Jonathon Coombes recently blogged in MySQL Cluster Certified that he passed the MySQL Cluster DBA Certification as was the first Australian. Lucky for him I passed the exam after my presentation on the second day of the conference. I guess us Australian’s are leading the world!
As Jonathon said it was rather hard, certainly more difficult then the other DBA exams but nothing for an experienced Cluster DBA.
MySQL Conference 2007 Day 4 rolled quickly into the second keynote Scaling MySQL at YouTube by Paul Tuckfield.
The introduction by Paul Tuckfield was; “What do I know about anything, I was just the DBA at PayPal, now I’m just the DBA at youTube. There are only 3 DBA’s at YouTube.”
This talk had a number of great performance points, with various caching situations. Very interesting.
Scaling MySQL at YouTube
Top Reasons for YouTube Scalability
The technology stack:
Caching outside the database is huge.
It a display of numbers of hits per day it was said “I can neither confirm or deny the interpretation will work here (using an Alexa graph)”. This is not the first time I’ve heard this standard “Google” response. They must get lessons by lawyers in what you can say.
Standardizing on DB boxes (but they crash almost daily)
Replication Lessons
If you db fits in ram, great otherwise
Only DB should cache reads
An important lesson learned. Do no cache reads in F/S and Raid Controller.
Caching Lessons
Overcoming Mystery Serialization
Scale Out
In a community session yesterday at MySQL Conference 2007, I first heard about Dorsal Source. A collaboration between Solid DB and Proven Scaling that allows for community people to upload patches to MySQL, get it compiled across multiple platforms, and have a downloadable distribution available on H/W individual contributors will never have access to.
That’s a great idea. I also hope we get the opportunity to get compiling of patches into multiple versions, as well to get builds of a lot of patches together. Personally, I’m running 3 versions just to diagnose one problem. 5.0.36 with a custom binary change, 5.0.37 so I have SHOW PROFILE, and 5.0.33 so I have microslow patch.
With new patches becoming available from the community, I hope I can see builds that combine all known patches that Dorsal Source may have.
I think this is going to be a great project.
MySQL Conference 2007 Day 4 started early again at 8:20 am with PHP on Hormones by the father of PHP Ramus Lerdorf.
A very funny man, one of the best insightful talks of the conference (rather scary actually). Here are some opening comments.
Why do people contribute?
The slide included a great Chemical equation of “The Neuropeptide oxytocin” — Nature’s trust hormone
People need to attract other people, it makes you feel good, it comes out when you interact with people.
It’s not what people think about you, but rather what they think about themselves.
1. Performance
It your sites falls apart your done.
valgrind –tool=callgrind
2. Security
Critical problem areas.
The web is broken you can all go home now.
People are venerable because people run older versions of browsers, and their data is not secure, and you can’t secure their data.
What can happen??
9 out of 10 of you have cross-site scripting hole on your site
Remote Greasemonkey
Profile Hacks
JS Trojans
Added a PHP logo to the MySQL User Website, it’s really the PHP website
IBM webpage, on article about security.
Tool to find holes, banks, insurance companies, CIA, even Yahoo where I work.
You know if they have been to bankofamerica.com, you can tell if they are a customer, you can tell if they are logged, you can then see their cookie credentials.
You don’t know if any sites have these problems.
JS trojan, iframe that captures
reconfigures your wireless router, moves it outside your DMZ, then uses traditional techniques to attack your machine (that you thought was secure inside a firewall)
You should never ever click on a link. It sort of defeats the purpose of the web.
Never use the same browser instance to do personal stuff and browsing.
So what are we doing about this?
There isn’t much we (PHP) can do to secure sites developed.
Built a filter extension in 5.2, back in 5.1.
http://php.net/filter *** YOU MUST IMPLEMENT THIS
filter.default=special_chars
3. APIs are Cool!
Two lines to grap the Atom feed from flickr of photos just uploaded.
That’s all I have to add to my code.
The really make you want to use the servers. It’s so easy.
API drives passion, drive people to use your site.
You can add a lot of cool things to your sites.
