I wanted to quickly mention a couple community members who have contributed to the MySQL Forge this week, in completely different ways.

That Damn Error 2003

Long-time MySQL Forum extraordinaire, Bill Karwin, has put together a wiki page in the Forge wiki on the various causes and solutions to perhaps the most common MySQL error encountered by newbies (or even veterans who haven't installed MySQL in a while... ).

So, why does this page deserve mention? A few reasons. First, the wiki page highlights both Windows and *nix solutions. Too many times, users of Windows or *nix have a tendency to forget (or ignore) the fact that the other side of the equation even exists. Bill does a great job in balancing the OS worldview and providing insight on how to diagnose and fix connection issues on both major platforms. Secondly, he has …

“MySQL is at the heart of revolutionary changes in the computer industry” - Tim O’Reilly

Hmmm, worthy of my Quote of the Day Section, but is it necessarily true. I believe MySQL is significant in the advancement of great opportunities in the computer industry particularly the Internet, but is it revolutionary?

The Oxford Dictionary states: revolutionary ? adjective ? involving or causing dramatic change or innovation.

Perhaps so. Any Comments Welcome.

Stolen shamelessly from the MySQL User Conference Web Site Banner.

Over on my MySQL Index Analyzer blog I just posted two screenshots of the first working GUI drafts. If you are interested, you will have to check this version out from the SVN repository, I will prepare a new distribution package soon.

This is a post from a few months back which somehow got stuck. I’m publishing it now as it still holds true.
I read an article today which mentioned “supernova burnout”, describing it as burnout that occurs when someone has reached the pinnacle of their career (I’m paraphrasing from memory here). The recommended solution? Find a cause that you are passionate about, and find a way to work it into your life.

Want to know what I’m passionate about? Taking care of my family. That will add purpose and meaning to any job. Something I love about working at MySQL is that I can work from home, which means I get to see my family a LOT more than I have in years past. Somehow there is just no substitute for being present.
I’m also passionate about programming, and sharing knowledge with other people. The book Code Reading: The Open Source Perspective highlights just how important it is to have access to the …

The MySQL Users Group in Brisbane (QLD, Australia) now has 100 members, after starting less than 2 years ago! We've had pretty much regular monthly meetings since the beginning, with a decent variety of speakers and topics. Brisbane also has strong PHP and Linux groups, so there's some competition and overlap...

The Call for Participation for the 2007 MySQL Conference & Expo has just opened: an invitation for database experts and enthusiasts to share their knowledge of MySQL with the global open source community. The theme for the 2007 conference is "Scale to New Heights with MySQL." This annual event brings nearly 2,000 MySQL developers, DBAs, users, and partners together in Santa Clara, California. The Call for Participation ends November 7, 2006; the conference takes place April 23-26, 2007.

MySQL AB is building on its European organisation. With a new sales office in the Netherlands, MySQL will focus on supporting corporate customers and users throughout the Benelux region.

I was poking around in the MySQL source code, namely in sql/sql_yacc.yy, and found a hidden treat: there’s a SHOW COLUMN TYPES command. It’s fun to read source code! The command is undocumented, but does work. It returns just two rows, which give information about TINYINT and TINYINT UNSIGNED. And it has been in the source for a long time, certainly since version 4.1.21. There’s even a status counter for it in the SHOW STATUS command: Com_show_column_types.

I set out Monday morning to Perros-Guirec, a village at the west coast of France, west from St-Malo. We have an important meeting with MySQL customer and I had to be there. Everything was carefully planned, I had my tickets and I knew when to leave.. on time..

Well, it didn't go the way I expected..


So I set out at 05:30 to the train station of Aschaffenburg to Darmstadt. Train was at 06:06 and would arrive like 06:52 just in time to take the train to Paris at 07:02. I managed to stay awake, but when lots of people got on train I got distracted and a bit dreaming away. I heard the speaker say 'Darmstadt' and I get out. But …