Ronald Bradford
MySQL Expert

MySQL Expert Ronald Bradford shares valuable input in MySQL Performance Tuning, MySQL Scalability and general MySQL Help from his two decades of working with MySQL, Oracle, Ingres and development technologies.

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Upcoming book – Expert PHP and MySQL

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

This month will see the release of the book Expert PHP and MySQL which I was a co-author of. Initially this will be available for purchase in PDF format from the Wrox website and I am hopeful this will be available in print format for the MySQL Users Conference.

More then just your standard PHP and MySQL there is detailed content on technologies including Memcached, Sphinx, Gearman, MySQL UDFs and PHP extensions. We will be posting more information at www.ExpertPhpandMySQL.com. You can download a PDF version of Chapter 1 Techniques Every Expert Programmer Needs to Know.

The book includes the following content:

  1. Techniques Every Expert Programmer Needs to Know
  2. Advanced PHP Constructs
  3. MySQL Drivers and Storage Engines
  4. Improved Performance through Caching
  5. Memcached MySQL
  6. Advanced MySQL
  7. Extending MySQL with User-defined Functions
  8. Writing PHP Extensions
  9. Full Text Search using SPHINX
  10. Multi-tasking in PHP and MySQL
  11. Rewrite Rules
  12. User Authentication with PHP and MySQL
  13. Understanding the INFORMATION_SCHEMA
  14. Security
  15. Service and Command Lines
  16. Optimization and Debugging

Posted in Databases, MySQL, PHP, Professional, Web Development | 7 Comments »

A Cassandra twitter clone

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

Following my successful Cassandra Cluster setup and having a potential client example to work with running Ruby On Rails (RoR), I came across the following examples in Ruby.

Not being a ruby developer, I thought it was time to investigate further. Starting first on Mac OS X 10.5, I found the first line example of installing cassandra via gem unsuccessful.

$ gem install cassandra
Updating metadata for 1 gems from http://gems.rubyforge.org
.
complete
ERROR:  could not find cassandra locally or in a repository

Some more reading highlights Otherwise, you need to install Java 1.6, Git 1.6, Ruby, and Rubygems in some reasonable way.

In case you didn’t read my earlier posts, Java 6 is installed, but not the default.

export JAVA_HOME=/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6/Home
export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH

I achieved installing RubyGems via Installing Ruby on Rails on Mac OS X.

$ sudo gem install rubygems-update

Updating metadata for 1 gems from http://gems.rubyforge.org
.
complete
Successfully installed rubygems-update-1.3.6
1 gem installed
Installing ri documentation for rubygems-update-1.3.6...
Installing RDoc documentation for rubygems-update-1.3.6...
Could not find main page README
Could not find main page README
Could not find main page README
Could not find main page README

$ sudo update_rubygems
RubyGems 1.3.6 installed

=== 1.3.6 / 2010-02-17

NOTE:

http://rubygems.org is now the default source for downloading gems.

You may have sources set via ~/.gemrc, so you should replace
http://gems.rubyforge.org with http://rubygems.org

http://gems.rubyforge.org will continue to work for the forseeable future.

New features:

* `gem` commands
  * Added `gem push` and `gem owner` for interacting with modern/Gemcutter
    sources
  * `gem dep` now supports --prerelease.
  * `gem fetch` now supports --prerelease.
  * `gem server` now supports --bind.  Patch #27357 by Bruno Michel.
  * `gem rdoc` no longer overwrites built documentation.  Use --overwrite
    force rebuilding.  Patch #25982 by Akinori MUSHA.
* Captial letters are now allowed in prerelease versions.

Bug fixes:

* Development deps are no longer added to rubygems-update gem so older
  versions can update sucessfully.
* Installer bugs:
  * Prerelease gems can now depend on non-prerelease gems.
  * Development dependencies are ignored unless explicitly needed.  Bug #27608
    by Roger Pack.
* `gem` commands
  * `gem which` now fails if no paths were found.  Adapted patch #27681 by
    Caio Chassot.
  * `gem server` no longer has invalid markup.  Bug #27045 by Eric Young.
  * `gem list` and friends show both prerelease and regular gems when
    --prerelease --all is given
* Gem::Format no longer crashes on empty files.  Bug #27292 by Ian Ragsdale.
* Gem::GemPathSearcher handles nil require_paths. Patch #27334 by Roger Pack.
* Gem::RemoteFetcher no longer copies the file if it is where we want it.
  Patch #27409 by Jakub Šťastný.