What to do
A full copy of the slides can be found at http://talks.php.net/show/mysql07key
Introduction
The problem
A well known solution
-use many replicas to scale read performance
-shard your data over many master to scale write performance
-sharding is easy, resharding is hard
– make it easy to run many severs
– unbretable aggregate perfomance
The grid database approach
Managability
Make it easy to do the tasks that must be done. Reduce, Reduce.
Make all tasks scriptable
Why does it mater, support hundreds of servers, spend time solving more interesting problems. You generally have lots of problems to solve.
Underutilize your severs
Require less maintenance
Requre less tuning
tolerate load spikes better
tolerate bad query plans better
In a Perfect World
Short running queries
uses kill mistake and runaway queries
accounts new use to many connections
query plans are good
new apps increase database workload by a small amount
only appropiate date is stored in the database
Reality
Solutions
Mantra
Monitoring Matters
-which table, account or statemsns caused most of the load
-many fast queries can be as much a problem as one slow query
–archivce show status counters somweere
– query data from the archive
— visualise data from the archivce
— archive show processlist output (do every 30 seconds)
— support queries on this archive
Monitoring Tools
Google mpgrep tools
New Commands
We changed mysql, three new commands
SHOW USER _STATISTICS
SHOW TABLE STATISTICS
SHOW INDEX STATISTICS
Per Account Activity
USER_STATISTICS
seconds executing commands
number of rows fetched and changed
total connections
number of select/updates/other/commits/rollback/binlog bytes written.
TABLE STATISTICS
number of rows fetched/changed
INDEX STATISTICS
display number of rows fetched per index
helps find indexes that are never used
available in code.google.com in 4.0, porting to 5.0
MySQL High Availability
*a lot of appplicaton code works on this
*our tools and processed support this
There are all great features but we are much more limited in what we can use.
Management want to know we don’t loose transactions, not loose some transactions.
Desired HA Functionality
does it support long running transactions (5 mins – populate temp table then use to update another table, changing rows), 5 mins on master, causes 5 mins on slave, causes code to failover from slaves to master
MVCC must have update concurrent with query.
Failures happen everywhere
OS – kernal oom or panic (older 2.4 32 bit systems)
mysqld – caused also by code we added
disk, misdirected write, corrupt write (love innodb checksums)
file system – inconsisted after unplanned hardware reboot (use ext2)
server – bad RAM
lan, switch – lose
Rack – reboot
Data center – power loss, overheading, lightning, fire
People – things get killed or rebooted by mistake ( a typo can take out the wrong server, when names differ by a character or a digit)
ext2 and 4.0 are great, there are the same generation.
Trying not to use RAID, not battery backed raid etc, we try work around with software solutions. We do use RAID 0, but we also try software solution.
When we have the right HA solution, we won’t need RAID.
Mark. “Yes, Google programmers have bugs. Not me personally, it was my predecessor.”
HA Features we want in MySQL
Synchronous replication as an option
a product that watches a master and initiates a failover
archives of the master binlogs stored elsewhere
state stored in the filesytstem t obe consistent after a crash
. innodb and mysql dictionaries can get out of sync
.replicatoin state on a slave can get out of sync
We could not wait
Features we added to MySQL 4.0.26
We can do things a lot faster
. we have more developers lying around
. Our needs as specific, not a general product solution
Transactional replications for slaves
semi-synchronous replication
mirrored binlogs
fast and automated failover
Transactional Replication
Replication state on a slave is stored in files
slave sql thread commits to storage engines and then updates a file
a crash between the two can make replication state inconsistent
transactional replication
MySQL can solve this in the future by storing replication state in tables
Semi-synchronous replication
Block return from commit on a master until at least one slave has acknowledged receipt of
slave io thread acknowledges receipt after buffering the changes
modified mysql replication protocol to support acknowledgments
conifuration options
where to the master uses it
where a slave used it
how long the maser waits for an acknowledgement
can run a server with some semi-sync replication slaves and some regulare replication salves
this can be worked with any storage engines that supports commit, but we only use innodb
* This is how we guarantee to management for Zero Transaction Loss.
Latency single stream 1ms, multi-stream 10ms. This is acceptable for us.
