At times you’ll find yourself responsible for generating test data for newly created tables for testing or sampling purpose. There are tools that will generate random data for you but they’re not free. At-times you’ll write scripts to generate data but those will be table specific. I hate generating dummy data, yes I do and […]

Last week we concluded our first Oracle Technology Network Sys Admin Day in Sacramento (CA). Well, it was actually the second Sys Admin Day, but the first one that had two parallel tracks of sessions about both Oracle Linux and Oracle Solaris.

I helped preparing for the event by creating the Linux lab handbook as well as the VirtualBox appliance of Oracle Linux 6.1 that was used for the exercises. Unfortunately I could not be there in person, but it would have been pointless for me to go on an intercontinental flight just for one day.

From the feedback we've received so far, the attendees really enjoyed the event and were positively surprised about the depth and quality of the practical hands-on lab sessions.

If you've missed the first one and happen to live …

Here's an interview with Nicolas Pujol who has written an excellent new book called "The Mind Share Market."  Nicolas and I were colleagues at MySQL for several years and we often discussed the role of our free open source product as a way to gain market share in the commercial sector.  In MySQL's case, our goal was to be the #1 choice for web developers worldwide both in the free and the commercial market.  Over the years, the notion of having a free product has transcended Open Source and now has many more applications in other markets.  It can be quite …

As part of the upcoming Oracle OpenWorld/Java One in São Paulo, Brazil next week (which will also include MySQL-related sessions), there will be a free MySQL Community event, which will take place on December 8th, from 13:00-18:00.

Here's the (translated and abbreviated) description from the events page:

Oracle invites you to attend the MySQL Community Forum! Don't miss an evening filled with technical sessions led by engineers and leaders of the MySQL open source community. You will have the opportunity to learn more about MySQL, Glassfish and what innovations to expect from MySQL 5.5.

This …

ScaleDB is proud to announce the introduction of a database that takes data storage to a new level, and a new altitude. ScaleDB’s patent pending “molecular-flipping technology” enables low energy molecular flipping that changes selected water molecules from H20 to HOH, representing positive and negative states that mimic the storage mechanism used on hard drive disks.

“Because we act at the molecular level, we achieve massive storage density with minimal energy consumption, which is critical in today’s data centers, where energy consumption is the primary cost,” said Mike Hogan, ScaleDB CEO. “A single thimble of water vapor provides the same storage capacity as a high-end SAN.”

The technology does have one small challenge: persistence. Clouds are not known for their persistence. ScaleDB relies on the Cumulus formation, since it is far beefier than some of those wimpy cirrus clouds. However, when deployed …

I use http://dev.mysql.com every day. But not today as the site is down. There is a mirror of the docs at http://docs.sun.com/source/mysql-refman-5.0/index.html. Although the docs license is one of my favorite topics, I am not a lawyer. Does the license not allow others to serve a copy of the docs?

Refining the Beekeeper model. Investment opportunities. Schooner, Gear6 and Virident line up memcached appliances. The launch of the Open Source Channel Alliance. Is source code necessary? And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory

Of bees and trees
We noted last week that James Dixon, CTO of Pentaho, had updated his Beekeeper model for understanding the commercial-community relationships employed by vendors to engage with open source. Roberto Galoppini quickly followed up with some feedback, as did Tarus …

MySQL Workbench has already received some great accolades this year and there is more to come!

Now, those attending the MySQL Users Conference will have a chance to become a MySQL schema design expert.

The Conference will include a free MySQL Workbench workshop called “Introduction to Data Modeling with MySQL Workbench” on Thursday (April 23, 2009) 3 - 4:30 PM in the Santa Clara Ballroom. According to Mike Zinner, MySQL Workbench …

MySQL Workbench has already received some great accolades this year and there is more to come!

Now, those attending the MySQL Users Conference will have a chance to become a MySQL schema design expert.

The Conference will include a free MySQL Workbench workshop called “Introduction to Data Modeling with MySQL Workbench” on Thursday (April 23, 2009) 3 - 4:30 PM in the Santa Clara Ballroom. According to Mike Zinner, MySQL Workbench …