Andrew recently wrote about his plans to take the MySQL Certification exams and that he finds interesting new things that he learns from his studies. I can really confirm this - I also learnt a lot when I studied for my exams, which I took (and passed) in autumn last year.

This is a great opportunity to tell you about the PROCEDURE ANALYSE option, which I learn about in the Study Guide. I believe that this option isn't well known, since I didn't hear about it anywhere else than in the Study Guide - so it might be new to some people.

The best way to show you what it does is by an example - lets execute it …

Hi everyone -

Just a quick note to let you know that the offiical beta of MySQL 5.1 is now ready for download! The release contains many great new features that I am sure you’ll want to check out, including:

* Table and index partitioning
* Row-based replication
* Disk-based data support for MySQL Cluster
* Replication support for MySQL Cluster
* Enhanced full-text search functions
* XML/XPath support
* Internal task/job scheduler
* New performance troubleshooting aids, utilities, and options
* And more ?

Other things to check out:

* The “What’s New in 5.1” paper that provides a snapshot of each new feature in 5.1.
* A new article on 5.1 partitioning that I …

As of late my time is just filled so getting time to spend on writing down my thoughts is becoming a bit difficult.

One week later and I am finally getting around to thinking about Mashup Camp. There are some aspects that I liked. The organization was both good and had its low points.

What I liked:

* I liked people being able to come up with spontaneous workshops. People who came with an idea had a platform.

* "Speed Dating, The quick pitch". Imagine a room full of tables, with each company/group getting a table. Sets of people moving around the room hearing pitches from the people at the tables. I got a lot of knowledge of what people were doing in a short time, and since it was quick I didn't blow much time on the boring stuff.

What I disliked:

* Too many of the discussions didn't have a proper facilitator so they wandered a bit. I also couldn't figure out …

I just got word that improved error handling - the stuff I blogged about previously - is in fact being adressed by the MySQL development team. Very glad to head about that.

(We should not expect it sooner than 5.2 though. This is of course totally reasonable as the 5.1 version has been in beta for some time now. In fact, I gueass it won't take too long before that one will become generally available)

I knew right from the start I was in real trouble once again when I saw more and more error messages coming in from our applications. They kept telling me that our replication slave was not properly responding. Did I just encounter another bug I never met before? Anyway, I just cancelled my private plans for tonight as this looked like it could take some time to solve. How right I was.

The first shock: I couldn't even log in to the server using ssh. The connection was established, but the shell just wouldn't present its friendly prompt. Luckily I had an open connection from another machine I could use. It took almost a minute until the three letters of my first command showed up on that connection: t... o... p... and finally Return.

Another minute later the top screen suddenly appeared. A quick glance at the process list didn't show anything special, but the one minute load …

Today I came across very neat buttons (chicklets) for W3C. The best thing about the chicklets is that they take very little space and convey the message elegantly.



For many of my projects, I would like to include a "includes MySQL" logo to give MySQL credit for providing a wonderful software. However, as you can see, the sheer size of "Includes MySQL" logo is quite heavy for the screen real-estate.

Why should MySQL authorize the use of these chicklets?
Because then developers can place the MySQL chicklet without hesitation on their side bars as it will consume little space.

So using Silkscreen, a small free font for Web graphics, I created a proof of concept for MySQL chicklets.

Do not use/distribute these chicklets without permission from MySQL AB.

Please note that …

At the MySQL Users Conference 2006, we have a tutorial day on Monday April 24th. These are optional extras to the general conference pass, so you have to specifically add these when you register. The most popular sessions and tutorials are always the performance tuning items. No great surprise there...

Last year I just did a talk in the main conference. But I usually do tutorials at other conferences, so for this year's UC I came up with a new topic:
Optimizing MySQL Applications Using the Pluggable Storage Engine Architecture
Yea, very buzzword compliant - marketing loved it ;-)
The point is this... MySQL has multiple storage engines: MyISAM, InnoDB, NDB Cluster, ARCHIVE, BLACKHOLE, FEDERATED, CSV. People often ask me a generic "which one is best?" and that kinda indicates that …

Are you coming to the MySQL Users Conference 2006? This year it’s April 24-27, 2006 in Santa Clara, CA. Sadly for me, I don’t get to travel anywhere for the conference: It’s practically in my backyard.

I’m presenting a session and a tutorial, and participating in a Panel and a Hackfest session this year:

• MySQL GIS: Overview and Tools — I’ll talk about what GIS is useful for, how to get data in and out, and give some demos using PHP.
• Replication for Scaling and High Availability — An honest look at how replication really works, when it doesn’t work, …

I just got through reading the latest issue of php|architect - always a good read.

Sean starts by announcing the departure of Marcus Baker as a columnist. I've always enjoyed Marcus's perspective on things, primarily because it's different. Luckily, Sean follows this announcement with very good news - Jeff Moore is going to take over the column. I've been reading Jeff's blog for the past year or two, and I'm really looking forward to reading more from him in future issues.

Marco has an interesting article on applying the poka-yoke concept to …

There are four .NET specific sessions at the MySQL User Conference this year:

Tuesday, April 25th, 2006

Creating .Net Applications with Linux and MySQL
Matt Lord, Support Engineer, MySQL AB

MySQL and Windows: Playing Well Together
Reggie Burnett, Software Developer, MySQL AB

Wednesday, April 26th, 2006

MySQL Connector/Net: Work the Way You Want To!
Reggie Burnett, Software Developer, MySQL AB