The MySQL Replication Protocol
Replication Acknowledgment
Mirrored Binlogs
mysql does not provide a way to maintain a copy of a master’s binlog on a replica. By copy we me a file of same name and equivalent byte for byte.
Hierarachial replication works much better where a slave can disconnect from one replication proxy and reconnect to another with adjusting binlog offsets.
Hot backups taken before a failover and difficult to use after a failover
Mirrored Binlog Implementions
Slave IO threads write their own relay log and a copy of the bin log
all events but the rotate log event are written
After failover, start a new binlog on new master
Fast Failover
Slaves use a hostname, rather then an IP
You can’t enable the binlog dynamically (in 4.0)
Added new SQL STATEMENTS that does
disconnect users with SUPER privilege
disable new connections
enable the bin log
enable connections from all users
Automatic failover
Something must decided that a master has failed
Something must choose the new master
Q: What keeps up from moving to 5.0?
A: Queries don’t parse (Joins)
Data sets, 8GB servers, 50-100GB’s
Ramus Lerdorf — Father of PHP — MySQL Conference 2007
Baron Schwartz – Creator of MySQL Toolkit — MySQL Conference 2007
Here are some notes from the MySQL Server Roadmap session at the MySQL Conference 2007.
MySQL: Past and Future
2007 Timeline
Where are we today?
MySQL Server Vision – The Future
How can you help?
The goal: “Be the Best Online Database for Modern Applications”
Red Hat & One Laptop Per Child UI Designer to bunch of suits – MySQL Conference 2007
I have just completed my presentation at the MySQL Conference 2007 on MySQL for Oracle DBAs and Developers.
Not mentioned in my slides, but referenced during the presentation was what I consider the most important page to document from the MySQL Manual — 5.2.1. Option and Variable Reference
You can download a PDF copy of my presentation here. 
Moving into the user sessions on the first day at MySQL Conference 2007, I attended Building a Vertical Search Engine in a Day.
Some of my notes for reference.
Web Crawling 101
Focused content == vertical crawl
OPIC + Term Vectors = Depth-first
Nutch & Hadoop are the technologies that run on a 4 server cluster. Sample starting with www.mysql.com in 23 loops, 150k pages fetched, 2M URL’s found .
Serving up the results
Our third keynote at MySQL Conference 2007 was titled Building the Ultimate Database Container with RHEL, MySQL, and Virtualization by Michael Evans.
The presentation was on Red Hat & One Laptop Per Child. His initial Quote was “Thinking Past Platforms: The Next Challenge for Linux”, By Doc Sears, 2007-04-16 http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000210
OLPC
In summary at presentation to Red Hat — “Non-profit, run by a professor, we make hardware and sell to governments.”
The overall dynamics have attracted a lot of interesting people in the world.
The ability and goal is to make the device together, bringing all H/W and S/W people together.
The people that get behind this project have the ethos — “I’m willing to jump into this to change the world.”
This is the first time for a new opportunity in the last 10 years.
The sugar user interface is a completely new experience.
When the UI designer was presenting to a room of head executives. “What ever advice you got, keep it to yourself, your not the target market.”
One key point — No backward compatibility needs.
More information at www.laptop.org. Wikipedia Reference. Some videos at You Tube Inside One Laptop per Child: Episode one and Slightly better demo of the OLPC User Interface.
Without missing a beat at MySQL Conference 2007, we moved from Marten’s keynote to The Art of Innovation by Guy Kawasaki.
Extremely fun and entertaining. His 10 points.
1. Make Meaning
2. Make Mantra
If you get stuck try the Dilbert mission statement generator.
3. Jump to the next curve
4. Roll the DICEE
5. Don’t worry, be crappy
Get it out there.
6. Polarize people
People love it or hate it.
7. Let a hundred flowers blossom
8. Churn baby, churn.
Ok to ship stuff with crappy stuff in it, but important to continually revised and improve.
9. Niche thyself
With a nice graph.
You need to be like the President of the United States – You need to high and to the right. Got a great laugh from the crowd.
10. Follow the 10/20/30 rule
Innovative, you need to pitch for what you want.
11. Don’t let the bozos grind you down
A bonus to our friends in the community.
