The last couple of weeks have been fantastic, I’ve learned and discovered so many new things that I haven’t been able to write about any of them. So, I’m going to combine many things into a single post!

Item: I have a new job. After working at the fabulous MySQL for most of 2005 and 2006, I’ve given up my post as Director of Development to take on a new challenge at Canonical Ltd. Canonical is associated with Ubuntu Linux, the Bazaar distributed revision control system, and the launchpad.net collection of services for products in the open source universe. Working for Brian and more recently …

December 29th, 2006 - by Sheeri Kritzer

Welcome to the 25th edition of Log Buffer, the DBA community?s Carnival of the Vanities-style blog of blogs about the database world.

This is the last Log Buffer of calendar year 2006. The database world seems to be a series of series lately, so let’s jump right in:

If, like me, you have no idea what doors and signals are in Solaris 10, you might want to read part 4 of Frank Mash’s “Managing MySQL on Solaris 10″, entitled Solaris Doors and Signals.

On a more theoretical level, Random Notes describes lack of …

Has anyone used MySQL Turbo Manager? What do they think?

From: http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=36474

Mentat Technologies, Inc. announced it will offer MySQL Turbo Manager Free Edition, a brand new, free graphical tool for database development and administration. With MySQL Turbo Manager Free Edition, you can browse database objects, run SQL statements and SQL scripts, edit and execute Stored Procedures. MySQL Turbo Manager works with any MySQL Server versions from 3.2.3 to 5.1 and supports all MySQL objects and all MySQL options.

You can download MySQL Turbo Manager Free Edition at: http://www.mentattech.com/themes/mentat/download.html

Chad and Brian have already mentioned how MySQL does indeed support Debian and Ubuntu, but I thought I would add my thoughts on the secret measure of how well an OS is truly supported.

Regardless of what is on the checklists and the advertising and everything else, the best supported operating systems and configurations are the ones that the developers themselves actively use. You better believe that when a bug pops up on the operating system I use on my desktop, it’s going to be fixed a lot faster than a bug I can’t see on a more obscure platform. I’ve believed this for a long time, and that is why I have done things like send 64-bit Windows machines, OpenSolaris machines, etc. to developers for daily use in order to improve the quality of our Windows and Solaris …

The state I live in (Illinois), has decided that it should do emissions testing on all passenger vehicles (never mind the amount of pollutants that trucks, trains, etc. put into the air).

I own a Volkswagen that is old, but new enough to be tested via the on-board diagnostics. The problem is that earlier in the year the secondary air injection pump went bad (a $1000 fix for a part that basically makes the catalytic converter more efficient for the first 90 seconds after a cold start, so let that be a warning to other VW owners, it‘s pretty common for this thing to fail). So, I had it replaced, as I definitely couldn‘t pass the emissions tests without it.

The big issue now is that before the emissions test can pass, the engine computer needs to report that it‘s tested all of the components of the emissions system. Some of these tests take many miles of driving, or certain environmental conditions (i.e. warm enough to create …

The state I live in (Illinois), has decided that it should do emissions testing on all passenger vehicles (never mind the amount of pollutants that trucks, trains, etc. put into the air).

I own a Volkswagen that is old, but new enough to be tested via the on-board diagnostics. The problem is that earlier in the year the secondary air injection pump went bad (a $1000 fix for a part that basically makes the catalytic converter more efficient for the first 90 seconds after a cold start, so let that be a warning to other VW owners, it's pretty common for this thing to fail). So, I had it replaced, as I definitely couldn't pass the emissions tests without it.

The big issue now is that before the emissions test can pass, the engine computer needs to report that it's tested all of the components of the emissions system. Some of these tests take many miles of driving, or certain environmental conditions (i.e. warm enough to create excess …

The state I live in (Illinois), has decided that it should do emissions testing on all passenger vehicles (never mind the amount of pollutants that trucks, trains, etc. put into the air).

I own a Volkswagen that is old, but new enough to be tested via the on-board diagnostics. The problem is that earlier in the year the secondary air injection pump went bad (a $1000 fix for a part that basically makes the catalytic converter more efficient for the first 90 seconds after a cold start, so let that be a warning to other VW owners, it‘s pretty common for this thing to fail). So, I had it replaced, as I definitely couldn‘t pass the emissions tests without it.

The big issue now is that before the emissions test can pass, the engine computer needs to report that it‘s tested all of the components of the emissions system. Some of these tests take many miles of driving, or certain environmental conditions (i.e. warm enough to create …

Every day I talk to many engineers and managers who want to be better. Better at developing software, better at shipping software, better at reacting to change in the marketplace, better at preserving backward compatibility, better at integrating new technologies, better at working efficiently, better at preventing and detecting bugs and errors, and so on.

I have often heard arguments that essentially say “all we need is a formal written process and things will be better”. I’ve consistently argued against that mindset, since I believe that principles are much more enduring than rules, and writing many rules often prevents people from doing the right thing.

You should all read this post from Jeff Patton why the best software design and development process is all in your head. Jeff explains so much more eloquently than I could why …

I think the Sysadmin of the Year is a great idea, and I wish I knew about it when nominations were happening! DBA’s and network administrators also count.

From http://www.sysadminoftheyear.com/

The first annual Sysadmin of the Year (SAOTY) contest has been a huge success. Nominations for SAOTY closed at midnight on October 31, 2006 with more than 5,000 sysadmins nominated. The nominations were outstanding and inspiring.

Grandprize: Washington DC Trip to Attend LISA and a $2,500 Splunk Professional License
Michael Beck — Emerging Technologies Group, USA

1st Place: MacBook
Sean Thomas — True Prism Technologies (Ulanji)

Runnerup: Splunk License
Darren Barry — US Air Force

Micah Anderson — Eggplant Media Workers’ Cooperative
Dawn Lovell — CenturyTel
Mike Jennings — Rackspace

…

I bought a new personal laptop a few weeks back, and I’ve been using it enough to final post a short review. I’ve run linux on several different laptops over the years, and it’s always been kind of tough. Even supergeeks endure a lot of teasing at conferences about getting wireless networking configured.

This time, I went with System 76, who offer laptops with Ubuntu preinstalled. Definitely the right choice! I chose a Gazelle, which is not quite as sleek as my previous MacBook. It is blazing fast. I was amazed at how quickly I was able to be productive with Ubuntu preinstalled and working perfectly: NetworkManager means my wireless connection works even better than on the MacBook, suspend to RAM and hibernate to disk worked flawlessly, and it compiles MySQL in about 13 minutes flat.

…