Deprecation Notices:

* lib/rubygems/timer.rb has been removed.
* Gem::Dependency#version_requirements is deprecated and will be removed on or
  after August 2010.
* Bulk index update is no longer supported.
* Gem::manage_gems was removed in 1.3.3.
* Time::today was removed in 1.3.3.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

RubyGems installed the following executables:
	/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/gem

NOTE: This second command took over 60 seconds with no user feedback.

I was then able to successfully install cassandra via ruby’s gem package manager.

$ sudo gem install cassandra
Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
Successfully installed thrift-0.2.0
Successfully installed thrift_client-0.4.0
Successfully installed simple_uuid-0.1.0
Successfully installed cassandra-0.7.5
4 gems installed
Installing ri documentation for thrift-0.2.0...

Enclosing class/module 'thrift_module' for class BinaryProtocolAccelerated not known

Enclosing class/module 'thrift_module' for class BinaryProtocolAccelerated not known
Installing ri documentation for thrift_client-0.4.0...
Installing ri documentation for simple_uuid-0.1.0...
Installing ri documentation for cassandra-0.7.5...
Installing RDoc documentation for thrift-0.2.0...

Enclosing class/module 'thrift_module' for class BinaryProtocolAccelerated not known

Enclosing class/module 'thrift_module' for class BinaryProtocolAccelerated not known
Installing RDoc documentation for thrift_client-0.4.0...
Installing RDoc documentation for simple_uuid-0.1.0...
Installing RDoc documentation for cassandra-0.7.5...

My use of cassandra_helper provided the following expected dependency error.

$ cassandra_helper cassandra
Set the CASSANDRA_INCLUDE environment variable to use a non-default cassandra.in.sh and friends.
(in /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/cassandra-0.7.5)
You need to install git 1.6 or 1.7

I found instructions to install git at Installing git (OSX) and installed via GUI installer.

I had to include to my current session path to get my Ruby Cassandra installation.

$ export PATH=/usr/local/git/bin:$PATH

$ cassandra_helper cassandra
Set the CASSANDRA_INCLUDE environment variable to use a non-default cassandra.in.sh and friends.
(in /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/cassandra-0.7.5)
Checking Cassandra out from git
Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/rbradfor/cassandra/server/.git/
remote: Counting objects: 16715, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (2707/2707), done.
remote: Total 16715 (delta 9946), reused 16011 (delta 9364)
Receiving objects: 100% (16715/16715), 19.22 MiB | 1.15 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (9946/9946), done.
Updating Cassandra.
Buildfile: build.xml

clean:

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 2 seconds
HEAD is now at 298a0e6 check-in debian packaging
Building Cassandra
Buildfile: build.xml

build-subprojects:

init:
    [mkdir] Created dir: /Users/rbradfor/cassandra/server/build/classes
    [mkdir] Created dir: /Users/rbradfor/cassandra/server/build/test/classes
    [mkdir] Created dir: /Users/rbradfor/cassandra/server/src/gen-java

check-gen-cli-grammar:

gen-cli-grammar:
     [echo] Building Grammar /Users/rbradfor/cassandra/server/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/cli/Cli.g  ....

build-project:
     [echo] apache-cassandra-incubating: /Users/rbradfor/cassandra/server/build.xml
    [javac] Compiling 247 source files to /Users/rbradfor/cassandra/server/build/classes
    [javac] Note: Some input files use or override a deprecated API.
    [javac] Note: Recompile with -Xlint:deprecation for details.
    [javac] Note: Some input files use unchecked or unsafe operations.
    [javac] Note: Recompile with -Xlint:unchecked for details.

build:

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 42 seconds
CASSANDRA_HOME: /Users/rbradfor/cassandra/server
CASSANDRA_CONF: /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/cassandra-0.7.5/conf
Listening for transport dt_socket at address: 8888
DEBUG - Loading settings from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/cassandra-0.7.5/conf/storage-conf.xml
....

I was then able to complete the example at up and running with cassandra running via the ruby interactive console.

I was also able to fire up the cassandra-cli and see the data added in ruby.

