Tuesday’s Keynote speaking from the MySQL Users Conference including a presentation from Greg Gianforte of RightNow Technologies on “Bootstrapping: Starting an Open Source Business With Almost No Money!” Read More.

Taking directly from Greg’s presentation, here are some key points for bootstraping that meant something to me.

• Sales is Job #1
• Don’t spend Beyond Your Means
• There Is Always Another Way
• What is Your Noble Purpose?

Some great points. In summary, not having funds should not be an excuse, find another way . You just need to think creatively. I agree completely, thinking creatively is something I do well. Immerse yourself - talk to lots of people, …

So, I’m at the MySQL Users Conference. I ran into Jay Pipes and Mike Kruckenberg yesterday. That was not surprising. Surprising was the fact that Mike Hillyer (of sakila sample db fame, which I am very interested in) found me and said “Hi”. I can’t wait for his talk on the sample database; I want to run out and rewrite all the documentation using the sample db. I was introduced to Colin Charles as well, who congratulated me on the success of the Boston MySQL Users conference.

This morning I sat down for the keynotes and Roland Bouman said, “Sheeri!” He was followed by Markus Popp, …

Last night, I attended Mike Zinner’s presentation of MySQL GUI’s, most specifically MySQL Workbench. In summary I was very impressed with the current work, and the future potential. I’ve been waiting for now about a year to get access to full strength MySQL Workbench (it has been available for some time, but still in early development), having previously used DB Designer for MySQL Data Modelling. One of the limitations is finding a quality tool that runs under Linux. Well MySQL workbench will satisfy this and far more in the future.

A quick summary of some of the glossy features.

• Reverse Engineering of schemas from multiple input sources including MySQL, Oracle, MS SQL Server.
• Synchronisation with a MySQL Database.
• Quick Re-Synchronisation.
• Full GUI tools and features for creating and maintaining database …

While many people will be blogging about the conference sessions and MySQL features, functionality and sessions, I thought it would be important to raise awareness of the creativity of developers often lost during the product lifecycle.

I met at the Speakers Function last night Jim Starkey, the founder of Netfrastructure, Inc, a company aquired by MySQL recently. At the conference was the official launch of a new transactional storage engine to be included in the MySQL 5.1 release is codenamed “Falcon”.

Too often, the flare and creativity of products, and also the initial history is lost when it reaches the marketing department of an organisation. In this case, after talking with Jim, we decided it was important to ensure the name “Falcon” remains. Why should the name conform to something generic, and quick frankly boring. So please join me.

Save The Falcon!

.techtalk

Photo of us looking at Patg’s talk

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.

Everybody has been writing lately of their likes of sessions and events for the MySQL User Conference, time for my 2 cents worth, with a twist.

I’ll be leaving early tomorrow at 7am (Friday my time), that’s Thursday 2pm Conference time. A taxi, two trains, two planes, and some 21 hours later, I’ll be at San Jose. In time to get a car and head to Davis California, a small town, where I have lived previously. After some catchup, I’m off to Lake Tahoe, (all up about 3 hrs from San Jose), for some R & R, and a weekend of Skiing, starting at Heavenly. No snow in the last few days, but 4 feet in the past week, and a bumper season to date. (The added benefit is it’s much cooler, I’m not a warm weather person, and my current home in Brisbane Australia is just too warm for my liking)

A lazy Sunday afternoon drive back, …