Guy commenting on his lost opportunity with Yahoo — “It only covers the first billion, it’s the second billion that pisses me off.”
Read more about Guy at his website Guy Kawasaki.
The Art of Innovation. If you a copy of slides, send an email to [email protected]
As I mentioned in MySQL Conference – Rewarding the Community, Paul McCullagh, the creator of the Community Transactional Storage Engine PBXT won the Community Code Contributor of the Year award.
A photo for Paul. Great work.
It’s an early start this morning at 8:20am at MySQL Conference 2007 with CEO Mårten Mickos keynote talk Welcome and State of MySQL AB.
Here are some of the key points that impressed on me.
“The Participatory & Disruptive spirit of the Dolphin.”.
Open Source disrupts inefficient models and produces new wealth.
Architecture of Participation.
MySQL Architecture of Participation
You have the forge, the planet, community contributer program and many more.
Production of Amateurs
Some really great Quotes:
“Fail often to succeed soon.” IDEO company slogan
“Noah’s Ark was built by amateurs, but the Titanic by professionals.”
Innovation Happens Here
MySQL Monitoring & Advisory Service
In his presentation of MySQL Network Enterprise Dashboard, If you were quick you would have noticed the MySQL Version 6.0.0-alpha-pb518.log
Leading Applications
We want to be known as The Online Database.
Drawn to the Lamp
They all have an Open Source strategy, the develop open source products, they use and partner with MySQL.
He also mentioned MySQL Enterprise Connection Alliance – MECA.
Global Distributed Organization
Disruptive Businesses
Going Forward
At MySQL Conference 2007, CEO Mårten Mickos in his opening keynote Welcome and State of MySQL AB rewarded the community. Those that contributed to “The best database in the world”.
2007 MySQL Applications of the Year
#1 in Online Video
#1 in 3G Mobile Entertainment
#1 in Creative Software
And the Winners- YouTube, Amp’d mobile, and Adobe
2007 MySQL Partners of the Year
#1 reseller of MySQL Enterprise to govt
#1 in MySQL Enterprise integration
#1 in Open Source
And the Winners – Carasoft, HP, and RedHat
2007 Community Members of the Year
Quality Contributor
Community Code Contributor
Community Advocate
And the Winners
Martin Freibe
Paul McCullagh
Sheeri Kritzer
If you were quick you may have noticed at the MySQL Conference 2007 keynote Welcome and State of MySQL AB talk this morning, Robin Schumacher in his quick demo of MySQL Monitoring & Advisory Service showed the MySQL Network Enterprise Dashboard, you would have noticed the MySQL Version 6.0.0-alpha-pb518.log
Did anybody else spot it?
It’s an early start this morning at 8:20am at MySQL Conference 2007 with CEO Mårten Mickos keynote talk Welcome and State of MySQL AB.
His spirit is evident with his opening slide “The Participatory & Disruptive spirit of the Dolphin.”. Stay tuned for more, it’s going to be a big day today.
My first tutorial today at MySQL Conference 2007 is Scaling and High Availablilty Architectures by Jeremy Cole and Eric Bergen of Proven Scaling.
While not discussed, the premise is to Cache Everything. MemCache is a key component to any scalable system.
Using the analogy from a newborn child Jeremy stepped us through the categories Newborn, Toddler, Teenager, Late teens to 20s, Adult.
In Late teens to 20s, is where most systems die a slow death, he termed “the awkward stage”. This is where scalability is critical, and a meltdown for example can ruin you. Downtime is also just not acceptable for your user community.
When your Adult you need to perfect the ability to deploy incremental changes to your application seamlessly.
As the system grows, optimizations changes that may have worked are now affecting your system. It’s important to revisit during each stage.
Most applications mainly implement a horizontal partitioning model. Different components of your systemcan be scaled by a “partition key”. The different models include fixed “Hash key” partitioning, Dynamic “directory” partitioning, Partition by “group” and partition by “user”.
The Dynamic “directory” is a lot harder to implement, but is ultimately more scalable.
