Every day I talk to many engineers and managers who want to be better. Better at developing software, better at shipping software, better at reacting to change in the marketplace, better at preserving backward compatibility, better at integrating new technologies, better at working efficiently, better at preventing and detecting bugs and errors, and so on.

I have often heard arguments that essentially say “all we need is a formal written process and things will be better”. I’ve consistently argued against that mindset, since I believe that principles are much more enduring than rules, and writing many rules often prevents people from doing the right thing.

You should all read this post from Jeff Patton why the best software design and development process is all in your head. Jeff explains so much more eloquently than I could why …

I was talking to a customer yesterday and the customer was surprised that database backups can be used to detect malicious database activity from legitimate users and hackers.

ZRM for MySQL stores MySQL binary logs as part of the database backups. The binary logs provide a good audit trail of all database activity. ZRM for MySQL binary log parsing capability, usually used for selective point in time recovery, can also be used to detect malicious database activity using SQL inspection.

ZRM for MySQL plugin interface allows DBAs to write log parser plugin scripts to track the database activity that they are interested in. For example: the following script can be used to detect deletion of data from the PRODUCTS table in the database. This script …

I think the Sysadmin of the Year is a great idea, and I wish I knew about it when nominations were happening! DBA’s and network administrators also count.

From http://www.sysadminoftheyear.com/

The first annual Sysadmin of the Year (SAOTY) contest has been a huge success. Nominations for SAOTY closed at midnight on October 31, 2006 with more than 5,000 sysadmins nominated. The nominations were outstanding and inspiring.

Grandprize: Washington DC Trip to Attend LISA and a $2,500 Splunk Professional License
Michael Beck — Emerging Technologies Group, USA

1st Place: MacBook
Sean Thomas — True Prism Technologies (Ulanji)

Runnerup: Splunk License
Darren Barry — US Air Force

Micah Anderson — Eggplant Media Workers’ Cooperative
Dawn Lovell — CenturyTel
Mike Jennings — Rackspace

…

Chat log with kimseong on #mysql regarding character sets.

when you dump data in a latin1 table with MySQL, is it converted by default to utf8?
 FrankMash: mysqldump? yes it is, but there are options to set it to latin1
 kimseong: thanks. I have a table in latin1 that I am planning to dump and then change one field in its structure to be utf8
 kimseong: should I dump data in utf8 (default) or specify (latin1) to preserve special chars
 FrankMash: alter table can change directly, no need to dump, but backup first anyway
 alter table does takes longer than dump/importing in our test
 FrankMash: if you data is really stored as latin1, then it does not matter
 FrankMash: it gets tricky if data is stored as utf8 in latin1 column
 kimseong: thanks. so upon re-importing the data (assuming dump is utf8) will the characters be converted back to the charset specified in the table definition
 yes
 kimseong: yes that would be …

mike kruckenberg shared his observations from watching mysql source code commits, and jay pipes commented about this commit from antony curtis which had him excited. now that?s how open source is supposed to work, at least in part.

i replied to a later version of that commit to our internal developer list (and antony), pointing out that with just a little effort the comment would be more useful to people outside of the development team. ?plugin server variables? doesn?t really do it justice, and ?WL 2936? is useful to people who can access our internal task tracking tool, but does no good to people like mike.
…

Just a quick note to thank all of you who have already participated in our recent survey. Normally once a year, we conduct a user survey where you tell us a little about how you use MySQL and a lot about what more we can be doing to serve you better. Your input helps us plan our product roadmaps and prioritize the things we need to focus on in the coming year and beyond.

If you haven’t yet filled out our survey, please visit our community page, and then click on the survey link in the upper right hand corner. And of course, we’ll be giving away gifts to those who lend us a helping hand.

Thanks again.

Quick question: If one dumps a table (latin1) and then changes the charset of one of the fields to utf8 and then load the dump back, will the result be different than if one had used alter table to convert a field's charset?

How to Disable Windows Login Screensaver Have you ever been annoyed by the computer going into a screensaver before you've even logged in to it? This is a step-by-step guide to disabling this feature. Steps Login to your computer as an amdinistrator account. Go to Start->Run Type regedit into the text box Navigate in the explorer like window to the section: HKEY_USERS -> .DEFAULT -> CONTROL

How to Use Windows XP Built in Remote Desktop Utility This explains how to connect to another computer on your local network through Windows XP's built-in remote desktop utility. Steps Remote Desktop must be enabled on all the computers to which you wish to connect. To ensure that it is enabled, follow these steps: Right click the My Computer icon on your desktop or start menu and click

How to Convert Measurements Easily in Microsoft Excel

We've all been in a situation where we need to convert one measurement to another. An objects mass was measured in ounces and not kilos, or the lumber you ordered was measured in metres instead of feet, or someone is planning a trip to the USA and wants to know the speed limits in mp/h when they're used to km/h. There are a multitude of jobs where this is a daily task, some of them where measurements must be exact. Well, there is an easier way. There is a function in Microsoft Excel called CONVERT that will convert from one measurement system to another and all you have to do is specify the number and the measurement systems!

Steps

1. Start Microsoft Excel
2. The CONVERT function is not installed by default. It is part of the Analysis Add-in tool pack. To …