Welcome to the fourteenth Log Buffer, the weekly review of the database blogosphere. We start with a couple pieces on Oracle’s purchase of Sunopsis (news item on ZDNet), the latest in a series of purchases for them. On Andy on Enterprise Software offers Andy Hayler’s analysis: Sunopsis’s Data Conductor product is superior to Oracle’s Warehouse [...]

This thread on the Boston MySQL User Group Board is getting interesting:
http://mysql.meetup.com/137/boards/view/viewthread?thread=2280640

(From the original poster:)

I think that nonequivalence comes from the past when the data sharing was a
rare situation. The data changes were always initiated by application and it
always knew about those changes. Now the situation is different. When the data
are shared between multiple remote applications you have to notify other
interested parties about those changes.

Currently databases are mostly used as “pull” components. If they had standard
“push” functionality they could compete with messaging systems with the advantages
of automatic data persistence and powerful query language.

(my response:)
…

When people discuss query optimization on MySQL, or say a query doesn't perform well, they usually mention execution time. Execution time is important, but it's not the only metric to use (or even the best). There are many other ways to measure the work a query requires. This article explains how to really profile a query -- what to measure, how to do it as accurately as possible, and what it means.

This is the first article in a series. In upcoming articles I'll demonstrate some hands-on profiling with concrete examples, and give you a tool to automate the job.

I was really wondered today when I came across really interesting initiative of some women in #phpc IRC channel. They are trying to create some place where PHP women will be able to communicate and feel included in the world of PHP. Ligaya Turmelle (DevZone Roving Reporter) is one of the leaders spearheading the formation of phpwomen.org. She posted an update on their progress her blog recently. She talks about their new website, www.phpwomen.org, their mailing list which can be joined here and their irc channel on freenode.net, #phpwomen. She said:

It is women encouraging women to be active in the greater PHP World. We may be a small group but we have a big impact and are proud of who and what we are. We don’t wish to be exclusive and stand …

Thanks to Leonardo Villamil Gamba, there are new Spanish translations of Article Four and Article Five in the popular VB.NET/MySQL article series.

See all the Spanish translations at http://www.vbmysql.com/articles/espanol/.

Google Translated:

Los gracias al espicanardo de Leonardo Villamil, allí son nuevas traducciones españolas del Article Four de Article Five. Ver todas las traducciones españolas en el …

This common complaint uttered fairly frequently on the forums and some similar related issues appears to stem from some basic misunderstandings of the MySQL account structure. The most common culprit is the "anonymous guest" account set up by default coupled with an initial lack of knowledge of how to connect to MySQL. Personally I have no use for such accounts and remove them when I find them. Presumably the intent is to allow anonymous users minimal access to MySQL, where they are limited to using the `test` database which is also set up by default. Compounding this issue is the Command Line Interface start-menu shortcut created by the installer versions of the Windows packages, which connects users as 'root' automatically and oftentimes unbeknownst to them. Then when the user goes to connect via some other means and presents incorrect credentials out of ignorance, then there is a chance that this guest account may be inadvertantly invoked.
…

I'm still reading through BusinessWeek's interview with Steve Ballmer, and still fascinated. Love him or hate him, Ballmer is a smart guy.

Ballmer refused to call the YouTube valuation ($1.65B) overvalued. He rightly said that it depends on a lot of factors (factors, incidentally, that I don't personally think add up, but I'm willing to be wrong):

You're clear as a bell on the YouTube valuation…
No. I'm not saying it is overvalued. I'm not trying to say that. It depends on a set of factors. I'm not saying I wouldn't write a check for that amount of money. I might.

Really, even though there's no identifiable business model?
It is one of those things where you have to think. You can't punt either way. If you're asking me if I would …

Some interesting things happened today…

We released a new MySQL server a few days ago, and that consequently means we’ve got a new Connector/PHP available for download. Go get ext/mysqli and ext/mysql against 5.0.26 while its hot.

And while we do support ext/mysql, we’d rather you (and your applications) used ext/mysqli. After all, wouldn’t you like to be able to use the new, much touted features that came post MySQL 4.1, like Views, Stored Procedures, Triggers, Precision Math, and so on?

So to make it a complete no brainer, we released a MySQLi Converter Tool. Its also available via subversion. The tool is branched off Revision 11 (in …

In today’s vote on its patent policy resolution, the European Parliament approved the compromise text I had previously reported on, but it also voted in favor of a few amendments.

The most notable amendment was number 7. It inserted the subclause “which address concerns about democratic control, judicial independence and litigation costs” into article 1. Two of those three concerns (judicial independence and litigation costs) had been mentioned by commissioner McCreevy in his speech in the EP on September 28. But it was a good idea for the EP to reinforce those points.

Dutch …

The comments on my article how to find duplicate rows with SQL made me realize I was simplifying things too much. In particular, I really glossed over the "how to delete duplicate rows" section, which I should have explained in more detail. I hope this article will remedy the omissions.