I am very good at just staying up late to adjust to a timezone. I can do this fairly reliably. Going to the US and Europe can be done by this method (rather well). Coming back is another story though. Going to sleep at an earlier time (for me) doesn’t come easy. Grr…

This year, it seesm that whenever I go out for significant travel, the following things will break on my trip:

• a laptop power supply
• a disk

At least this time the disk is part of a RAID1 array.

Oh, and for some reason my mythbackend stopped doing anything a few days ago…. and I wasn’t checking it. grr… annoying. At least there’s not much on TV.

I noted earlier today in Refining MySQL Community Server
that it would be

just a matter of time and someone will start building RPM/Debian packages from the source repository.

I clearly didn't have my first cup of coffe yet when writing that as off course I forgot we already have DorsalSource

Different things can be said about
Kaj Arno's , Refining MySQL Community Server but given the fact that the source will continue to be freely available from Bitkeeper I see no issues apart from a possible growth in real community MySQL with real contributions.

In Mike Kruckenberg's article on the topic someone comments and asks how this is different from the RedHat model, I only see one difference, today we don't have a CentOS yet for MySQL .. I`m sure it's just a matter of time and someone will start building RPM/Debian packages from the source repository. (If it's not already happening today)

As long as MySQL keeps all their source code free ..

Ok…I’ve been crazy busy with job and home stuff. Doesn’t mean I stop thinking about stuff.

• Do we really need another text editor/Personal Information Manager/MP3 player? I monitor Gnomefiles and Portable Freeware RSS feeds and I’m constantly seeing these types of apps being created, promising to be a better than anything out there with whiz-bang features not seen anywhere else. Got news for you, you aint showing us nuttin’ new.
• The First Bank of Delaware needs to DIAF for offering loans at 99.25% interest. That’s right, 99.25%! It’s done through their CashCall marketing arm. Yes. The one offered up by has-been Gary Coleman. They’re preying on people who can’t manage their money.
• MySQL-Proxy is …

• compressed backup patch
  • actually works rather well… and restoring from compressed backup too.
  • need to modify the rate-limiting code though… may as well rate limit the writing of the *compressed* data stream… otherwise the option isn’t nearly as useful
• compressed LCP patch
  • well… the *restoring* of compressed LCPs…. can write them
• working out exactly what more information I want out of the linux memory manager to find out what kswapd is really doing (and the patch that exports the right info)
• re-jigging my procmail filters for commits@lists.mysql.com
• fixing up my offlineimap patch and getting it in upstream
• disk pre-allocation for MythTV recordings
• buying workstation
• unpacking the last few boxes around the house
• finishing this …

It's hard to believe I'm back. It's so quiet here.

Saturday morning, it took too long for the hotel clerks to check us out. They'd screwed up my credit card, krow's credit card, messed up their room reservation log, and so forth. And we needed at least the receipt for krow's corporate card before we left. (I let them handle mine off-line. If they screw it up, I just dispute the charge and wash my hands.)

The session about non-relational databases was interesting. The guy from Twitter talked about their queue db. They are using the memcached wire protocol to talk to it! Dabble talked about their neat little cheat, where they don't actually have a …

Been a while since I wrote anything…not for lack of anything to write, just real busy. I’m finding myself having to force myself away from the computer to maintain my sanity.

On the home front, I’m going to be installing a ceiling fan in the only bedroom that doesn’t have one. I had to go buy a metal junction box because all the boxes in this house are the blue plastic ones. That’s fine and dandy but I’m not going to hang a ceiling fan from one.  Don’t know if I’ll need it but I also bought a brace so I can mount the box to a rafter if it isn’t close enough to one already. After that, I’m going to start ripping down the ceiling in the basement in preparation for remodeling it. It’ll be a nice mess.

Then I’m off to California for a week - business related. I fly out Sunday morning at 7:30 and fly back Saturday.

Attended a MySQL webinar (man, do I hate that word) on replication and scaling out …

Today, immediately after lunch, I got IO errors from my laptop hard drive (ironically while attempting a file system dump). Words to the affect of “oh gosh and bother” exiting my mouth and the decision was made to go get a new drive.

Well… one “shortcut” to the computer store later, have new HD (will travel).

Backup from previous night, xfsrestore here I come. And a good number of hours later… about 1.5million files restored.

I do wish file systems had REPEATABLE_READ though… that would be nice.

Hej hej from Stockholm where I arrived about two weeks ago for a fun-filled two four six weeks of meetings and face-to-face contact with the MySQL Cluster developers. And the chance to check things out when it’s not 2°C and raining, all the time, as it was when I was here in November and December of 2005. (This week, it’s 12°C and kind of misty.)

The last five or six weeks have been pretty hectic, and this evening (it’s just after 10 PM local time as I write this) represents the first time in that span that I’ve actually had time that’s not been planned out for me in one way or another. At the end of April, I moved out of my place in Brisbane and stuffed all my gear into storage in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, where I rented a post office box that now constitutes my sole legal address for the duration.

That last sentence is actually …