more excited about getting …

First: I love Flickr. It's almost the perfect "photo gallery" for me.

One of the things I really really would like would be some simple stats so I could find out how more than 3000 people ended up seeing say my photo of the New York skyline. I linked to it from this weblog, but it only counts people who click on the photo and it can't be more than a few hundred. Or five hundred. Or a thousand.

I don't know exactly, but I do know that it's not 3000 so most of them must come from somewhere else. Where? Who linked to the photo, and more importantly: What did they say about it? Why can't I get my feedback?

I realize it'd be a lot …

As eventually read on Cluster Disk Data Storage

Important: In MySQL 5.1.8 and later, there can exist only one log file group at any given time.

Somehow error handling could improve , ERROR 1515 (HY000): Failed to create LOGFILE GROUP makes me go look whats wrong with the cluster status :)

A new release of OpenOffice.org is now available. Have a look at the press release below to see the new features. One of the main features is one that is long awaited in the ability to have more than one independent monitor in Impress. If you have not already upgraded, I would suggest you seriously consider it now.

The OpenOffice.org Community are proud to announce the release of OpenOffice.org 2.1, the latest version of the leading open-source office suite.

There are a number of important new features for users in this release. The presentations application, Impress, now supports multiple monitors, with the presenter choosing where to display the presentation. The Calc spreadsheet has an improved HTML export capability, using styles to better recreate in a browser the appearance of the original spreadsheet. The database application, Base, has a number of enhancements, including improved support for Microsoft's Access product. The …

It’s been a while since I released an update to the innotop InnoDB and MySQL monitor, but I have not been idle. I’m currently working hard to add major new features and functionality. Here’s a quick list of what’s coming, much of which is done already but still slightly broken: Arbitrary user-defined expressions can be the source of a column in a tabular view. You are not limited to choosing from the columns I’ve defined; you can add your own, and base it directly on the available data or write an expression to calculate what you want.

The state I live in (Illinois), has decided that it should do emissions testing on all passenger vehicles (never mind the amount of pollutants that trucks, trains, etc. put into the air).

I own a Volkswagen that is old, but new enough to be tested via the on-board diagnostics. The problem is that earlier in the year the secondary air injection pump went bad (a $1000 fix for a part that basically makes the catalytic converter more efficient for the first 90 seconds after a cold start, so let that be a warning to other VW owners, it‘s pretty common for this thing to fail). So, I had it replaced, as I definitely couldn‘t pass the emissions tests without it.

The big issue now is that before the emissions test can pass, the engine computer needs to report that it‘s tested all of the components of the emissions system. Some of these tests take many miles of driving, or certain environmental conditions (i.e. warm enough to create …

The state I live in (Illinois), has decided that it should do emissions testing on all passenger vehicles (never mind the amount of pollutants that trucks, trains, etc. put into the air).

I own a Volkswagen that is old, but new enough to be tested via the on-board diagnostics. The problem is that earlier in the year the secondary air injection pump went bad (a $1000 fix for a part that basically makes the catalytic converter more efficient for the first 90 seconds after a cold start, so let that be a warning to other VW owners, it's pretty common for this thing to fail). So, I had it replaced, as I definitely couldn't pass the emissions tests without it.

The big issue now is that before the emissions test can pass, the engine computer needs to report that it's tested all of the components of the emissions system. Some of these tests take many miles of driving, or certain environmental conditions (i.e. warm enough to create excess …

The state I live in (Illinois), has decided that it should do emissions testing on all passenger vehicles (never mind the amount of pollutants that trucks, trains, etc. put into the air).

I own a Volkswagen that is old, but new enough to be tested via the on-board diagnostics. The problem is that earlier in the year the secondary air injection pump went bad (a $1000 fix for a part that basically makes the catalytic converter more efficient for the first 90 seconds after a cold start, so let that be a warning to other VW owners, it‘s pretty common for this thing to fail). So, I had it replaced, as I definitely couldn‘t pass the emissions tests without it.

The big issue now is that before the emissions test can pass, the engine computer needs to report that it‘s tested all of the components of the emissions system. Some of these tests take many miles of driving, or certain environmental conditions (i.e. warm enough to create …