One of Partitioning Difficulties, is inter-partition interactions. Ultimately the solution is duplicating meta-data or duplicating data. Overall reporting is also more difficult. What if we want average for users per location, if we partition by users. Most systems user driven and partition by user. A newer strategy is to partition by group.
For implementing a Fixed Hash Key partitioning.
You define 1024 physical buckets (can then the easily dividable) 0-1023 (user_id % 1024). Coded then by range to physical machines, 0-255, 256-511, 512-767, 768-1023. The plus side is very easy to implement, you can always derive where something is. The biggest problems is scalability, e.g. going from 4 machines to 5. You also don’t have any fine grained control over buckets.
For Dynamic Directory partitioning you maintain a database of mappings to partitions. A user can be easily moved at a later date in a much finer grain. MySQL Cluster is designed for this type of application. It is not necessary however, a well configured Innodb Hardware solution with memcache can easily provide the same functionality. The only writes are new users, or update partition keys, with a lot of reads.
This open source product implements a “standard” partition-by-key MySQL system written in Java.
Many organizations have a somewhat similar built system, but this is an example of something that’s been open sourced.
More information at www.hivedb.org.
The Hive API language should be the only code that should be re-written to be application development language (e.g. PHP,Ruby) when needed.
The obvious goals.
The overall objective is speed.
Understanding MySQL Replication is important to understanding HA options.
MySQL Replication is Master-Slave One Way asynchronous replication.
Dual Master provides an easy configuration to fail over, it doesn’t provide benefits in throughput. Can help solve online schema changes without downtime. Assuming existing queries will perform both pre and post schema. (set-sql-bin-log=0 for the session is the tip). There are a number of caveats.
Ultimately for High Availability you have a trade off, data loss (minuet) to scalability.
The MySQL Conference has started. It will be a long week, still yet to prepare my own presentation for tomorrow. Old friendships already renewed, plenty of faces to names already, and we have yet to hit the first session.
Today is tutorial day, this morning I’m with Paul McCullagh Mr PBXT in Scaling and High Availablilty Architectures by Jeremy Cole and Eric Bergen of Proven Scaling
I’ve been playing more with the SHOW PROFILE command available as part of MySQL Community 5.0.37. Thanks to the author Jeremy Cole. This command can provide some interesting insight into the workings of MySQL. It does however like most new releases of software enable users to make suggestions for new features and functionality. Here is my wish list. Some I figure are practical, some are wish list, but if you never ask you never know.
One major benefit of the SHOW PROFILE command is I can accurately get a figure for how long a query it taking (time in milliseconds). You just have to sum all figures (See wish list point 2).
By default, the source details are not provided, you need to specify the SOURCE operand, which helps in both comparing with any debugging output and also trouncing through the code. As in Example 1, I needed to find why 95% of time was in a step with the most descriptive line of ‘end’.
mysql> show profile SOURCE,MEMORY for query 4; +--------------------+------------+-----------------------+---------------+-------------+ | Status | Duration | Source_function | Source_file | Source_line | +--------------------+------------+-----------------------+---------------+-------------+ | Opening tables | 0.00013200 | open_tables | sql_base.cc | 2106 | | System lock | 0.00001800 | mysql_lock_tables | lock.cc | 153 | | Table lock | 0.00000600 | mysql_lock_tables | lock.cc | 162 | | init | 0.00001300 | mysql_select | sql_select.cc | 2073 | | optimizing | 0.00004800 | optimize | sql_select.cc | 617 | | statistics | 0.00002500 | optimize | sql_select.cc | 773 | | preparing | 0.00005200 | optimize | sql_select.cc | 783 | | executing | 0.00002200 | exec | sql_select.cc | 1407 | | Sending data | 0.00000500 | exec | sql_select.cc | 1925 | | end | 0.00786600 | mysql_select | sql_select.cc | 2118 | | query end | 0.00001400 | mysql_execute_command | sql_parse.cc | 5085 | | freeing items | 0.00000700 | mysql_parse | sql_parse.cc | 5973 | | closing tables | 0.00001900 | dispatch_command | sql_parse.cc | 2120 | | logging slow query | 0.00001000 | log_slow_statement | sql_parse.cc | 2178 | | cleaning up | 0.00000500 | dispatch_command | sql_parse.cc | 2143 | +--------------------+------------+-----------------------+---------------+-------------+ 15 rows in set (0.01 sec)
