Session by Laura Thomson, OmniTI. Laura is author of a number of popular PHP and MySQL books.

Session will be on security at the developer level and is written from a programmer’s perspective.

Many developers plug along without any knowledge that they have security problems, security awareness is a relatively new thing. This session is not about guru-level knowledge, it is about developer-level practices.

MySQL Security Basics

• Do not run your mysqld as the unix root user. Run it as a purpose-created user.Do not use the purpose-created user for anything else. MySQL root user is not related to the Unix root user.
• Set permissions on DB data files directory so that only mysqld user can access them.
• Disable symlinks to tables with –skip-symbolic-links unless you need them.
• Disable access to port 3306 except to trusted hosts.

…

For those who can’t wait for next week or who won’t be at the UC, I’m posting a flash recording of a rough practice run of my Sakila DB session that I will deliver next week. I wanted to get a feel for duration without audience questions or closing activities. I came in at 30 minutes so I am comfortable that with audience questions it should be good.

Feedback is of course appreciated.

See it at http://www.openwin.org/mike/video/sakila.html

So, here’s the rough plan of what I will attend next week:

Monday AM:

Secure Your PHP and MySQL Web Applications, Laura Thomson

Monday PM:

Data Warehousing with MySQL, John Paul Ashenfelter

Tuesday AM:

Welcome!, Arjen Lentz

State of the Dolphin, Kaj Arnö, David Axmark, Michael (Monty) Widenius

Introduction to Database Normalization and Joins, Mike Hillyer, Arjen …

I leave for the MySQL User Conference this Saturday. In the meantime, I’m working on final preparation. This involves things like tweaking my slides, configuring my laptop, packing, getting a haircut, and all the little things you need to do before attending a conference for a week.

Tweaking my Slides - Going over my slides, doing test deliveries to check time and content. Once I have them how I want them I push them online so attendees can follow along. Tweaking happens even this late into things because I can be a bit of a perfectionist with the slides (most slides even have a good number of notes).

Configuring my Laptop - Because I work from the desktop when at home, I take some time to make sure the laptop has all updates and a good defrag before I head out. I also ensure that my slides are on the laptop and that its desktop is clean so attendees don’t see too much clutter. Since the laptop serves as my wife’s email …

Just in case the HypnoToad did not convince you to attend my sessions at next weeks’s conference, I’ll up the ante.

Thanks to Apress and O’Reilly I’ll be giving away several MySQL related books at each session.

There, now you have to come. And of course watch this space for session notes.

Well, after consulting with licensing guru Zak Greant and talking to one of the official powers that be at MySQL, I now have a name and a license for the new sample database.

The name? Sakila. Yup, no issues with using the name I have been using so far, which is a good thing.

The license? The new BSD license. This should make it as easy as possible for authors to use it in their books and articles without any licensing concerns at all.

I’m trying to clean up a bug I found and flesh out the docs a bit more, I hope to post what could be considered a release candidate tomorrow.

And remember, come to the session on Sakila at the MySQL UC.

(Click to be Controlled)

The hypnotoad commands you to attend my sessions at the MySQL User Conference. All Glory to the HypnoToad!

• Introduction to Database Normalization and Joins
• Managing Hierarchical Data in MySQL
• MySQL 5 Applied: The Sakila Sample Database

At last year’s MySQL User Conference I got the idea that it might be fun to create a web site that cataloged the various swag that one receives at such events and I registered www.swagreport.com while the idea was fresh in my mind. Well, I finally got around to loading up Wordpress and getting something started.

So, this year you can look forward to not only knowing about at the sessions I attend, but you can also keep up with the swag.

Enjoy

P.S. Anyone else attending conferences who would like to document their swag let me know and I will get you added as an author.

One nice thing about speaking at the User’s Conference is that you get admission not only to the conference, but also to the Monday tutorial sessions.

This year I plan to attend two tutorial sessions:

Secure Your PHP and MySQL Web Applications

This one is delivered by Laura Thomson, whose writing and sessions I always love, can’t miss this one.

Data Warehousing with MySQL

John Paul Ashenfelter is a cool guy who really knows his stuff, I missed this session last year and don’t plan to miss it again.

As usual, you can expect a flurry of notes come conference time.

There are four .NET specific sessions at the MySQL User Conference this year:

Tuesday, April 25th, 2006

Creating .Net Applications with Linux and MySQL
Matt Lord, Support Engineer, MySQL AB

MySQL and Windows: Playing Well Together
Reggie Burnett, Software Developer, MySQL AB

Wednesday, April 26th, 2006

MySQL Connector/Net: Work the Way You Want To!
Reggie Burnett, Software Developer, MySQL AB