Yesterday I passed the CMCDEV exam.

I only used the study guide (previous entry) and the official manual to prepare for the exam.

The study guide is a good preparation for the exam.(Thanks to Roland Bouman and all other people involved with the book. The only minor issue with the book is that it didn't feel finished. Images which should've been printed in high quality and some phrases about a CD which is absent (All listed/fixed in the errata)

I filed a few bug reports while studying. (patched included :) )

So now let's wait for MySQL 5.1 to become GA.

Today I received the "MySQL 5.1 Cluster Certification Study Guide".

I will compare this book to the "MySQL 5.0 Certification Study Guide" from MySQL Press. This is the book I used to study for the MCDEV (Certified Developer) and MCDBA (Certified DBA) exams.

The MySQL study guide was published by MySQL Press which is a cooperation with a n old-school publisher.

The MySQL cluster study guide  is published by Lulu.com which is an online on-demand publisher.

Lulu.com Cons:
1. The print quality is worse.
2. The paper is less white.
3. The layout is more compact. The margins are really small.

Lulu.com Pros:
1. On-demand print. This will make updated versions possible.
2. The book is smaller (small margins) and is very easy to carry with you (handy if your …

BusinessWeek reports MySQL continuing with their IPO preparations. As a long-time user (about ten years now), and almost as long-time customer (in many companies, obviously currently and most significantly Sulake and Habbo), I wish you guys the best of luck on that road. Don't lose your sight of the ballgame while doing that -- we need you to continue to do better with the product itself while the distractions of investor communications will be great.

I'm sure we can all name a few nuisances in every software product we use, and I certainly have a few of those of the MySQL database, but what I really admire the guys for is their approach to innovating in the sales …

I came back from a two-week snowboarding trip to Zermatt -- my first to Switzerland, and what an excellent trip that was. Great powder, great freeriding, great weather. Will post some photos once I've sorted through them, but in the meantime, Sanna took some as well and posted them to her moblog.

On another note, I haven't mentioned Jim Starkey's comments to my previous post, but they're good reading to everyone interested in MySQL, with clarifications to some things I misunderstood in the documentation. I'm glad to hear that the "serial writes" don't in fact mean just one thread writing, as well as that he believes the engine will at a later stage allow multiple tablespaces per logical database.