$ bin/cassandra-cli -host localhost
Connected to localhost/9160
cassandra> get Twitter.Statuses['1']
=> (column=user_id, value=5, timestamp=1267072406503471)
=> (column=text, value=Nom nom nom nom nom., timestamp=1267072406503471)
Returned 2 results.
cassandra> get Twitter.UserRelationships['5'];
=> (super_column=user_timeline,
     (column=???!??zvZ+?!, value=1, timestamp=1267072426991872)
     (column=??-?!???C?th?, value=2, timestamp=1267072427019091))
Returned 1 results.

No sure about the data in the second example.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Cassandra, Data Stores, Twitter | No Comments »

Getting started with Cassandra

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

With the motivation from today’s public news on Twitter’s move from MySQL to Cassandra, my own skills desire following in-depth discussions at last November’s Open SQL Camp to consider Cassandra and yesterday’s discussion with a new client on persistent key-value store products, today I download installed and configured for the first time. Not that today’s news was unexpected, if you follow the Twitter Engineering Open Source projects you would have seen Cassandra as well as other products being used or evaluated by Twitter.

So I went from nothing to a working Cassandra node in under 5 minutes. This is what I did.

  1. While I knew this was an Apache project, a Google Search yields for me the 3rd link for the The Apache Cassandra Project at http://incubator.apache.org/cassandra/. Congrats for Cassandra now a top level Apache Project. This url will update soon.
  2. Download Cassandra. Hard to miss with a big green button on home page. Current version is 0.5
  3. I read Getting Started, which is the 3rd top level link on menu after Home and Download. Step 1 is picking a version which I’ve already done, Step 2 is Running a single node.
  4. The Getting Started indicated a problem on Mac OS X for the required minimum Java version. I was installing on Mac OS X 10.5 and CentOS 5.4. I’ve experienced this Java 6 default path issue before. Set my JAVA_HOME and PATH accordingly (after I updated the wiki with correct value)
  5. I extracted the tar file, changed to the directory and took at look at the README.txt file. Yes, I always check this first with any software and relevant because it includes valuable instructions on creating the default data and log directories.
  6. Start with bin/cassandra -f. No problems!
  7. I then followed the instructions from the link in Step 2 with the CassandraCli. This tests and confirms the installation is operational.

Ok, a working environment. I’ve now installed on a second machine and tested however I now need to configure the cluster, and the documentation is not as straightforward. Time to try out Google again.

On a side note, this is one reason why I love Open Source. I followed the instructions online and found a mistake in the Mac OS X path, I simply registered and corrected providing the benefit of my experience for the next reader(s).

You may also like to view future posts including.

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Posted in Cassandra, Data Stores, Databases, MySQL, Open Source, Professional, Twitter, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Monitoring MySQL options

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

My recent poll What alert monitoring do you use? showed 25% of the 58 respondents to bravely state they had no MySQL monitoring. I see 1 in 3, ~33% in my consulting so this is consistent.


There is no excuse to not have some MySQL Monitoring on your production system. At the worse case, you should be logging important MySQL information for later analysis. I use my own Logging and Analyzing scripts on every client for an immediate assessment regardless of what’s available. I combine that with my modified statpack to give me immediate text based analysis, broken down by hour chunks for quick reference. These help me in troubleshooting, but they are not a complete solution.

The most popular options I see and are also reflected in the results are:

There is a good list, including some products I did not know. My goal is to get this information included in the Monitoring-MySQL information site.

I have some additional information on Cacti and MONyog, and I’ll be sharing this information in upcoming posts.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Databases, Linux, MySQL, Professional, Uncategorized, Web Sites | 10 Comments »

MiFi Installation woes

Saturday, June 27th, 2009

As I mentioned in MiFi Introduction I took the plunge and purchased a Verizon MiFi. I got this under a 2 year contract for $149.99 and $59.99 per month for 5GB of traffic.

While happy to have a new tech toy, the installation and use of, well that was a painful experience I’d rather not have to endure. Unfortunately I didn’t document all steps with screen shots so I will need to describe what I have.

While it stated the device worked with a Mac, it was clearly not as simple as the instructions stated.