We were experiencing increased latency in JDBC with a particular query, With a recommendation from MySQL Support we tried SET SQL_BUFFER_RESULT=1;
mysql> show profile source for query 14; +------------------------------+------------+-------------------------+---------------+-------------+ | Status | Duration | Source_function | Source_file | Source_line | +------------------------------+------------+-------------------------+---------------+-------------+ | Opening tables | 0.00006025 | open_tables | sql_base.cc | 2106 | | System lock | 0.00004875 | mysql_lock_tables | lock.cc | 153 | | Table lock | 0.00000400 | mysql_lock_tables | lock.cc | 162 | | init | 0.00001600 | mysql_select | sql_select.cc | 2073 | | optimizing | 0.00005675 | optimize | sql_select.cc | 617 | | statistics | 0.00001250 | optimize | sql_select.cc | 773 | | preparing | 0.00005175 | optimize | sql_select.cc | 783 | | Creating tmp table | 0.00001275 | optimize | sql_select.cc | 1206 | | executing | 0.00006025 | exec | sql_select.cc | 1407 | | Copying to tmp table | 0.00000400 | exec | sql_select.cc | 1547 | | converting HEAP to MyISAM | 0.04820900 | create_myisam_from_heap | sql_select.cc | 9914 | | Copying to tmp table on disk | 0.04049075 | create_myisam_from_heap | sql_select.cc | 9968 | | Sending data | 1.29302000 | exec | sql_select.cc | 1925 | | end | 0.09398425 | mysql_select | sql_select.cc | 2118 | | removing tmp table | 0.00004975 | free_tmp_table | sql_select.cc | 9856 | | end | 0.00089125 | free_tmp_table | sql_select.cc | 9884 | | query end | 0.00001850 | mysql_execute_command | sql_parse.cc | 5085 | | freeing items | 0.00000825 | mysql_parse | sql_parse.cc | 5973 | | closing tables | 0.00003425 | dispatch_command | sql_parse.cc | 2120 | | logging slow query | 0.00001325 | log_slow_statement | sql_parse.cc | 2178 | | cleaning up | 0.00000675 | dispatch_command | sql_parse.cc | 2143 | +------------------------------+------------+-------------------------+---------------+-------------+ 21 rows in set (0.00 sec)
Looking at the lines helped to indicate that the temporary table was being flushed to disk, indicating we need to Add SET SESSION tmp_table_size=20*1024*1024;
mysql> show profile source for query 18; +----------------------+------------+-----------------------+---------------+-------------+ | Status | Duration | Source_function | Source_file | Source_line | +----------------------+------------+-----------------------+---------------+-------------+ | Opening tables | 0.00006050 | open_tables | sql_base.cc | 2106 | | System lock | 0.00001250 | mysql_lock_tables | lock.cc | 153 | | Table lock | 0.00000400 | mysql_lock_tables | lock.cc | 162 | | init | 0.00000775 | mysql_select | sql_select.cc | 2073 | | optimizing | 0.00005475 | optimize | sql_select.cc | 617 | | statistics | 0.00001225 | optimize | sql_select.cc | 773 | | preparing | 0.00005075 | optimize | sql_select.cc | 783 | | Creating tmp table | 0.00001350 | optimize | sql_select.cc | 1206 | | executing | 0.00006125 | exec | sql_select.cc | 1407 | | Copying to tmp table | 0.00000375 | exec | sql_select.cc | 1547 | | Sending data | 0.29110925 | exec | sql_select.cc | 1925 | | end | 0.08023800 | mysql_select | sql_select.cc | 2118 | | removing tmp table | 0.00001525 | free_tmp_table | sql_select.cc | 9856 | | end | 0.05971400 | free_tmp_table | sql_select.cc | 9884 | | query end | 0.00001925 | mysql_execute_command | sql_parse.cc | 5085 | | freeing items | 0.00000425 | mysql_parse | sql_parse.cc | 5973 | | closing tables | 0.00004625 | dispatch_command | sql_parse.cc | 2120 | | logging slow query | 0.00000800 | log_slow_statement | sql_parse.cc | 2178 | | cleaning up | 0.00000300 | dispatch_command | sql_parse.cc | 2143 | +----------------------+------------+-----------------------+---------------+-------------+ 19 rows in set (0.00 sec)
Today while waiting at the airport, I took a look at the news stand, and right there on the cover of Fast Company were two words Google, and Wikipedia. Given Wikipedia is a poster boy of MySQL it was an immediate purchase just to see what was being said.
