I have another MySQL UC2006 session proposal I am working on at http://www.openwin.org/mike/index.php/presentations/securing-a-mysql-server-in-12-easy-steps-proposal/

Any input would be appreciated.

I'm working on some session proposals for the 2006 MySQL User Conference, and I have the first one pretty fleshed out. If you have a minute please click the following link and provide some feedback for the proposal: is it a session you would attend? Is there any information you think is missing, topics you would like to see?

Thanks

http://www.openwin.org/mike/index.php/presentations/documentation-at-mysql-ab/

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 …

Well, it looks like preparation for the 2006 MySQL User's Conference and Expo is underway, with the http://www.mysqluc.com/ site updated to reflect the 2006 conference.

What we can discern so far is that the theme is this:

Discover. Connect. Succeed. Scale Your Business with MySQL

The dates will be April 24-27, 2006, and the conference is going back to last year's location is Santa Clara, California.

The Call for Participation is open till November 7, and I am starting to brainstorm some sessions. This will be my fourth MySQL User's conference, and I want to try some new content. In 2003 I spoke on VB development with MySQL, in 2004 I spoke on Migrating Access and SQL Server data to MySQL, and in 2005 I spoke on Migrating Access and SQL Server data again. In other conferences I have done talks on normalization and managing hierarchical …

Here's a quick function you may find useful, it calculates a timespan in hours and quarter hours (4.25, 5.5, 6.75, etc):

DELIMITER $$
        
DROP FUNCTION IF EXISTS `upto`.`hours_and_quarter_hours`$$
CREATE FUNCTION `upto`.`hours_and_quarter_hours`(p_start_time DATETIME, p_end_time DATETIME) RETURNS decimal(5,2)
BEGIN
        
    DECLARE quarter_hours INTEGER;
        
    SET quarter_hours = CEILING((UNIX_TIMESTAMP(p_end_time) - UNIX_TIMESTAMP(p_start_time)) / 900);
        
    RETURN FLOOR(quarter_hours / 4) + (MOD(quarter_hours,4) * .25);
        
END$$
        
DELIMITER ;

In order to better document MySQL on Mac, I have recently acquired a Mac Mini. This brings my collection of desktop machines to three:

The black machine is a Windows box, the white machine runs Linux, and now a Mac Mini.

The new addition closer up:

This is the first Mac I have had regular use of, so I am sure I have some learning to do. For now I just need to get MySQL and the GUI tools installed, then find where they hide the command-line.

SciBit has released update MyCon MySQL GUI v2.9 today. This is primarily a bugfix and existing feature enhancement update for v2.8.x. In short, it contains all the fixes which SciBit could already release without having our customers wait for the upcoming MyCon version 3.0 release:

* Added: MyLook ActiveX API for MyCon.
* Added: Another couple of Import & Export formats for your table's data, see features for more details.
* Added: Close Connection Action command
* Added: Bolding of folders to designate live connections
* Added: Support for auto 30 day trial generation and an easy to click "Get trial codes" button in the About dialog to automatically fetch trial extensions.
* …

I went to the annual local airshow today, got to see some nice planes, got a great sunburn, and got another reminder that I am slowly losing my second language. From 1996 to 1998 I lived in southern Japan and became a pretty good speaker of Japanese. Not pretty good in the sense that a guy who watches too much Anime considers himself pretty good at Japanese, but pretty good in the sense that I spoke Japanese every day, did spoken translations at meetings, and on more than one occasion would get a good ways into a telephone conversation before the person on the other end of the phone would realize I was not my Japanese roommate. I was almost illiterate when it came to the written word, but at spoken language I was pretty darn good, all I needed was more and more words in my vocabulary (Japanese grammar is a breeze once you know the rules, and there are no exceptions to the rules).

So, I was standing in line to take a look through one …

I encountered a bug recently in my tool where I could right-click on a listview, even if I was not right-clicking on a listview item, and still use the item related entries of a contextMenuStrip. The problem is that unlike the TreeView, the ListView does not allow you to assign a ContextMenuStrip to individual items, just the control as a whole.

The solution was to use the new Opening event of the ContextMenuStrip:

Private Sub eventMenu_Opening(ByVal sender As Object, _
ByVal e As System.ComponentModel.CancelEventArgs) Handles eventMenu.Opening
        If lvwEvents.SelectedItems.Count = 0 Then
            e.Cancel = True
        End If
End Sub

By setting e.Cancel to True, the menu is never shown. I determine whether an item was clicked on by checking the count of selecteditems.

It gives us great pride to announce the release of MyComponents V4.2 native Delphi/Kylix VCL suite. This update includes mainly fixes to issues as it has been reported to Support and on this forum, as well as some new functionality. Without explicitly setting the new properties, and thereby using the new features, should this version be completely compatible with your existing code.

What new?

TMySQLServer:
ptTCP/ptPipe: now sports connection capabilities which includes tcp (default), as well as using the MySQL pipe on the localhost.

TMySQLDataset:
New: Carry over support for previously set macro values
New: Added QueryInfo public method to obtain MySQL query informative result string
New: Added support for MySQL 5.0.3 FIELD_TYPE_BIT as ftBoolean
New: Added support for MySQL 5 FIELD_TYPE_DEC …