  1. The first problem is, you can’t use the device until you activate it. You can’t activate it unless you already have Internet Access.
  2. The Tips, hits and shortcuts manual also states “VZAccess Manager Installation”, … connect device …, VZAccess installer auto-launches and the drivers will install automatically. You have to read one page further before you get “Mac customers are not required to use VZAccess Manager to use their device”. First, you do have to install the software to use the device (for the first time), there seems no way around that, and second, it does not auto-launch.
  3. Trying to install I read the instructions, “connect to a USB Port, … auto-launches”. This doesn’t happen. Opening in Finder, hoping for an attached device no luck? Now what.
  4. One page further, under Mac OS/X Users, the section that states “not required to use…” also includes a point stating that activation requires MAC OS X 10.4.0 or higher and WWAN Support Update 1.0. It would be nice if you included this as Pre-Requistes in your documentation so it reads chronologically. The docs state this is a free download.
  5. So I downloaded WWAN Support Update 1.0 from the apple web site, got to run it, and it states “Alert: This computer cannot use this update”. What the. I did between my first two attempts to connect to the device, and now run a Software Update, so guessing it was in this because I know no easy way to confirm installed software on a Mac, I truck on.
  6. The Important MiFI 2220 Connection Information

    7. page, shown below states you can access the MiFi Admin Portal at http://192.168.1.1. See Exhibit 1 below. I try that and I get the admin page, and it states “Not Activated”. Did the store not activate the device, or is my attempt to blunder through these steps not correct

  7. Being frustrated I try Verizon Phone Support, the number 1800 922 0204, conveniently absent from the docs FYI. The automated system asks are you a customer, yes I am, what is your number? Well my number is on AT&T, this is just a broadband device, not a phone, trying that doesn’t work. Then trying to get out of the automated system to get an operator an ordeal. Finally a real person.
  8. Real person asks, what is your number, I explain the same story, then I decide to grab the receipt from the store, and I find in small print, under the device name on the receipt a number? Is that my number? I give that and lone behold, that’s the Cell number for the device. Would be nice if they told you that.
  9. I explain my problem, and I’m put on hold, and hold a second time, and more hold a third time to talk to a more technical person.
  10. During this time, I go back over the steps I undertook and lone behold, there is now a device in my Finder. See Exhibit 2. Did it take like 10 mins to find it or what? Perplexing. So while waiting for a tech person, I move on.
  11. I see VZAccess Manager install package, I take this route, and following system reboot on the Mac, the software auto starts, and I’m prompted with the VZAccess Manager screen, See Exhibit 3.
  12. In fine print down the bottom, Activation required. Nice if that was in big letters on first usage of software. A few menu buttons on the top, and a Connect WWan button bottom right. Again, lack of clear UI here.
  13. Clicking Connect WWAN goes though a number of steps, which unfortunately I didn’t keep, but at the end, I finally get an I’m activated message.
  14. To get the device working however, there was also some pain. I had to disconnect my Internet connect, disable Wireless, and talk to the device directly via USB. I could then confirm I could access the Internet. I then had to remove the USB, enable Wireless and connect to get it to communicate via wireless. The activation process needed the USB connection.
  15. I’m finally online, now the need to plug this into my network. The device has an Admin portal at http://192.168.1.1. The first pain, I can’t access this because my Internal network, and multiple devices runs from my router at the same address. Seeing no way around this, I have to reconfigure my internal network, which was a pain. No I can access the Admin Portal. My goal is to change SSID, change password that’s printed on multiple pieces of paper, and also change the address.
  16. On the admin portal, an input box, and button for Login. See Exhibit 4. Nothing in the documentation on this login box, the Verizon tech didn’t know any information about this, so while they were researching I started randomly choosing logins. It was weird that the input was a password protected input (e.g. *****) and there was no username/password. I try the WiFi Password, seems to get truncated. I try admin and lone behold I’m logged in. That’s about as insecure as having nothing.
  17. After all this, I’m finally able to configure the device. See Exhibit 5. I trust it will work when I’m next on the road. Documentation get’s a fail, it’s unclear and incomplete. There needs to be clear and seperate sections for Windows and Mac OS/X, and it needs to detail the installation process correctly and clearly, and probably with some screen prints. I’m not a novice user, and I had difficulty with this process.

Exhibit 1 – Important Information Page

Exhibit 2 – VZAccess Manager Finder

Exhibit 3 – VZAccess Manager

Exhibit 4 – MiFi Administration Portal Login

Exhibit 5 – MiFi Administration Change Password

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in General, Professional, Verizon MiFi | 6 Comments »

MiFi Introduction

Saturday, June 27th, 2009

My first news of the Verizon MiFi was via Twitter when @DonMacAskill said “Think my iPhone 3G via MiFi is faster than AT&T 3G. Should I carry both all the time now?”

