You have heard about MySQL Cluster, but you were always afraid to get into it because ?Cluster? seems to be a magic and complicated topic? Then this article is for you. In a couple of minutes, you can run your own Cluster.

Sometimes, I need to demonstrate how MySQL cluster works. I usually set up a single machine cluster which of course won?t make sense in production scenarios, but for an introduction into MySQL cluster it?s fine. And it?s very easy to deploy the system on multiple machines later.

This article will show you how you can set up your own Cluster. All you need is a UNIX machine and the mysql-max package (version 4.1 or 5.0) which is downloadable from the MySQL website.

Run ?SHOW ENGINES? to see that the cluster storage engine is included in your installation. If it says ?DISABLED? or ?YES? …

I've spoken at a variety of conferences and meetings over the past few years. For many of the gatherings the organizers work diligently at getting users to fill out some kind of quick feedback form for each session. I've always wondered about those forms, particularly when I've given a session.

The other day I got an email from the PHP Quebec folks with a document attached with the information gathered from those forms for my talk on MySQL Cluster. Ratings from 1-5 on a few different questions (like "How well did the presenter know the subject?) and then a number of feedback notes from the folks who attended.

I wish all conference organizers had that kind of time and dedication to get the feedback back to the presenters. In cases where the feedback is praising it's good for a speaker to know they did a good job and were on the mark. In instances where there were …

Arrived in Santa Clara for the conference, so this is my second (groundhog!) attempt at Friday April 21st. I even arrived before I left. Timezones and the intl.dateline are of fun. Should also remember that Europe is now ahead of me rather than behind...


Colin, JD and I went for a good walk, so that might help with the jetlag (sunlight in the right timezone). This worked pretty well for me last year. Didn't spot any mountain lions, but did see a rabbit, a few deer and a hummingbird. Stewart (cluster dev) also arrived today... it appears most Australians arrived a bit early, a wise move in my experience. And Lars Thalmann (replication dev) from Sweden. Briefly visited our offices in Cupertino, lots of people there also of course.


That car …

Today my TV told me to be scared, I had a good (late) sandwich for lunch. Some nice local beer (no big brewery), a salad and the most scary looking pasta for dinner. Also hung with people. Now sleep.

It has been a long time since i wrote anything. Actually there has been nothing to write about, since nothing has happened. So, i thought why not share some knowledge about mysql. HE HE...

I came across mysql in my college days during a summer project that we did at ORG-MARG India now known as Ac Nielson. It is now the third largest market research organization in the world. There is a person over there in the IT-Department known as Mr. Sanjay Bhatia who was very enthusiast about linux. And he asked us to develop a small site. It was more of a DB entry and retrieveing information type of work. The challenge was that we had never had any experience on using linux for web development. We started by choosing apache-tomcat, jsp and mysql for developing our application. Everything gor set up fine, except we were unable to use JDBC to connect JSP to MySQL and so we gave up on mysql at that time. And shifted to PostgreSQL.

…

For those who can’t wait for next week or who won’t be at the UC, I’m posting a flash recording of a rough practice run of my Sakila DB session that I will deliver next week. I wanted to get a feel for duration without audience questions or closing activities. I came in at 30 minutes so I am comfortable that with audience questions it should be good.

Feedback is of course appreciated.

See it at http://www.openwin.org/mike/video/sakila.html

I'm halfway back from Costa Rica and was just astounded to learn that Peter Fenton (who did the JBoss deal and is, in my estimation, one of the top "open source VCs" on the planet) has left Accel Partners to join Benchmark, a rival Silicon Valley venture firm.

No big deal, you say? It is a big deal, mostly because VCs rarely leave their firms to go to rivals. It just doesn't happen very often, for a range of reasons.

It will be interesting to see what happens with Peter's board seats (JBoss, Wily, etc.). Even more interesting will be what the Fenton + Kevin Harvey (Red Hat, Zimbra, MySQL, Qlusters) duo will cook up. Harvey is another top open source VC, and razor-sharp smart. …

It took me just under five minutes to signup for a T-mobile hotspot account, so I could send my mail. Username already chosen, form resets itself. Find credit card, re-enter information. Submit. Need to fill in the expiry date (which displays fine). Form resets. Repeat.

Funny that the immigration official today at SFO had heard of both Linux and MySQL. He’s apparently some form of online gamer, and has written a few PHP apps himself. I was, to say the least, highly impressed.

Something I noticed as funny. All the baggage carousels had Oracle ads. Must be something Oracle related happening here…

Anyways, I’m still waiting for Arjen to come out. Stewart I know is already at the hotel, and JD should arrive in due time. In the meantime, I’ll attend to mail, and upload Flickr photos at 250KB/s (yes, a marked improvement from the 30KB/s cap I have …

So, here’s the rough plan of what I will attend next week:

Monday AM:

Secure Your PHP and MySQL Web Applications, Laura Thomson

Monday PM:

Data Warehousing with MySQL, John Paul Ashenfelter

Tuesday AM:

Welcome!, Arjen Lentz

State of the Dolphin, Kaj Arnö, David Axmark, Michael (Monty) Widenius

Introduction to Database Normalization and Joins, Mike Hillyer, Arjen …

A Texas jury has awarded $133 million in damages to David Colvin, after finding Microsoft and Autodesk guilty of infringing upon Colvin’s two software patents for software antipiracy protection. Colvin’s company, z4 Technologies Inc., filed patents for ‘passwords and codes assigned to individual software copies to prevent unauthorized copies.’ Microsoft was ordered to pay $115 [...]