So the title of the cover was Google’s worse nightmare – Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales has his sights set on the search business.
Now, often I use Wikipedia to search for things directly rather then using Google. I’ve found it usually to be more accurate, particular on topics I know it will contain. References to search users being disappointed, Google and Yahoo tied with a 2.3 of 5 in user satisfaction hits about home for me as week, and that’s exactly the ideas behind www.wikia.com.
The article states “Google doesn’t have an effective method of locking in its customers the way earlier info-tech leaders did”. Well I’d agree in relation to searching, but Google is rapidly releasing new products, new features and acquiring good ideas. It has the wealth (money and gene pool) to make an impact.
Some more on www.wikia.com — Wikia offers free MediaWiki hosting for your community to build a free content wiki-based website. Find out why you should use Wikia and request a new wiki in any language or see our list of wikis to visit an existing one.
Today, it has 69 categories, I’m sure tomorrow it will be more. today’s feature page is The Marvel Database, others like Wookieepedia – The Star Wars encyclopedia and 100’s of entries alone in the Games Category make it something to look at one of day’s when I have free time.
And best of all it runs the LAMP Stack. Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP.
As I write this blog I have over 90 draft blog posts. That’s 9-0. Why do I have so many posts? The main reason is I want to say something, and I’ve either not completed it, or researched it sufficiently to consider the entry complete.
This frustrates me as sometimes I just want to get the word out on something, or of my opinion, or of something great I’ve discovered. I do it for me, I don’t really care if anybody actually reads my stuff, but I’m surprised sometimes when I get comments how people actually get to see my blog.
JotThat is a surprisingly simple yet brilliant idea. It’s quite simply a site for making Jots, making quick notes, making a passing comment, noting a thought, something you want to either remember or something you want to say in a simple Jot form.
What makes JotThat in my eyes? Well it’s simple, and I strive for simple. It’s extremely easy to use. It’s built on MySQL, so that gains my attention. It’s something just a little different from everything you see each day.
I especially like the new feature of being able to email your Jots to your account. I was at the train station tonight, then later at dinner with some great input from somebody. I wanted to write it down (I forget things a lot more these days), so instead of adding it to notes in my PDA, I simply emailed it to my JotThat account. Easy as!
The site is still in early stages, but please get behind a project. I always like to get referrals from people on everything from websites, products, even services like a good dentist. I recommend you check this one out, as well as supporting the MySQL open source community.
Just as I talked yesterday about Google Maps for Traffic Updates, today Google Maps released a new feature today called My Maps.
I’ve just started using it, my first map is incomplete but you can see the workings at Travel Locations
I leaned a new trick today with LOAD DATA INFILE. I’m migrating some data from an external source, and the Date Format is not the MySQL required YYYY-MM-DD, it was DD-MMM-YY. So how do you load this into a Date Field.
$ echo "02-FEB-07" > /tmp/t1.psv
$ mysql -umysql
USE test;
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS t1;
CREATE TABLE t1(d1 DATE);
# echo "02-FEB-07" > /tmp/t1.psv
LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE '/tmp/t1.psv'
INTO TABLE t1 (@var1)
SET d1=STR_TO_DATE(@var1,'%d-%M-%y');
SELECT * FROM t1;
EXIT
The trick is to bind the appropriate column within the file being loaded to a variable, @var1 in my example and use the SET syntax to perform a function on the variable. Rather cool.
A good tip to know.
Saw a new button on Google Maps today called Traffic. Seems they are highlighting traffic congestion.
Some real life examples.
San Francisco
New York.
Below is a screen print I took today of the SF area. It was all green in Redwood City, so I had to look a little further.