A few reviews later such as Verizon Mifi: Personal Wi-Fi Coming this Month and Verizon MiFI a personal broadband bubble to believe in but this on my to buy tech list. I presently have a Generation 1 Day 1 iPhone, so no 3G there.

In summary, this device is the size of 5 credit cards, weighs not much more then 5 credit cards and enables 3G Wireless broadband access on the Verizon network, and also doubles as a WiFi router for up to 5 other devices.

I have been procrastinating about getting one, the combination to do urgent work at midnight on the AirTrain and NY Subway (the above ground part), and then the following day on a client site when the internet was flaky convinced me to get one.

The purchase process was relatively straightforward, except the usual credit check woes for an Australian living in this country. The installation and use, well that’s another painful story to share.

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Posted in General, Professional, Verizon MiFi | No Comments »

O’Reilly Twitter Boot Camp a success

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

The first O’Reilly Twitter Boot Camp – #OTBC was held in New York as a pre cursor to 140 Characters Conference – #140conf on Monday 15th June, 2009.

With opening and closing keynotes were like matching bookends of The Twitter Book #twitterbook offered to all attendees and authored by the keynoters @timoreilly and @SarahM.

Attendees came from across the country. Just a few I spoke with coming from LA – @EricMueller of @FLWbooks, Texas – @marlaerwin , Vancouver – HootSuite, Las Vegas -zappos, Boston – @mvolpe , Philadelphia, @SBrownCCI from Cincinnati and @sticky_mommy from Vermont.

The demographics of attendees was a little different from my usual O’Reilly conferences of MySQL, OSCON and Web 2.0. There were less the half the attendees with laptops at hand for notes & twittering, offset by the high blackberry or should I say shaq-berry users (Thanks Ami @digitalroyalty), easily seen from the back of the steep and dark auditorium. A greater proportion of different industries and gender lead to many questions and discussions from users, not just technologists.

The morning panel sessions afforded no question time due to speakers providing good but overtime content. Over lunch Mike Volpe of HubSpot a corporate sponsor for the day set the standard by asking his panel of speakers to stick on time. This afforded almost 30 minutes of question time and a roar of approval from the crowd.

There is a lot of valuable information you can find by Twitter Search of #OTBC. A few examples include:

  • @archivesnext: Good advice: RT @mpedson RT @timoreilly: Twitter usage policy from @zappos at #OTBC: “Just be real and use your best judgement.”
  • @GeekGirlCamp: Hmmmm. Lots of conflicting views on following on Twitter here. What makes YOU follow someone? Would love to know… #OTBC
  • @CarriBugbee: ROI is a tricky thing on twitter; if you’re using it solely to generate revenue, you might be there for the wrong reason – @wholefoods #otbc
  • @mvolpe: “Driving ROI on Twitter” slides and video of my presentation later today for #OTBC – http://tinyurl.com/061509mvolpe
  • @ronaldbradford: Best Practices for Twitter – Build a commercial-grade profile. @CarriBugbee at #OTBC
  • @journalismgal: Ask questions within your tweets even something as simple as your fab apple #otbc
  • @ronaldbradford: Do stay tuned in. Nights, weekends, holidays are all twitter time. Maria Erwin @wholefoods at #OTBC
  • @harrybrelsford: Is Twitter the new Google? That is belief of @erictpeterson Twitter is creating entire new businesses (Flash Light books) #otbc #smbnation

My individual brands of @ronaldbradford and @MySQLExpert will certainly benefit from a wealth of knowledge of the day. If only I had my Twitter name on the tee shirt I was wearing for the event.

The only down sides to the venue the lack of power for attendees, flaky Internet and a basement auditorium with no cell phone service. Important things to re-consider for a online technology conference. In true form the attendees including myself @ronaldbradford, @SBrownCCI, @GeekGirlCamp, @14str8 used the medium of the conference and our voices were heard and some limited power made available. Thanks O’Reilly for listening.

Thank you to all speakers @katmeyer, @timoreilly, @steverubel, @zappos, @carribugbee, @twittermoms, @flwbooks, @davidjdeal, @bethharte, @dunkindonuts, @reggiebradford, @wholefoods, @tedmurphy, @adbroad, @digitalroyalty, @erictpeterson, @mvolpe, @laureltouby, @sarahm and to Zappos.com for the after event happy hour.

