A topical question is whether BLOBs should be served from a database. My colleague, Jim Starkey, invented the term BLOB and, understandably, is enthusiastic about the concept. However, others are concerned about the practical overhead. So, after some discussion, the answer is maybe, depending on your application. Here's a guide for whether hold your BLOBs in or out of a database:

1. If your BLOBs are *huge* (hundreds of megabytes) then use a filing system.
2. If the size of your BLOBs are tiny (sector size or smaller) then use a database.
3. If you need scale-out then you've got a borderline case. Keep reading.
4. If you've got a huge number of BLOBs then you've got another borderline case.
5. If you want concurrency then you've got another borderline case.
6. If you want relational structure (categories, tags, RSS) then use a database.
7. If you want historical copies then use …

A tip posted by Heywood in the MySQL manual on how to export headings in your CSV export....

Life can be stranger than fiction.

On Tuesday I was on a MySQL/SugarCRM webinar, and Jacob from SugarCRM mentioned that their first translation was to French. Then, Wednesday morning, I got a translation of the opentaps CRM module into French . . . from the developers at Nereide and creators of Neogia, a sister project of opentaps developed in France.

What can I say?

Merci beacoup! Viva la France, la terre de liberte, egalite, fraternite . . . et logiciel libre!

A tip posted by Heywood in the MySQL manual on how to export headings in your CSV export....

Jay Pipes is a co-author of the recently published Pro MySQL recently spoke at Google on MySQL Performance Tuning Best Practices

You can check out a video of the presentation on Google Video

There is also a good video from Google called The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less.

Matt Asay wrote an article about open source leakage. It’s quite good, and got me thinking.

First I thought, “Open source companies do not ‘lose’ revenue to non-paying customers, they just do not gain revenue from them.” But that’s based on the model of open-source software I have in my head that open source software usually starts out as a free, collaborative effort, and if enough folks get enough steam and come up with a business model (aka “a way to get paid”), then they form a company around the open source software.

Simplifying that model: open source software is free until it’s not.

Saying there is leakage does not do justice to the fact that the river flowed freely until the company came along and dammed up the river. Sure, maybe there’s a big leak, but there’s a lot more not leaking …

The Swag Report

I’ve posted more there, check it out. Some from the recent MySQL UC, some from linux.conf.au, some from wherever.

Greg Linden (Google watcher, search engine dude, ex-Amazon) saw Stewart Smith's talk on Google Video about MySQL cluster, and likes the idea. That's cool.

Time for more content on Google Video?

Tags for this post: mysql google video cluster
Related posts: MySQL cluster stores in RAM!; MySQL cluster stores in RAM!; …

So today we launched Google Trends. Wow. I first played with it earlier this week (that is, I wasn't on the team and didn't know it was coming out) and I was utterly blown away with it. My first reaction was "very cool" and my second reaction was "this is extremely powerful!" [1]

In effect, Google Trends lets you see how search traffic for a given term has changed over time. Even better, you can compare up to five different search terms to see how the popularity of things have changed over time. I'm amazed that this kind of tool is now available to the general public (for free, no less!). Obviously condensing a high volume of data into a small graph has some lossage, but this is a hugely fascinating source of information nonetheless.

For instance, a company near and dear to my heart made a strategic decision several years ago about one of their products. …

A friend from a large enterprise (buy side of open source) sent me an email today. I had asked for his opinion on how to improve the Open Source Business Conference, a show I and a few friends founded a few years back. He said something in the course of his email that I found very interesting, if difficult to deliver:

[You need to show] [h]ow to decide which OpenSource product is really cool and does what it says on the tin and which is vapourware\aspirational.

What Open Source products have my competitors used? Successfully. And unsuccessfully....

I like the panels - especially when they disagree. One of the things I find a bit discomfiting at conferences is when all the shiny, happy people on a panel agree...

... the core thing that I try and get through to my senior, senior management is the understanding that Open Source is NOT a panacea; is not totally free; …