If your RDBMS does not support the ROW_NUMBER function, it is still possible to write some queries without it. ROW_NUMBER operates over a partition of the result set, and returns a number for each row in a partition (it is possible to specify numbering schemes besides consecutive integers). Ranking and windowing functions are available in Microsoft SQL Server 2005, and are part of the newer SQL standards. I expect it will be some time before MySQL implements them.

I've tried to create a database driven menu management. The menu items are stored in the database with an ID (menuitem) and a mother ID (motherid) which refers to its upper menu item or to 0, if it is a main menu item. Further we store the description, that's the text that should be displayed in the menu and a filename, which we can use to store, where we want to link the menu item to. Finally we have a column itemsorder where we store, in which order the menu items should be displayed.

This table can store more than one separate menus, so we use the first column mainmenu to indicate, which menu we want to display.

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `menu`;
CREATE TABLE `menu` (
`mainmenu` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
`menuitem` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
`motherid` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
`description` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
`filename` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
`itemsorder` int(10) unsigned NOT …

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/26/award_nominations/

Florian Mueller, one of my acquaintances from MySQL has been nominated for his work against European Software Patents as European of the year. Pretty heady!

He mentions the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) in a statement. At OSCON this year, I had the pleasure of meeting Hartmut Pilch, the president of the FFII. He seems like a good guy and he is single-minded about his convictions.

If you feel, as I do, that Florian would make a better European Of The Year than UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, vote for him here:

http://www.ev50.com/poll/

Hurricane relief organizer lauds MySQL, open source is just a very nice article at SearchEnterpriseLinux.com.

Capalon Internet Solutions in Baltimore used MySQL and other open source tools to set up the Contact Loved Ones call center for families separated by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Useful! In the article, the CEO tells his story of how and why his company started using open source.

Hi folks,

let me first introduce myself. I'm a 29 year old self employed software and web developer with a focus on database applications, living in the north of Austria in a region called "Waldviertel", best translated as "wood quarter".

In June this year, me and two friends and colleagues of mine, Natascha and Jürgen, started a project called "db4free.net". We rented a server, created a web application and set up a MySQL 5 database server, to give people MySQL 5 database accounts for free. Now, three months later, we are about to welcome our 1,000th user.

The reason for doing all this is that MySQL is a great OpenSource product that's simple to work with on one hand, but still very powerful on the other. It's available for all common platforms and for most (even commercial) cases you can use it for free. Only if an application using MySQL is being distributed with another licence than MySQL's own GPL, …

Today we finally released MySQL 5.0.13, the first release candidate (aka gamma release) of MySQL 5.0. It's now available for download from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.0.html and mirrors.

Kaj has written a nice announcement about it, I will soon post the regular release announcement, too.

If you have not done so already and you are an active MySQL user - please give this release a try! Our developers have worked very hard the past weeks to iron out the wrinkles, so we would like to know if it works for you, too! And if it does not, we'd appreciate to …

Today we finally released MySQL 5.0.13, the first release candidate (aka gamma release) of MySQL 5.0. It's now available for download from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.0.html and mirrors.

Kaj has written a nice announcement about it, I will soon post the regular release announcement, too.

If you have not done so already and you are an active MySQL user - please give this release a try! Our developers have worked very hard the past weeks to iron out the wrinkles, so we would like to know if it works for you, too! And if it does not, we'd appreciate to …

Well, we are getting very close indeed to a production release of MySQL 5. Today MySQL is releasing MySQL 5.0.13, a Release Candidate (formerly known as Gamma) version.

You can read all about it at http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/news/article_959.html, but here's the feature highlights:

The new ANSI SQL features include:

• Views (both read-only and updatable views)
• Stored Procedures and Stored Functions, using the SQL:2003 syntax, which is also used by IBM's DB2
• Triggers (row-level)
• Server-side cursors (read-only, non-scrolling)

Implementing ANSI SQL standard ways of using existing MySQL features means there will be fewer unpleasant surprises ("gotchas") for those …

Dear user of MySQL,

I’m proud and excited to announce the first Release Candidate of MySQL 5.0. This milestone signals that we are nearing what is certainly the most important release in MySQL’s history.

MySQL 5.0 has new functionality that I hope will be welcomed, adopted, and put to productive use by the community of MySQL users — you. On the commercial side, MySQL AB is getting a lot of good vibes from new enterprise customers who are beginning to understand the impact MySQL can have on their IT infrastructure and costs of running mission-critical applications.

The betas of MySQL 5.0 have already been downloaded two million times, and have thus been tested extensively in a lot of different scenarios. From the feedback we get from our community, we know it is already in production use at numerous sites. Go get your own copy at …

Well it's not exactly news that MySQL AB is hiring, because it seems that we are doing so on a very regular basis. All you need do is check http://www.mysql.com/company/jobs/ to see a list of the jobs available from Product Engineer to Revenue Recognition Manager (oh look, there goes some revenue now!)

The reason I'm addressing the job list today is that there is a plum of a position being created on the community team for a Community Relations team member in North America. From the listing:

MySQL is looking for an energetic person in North America to join the MySQL Community department. In this important and responsible full-time position, you must be able to work: independently from home; juggle a multitude of diverse tasks; and ?while working within the Community team? also …