Posted in General, Linux, Open Source, Professional, Twitter | 1 Comment »

Problems compiling MySQL 5.4

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

Seem’s the year Sun had for improving MySQL, and with an entire new 5.4 branch the development team could not fix the autoconf and compile dependencies that has been in MySQL for all the years I’ve been compiling MySQL. Drizzle has got it right, thanks to the great work of Monty Taylor.

I’m working on the Wafflegrid AWS EC2 AMI’s for Matt Yonkovit and while compiling 5.1 was straight forward under Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid, compiling 5.4 was more complicated.

For MySQL 5.1 I needed only to do the following:

apt-get install -y build-essential
apt-get install libncurses5-dev
./configure
make
make install

For MySQL 5.4, I elected to use the BUILD scripts (based on Wafflegrid recommendations). That didn’t go far before I needed.

apt-get install -y automake libtool

You then have to go compiling MySQL 5.4 for 10+ minutes to get an abstract error, then you need to consider what dependencies may be missing.
I don’t like to do a blanket apt-get of a long list of proposed packages unless I know they are actually needed.

The error was:

make[1]: Entering directory `/src/mysql-5.4.0-beta/sql'
make[1]: warning: -jN forced in submake: disabling jobserver mode.
/bin/bash ../ylwrap sql_yacc.yy y.tab.c sql_yacc.cc y.tab.h sql_yacc.h y.output sql_yacc.output -- -d --verbose
make -j 6 gen_lex_hash
make[2]: Entering directory `/src/mysql-5.4.0-beta/sql'
rm -f mini_client_errors.c
/bin/ln -s ../libmysql/errmsg.c mini_client_errors.c
make[2]: warning: -jN forced in submake: disabling jobserver mode.
rm -f pack.c
../ylwrap: line 111: -d: command not found
/bin/ln -s ../sql-common/pack.c pack.c
....
make[1]: Leaving directory `/src/mysql-5.4.0-beta/sql'
make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1

What a lovely error ../ylwrap: line 111: -d: command not found

ylwrap is part of yacc, and by default in this instance it’s not even an installed package. I’ve compiled MySQL long enough that it requires yacc, and actually bison but to you think it would hurt if the configure told the user this.

It’s also been some time since I’ve compiled MySQL source, rather focusing on Drizzle. I had forgotten just how many compile warnings MySQL throws. Granted a warning is not an error, but you should not just ignore them in building a quality product.

Posted in Amazon, Amazon Web Services, Databases, Drizzle, EC2, General, Linux, MySQL, Open Source, Professional | 1 Comment »

Leveraging the power of Twitter

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

Last week I posted the following twitter request — “Can somebody loan me (or buy me) a Dell 2950 decked out so I can run and publish some benchmarks. Please!”

In a same day response I was offered access to use 2 x Dell 1950’s, and today I’m now actually using these machines for my own testing. I would like to thank cafemom (Barry, Anthony & Dan) for the loan of hardware.

And now the chance to better understand the RAID configuration of the DELL PERC Controllers, trying out some different RAID types, LVM configurations and disk tests. When I’m done with my System Administrator refresher, I’m then be trying some different MySQL Benchmarks to test various MySQL configuration settings including using the new Juice benchmark.

Posted in Benchmarking, Databases, General, Linux, MySQL, Professional, Twitter | 2 Comments »

HiTCHO Top tech tips

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

I recent visit with old Brisbane friend HiTCHO which I met at the Brisbane MySQL Users Group in 2005, has lead to this cool list of some hardware and software technologies he used that I am now considering or have already implemented or purchased.

Software

  1. xmarks.com – Bookmark-Powered Web Discovery
  2. Pulse – Smart Pen
  3. Quicksilver Mac windows manager
  4. MailPlane – Brings Gmail to your Mac desktop
  5. Evernote – Remember Everything, with Firefox plugin and iPhone App
  7. Textmate – The missing editor for Mac OS/X
  8. Screen flow Professional screencasting Studio
  9. Snoop – A GNU/Linux file descriptor monitoring tool inspired by FreeBSD’s ‘watch’.

Hardware

  1. Drobo – Storage that manages itself
  2. Canon PowerShot SX1. True HD in a Canon compact digital camera.
  3. LiveScribe – Never miss a word

Posted in General, MySQL, Professional, Web, Web Sites | No Comments »

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