I will present on "Testing LAMP Applications" at the O'Reilly MySQL Conference & Expo 2011:

Proper interaction with relational databases is incredibly important in most pieces of software. The importance of this interaction is underscored by the fact that many software architectures have at least one entire layer or system devoted to data persistence and data loading. When dealing with critical data in enterprise level applications it becomes even more important to make sure your data is being stored and retrieved correctly.

As responsible developers, one of our goals should be to test database interaction and test it well. To help achieve …

I will present two talks at the MySQL Conference next April.
One is a three hours tutorial on Advanced MySQL Replication Techniques, and the other is a normal session on The art of sandboxing. Reducing Complex Systems to Manageable Boxes.
The first topic is not a first to me. But the contents are going to be fresh and new. There has been so much going on in the replication field, that the talk on this topic that I presented in 2007 looks like ancient history.
The second topic is completely new. I have often presented the result of my sandboxing efforts, but I have never thought of explaining the techniques themselves. Now that I have got some experience at reducing differently complex systems to sandboxes, I want to share the knowledge, to promote more work in this field.

On Sunday I will be in Stuttgart with the double purpose of attending the annual European PostrgreSQL conference and the technical meeting of my company that will be held after the normal proceedings of PGDay-EU.
For the first time in several years I am attending a conference where I am not a speaker. In my previous job I did not have much opportunity to attend PostgreSQL meetings, and I welcome this opportunity. The schedule is quite interesting, and I have made my personal picks:

• Monday:
  
  • 09:45 - 10:45 …

Hello from Birmingham, UK! I'm here to attend and speak at the UKOUG Technology & E-Business Suite 2010 conference (what a name!) We actually have two packed tracks of MySQL Sessions this Wednesday, including a keynote by Richard Mason (Vice President of MySQL Sales and Consulting at Oracle) about Oracle's strategy and plans for MySQL as well as highly technical sessions about MySQL High Availability, Scalability and Performance tuning from experts in the field. Ronald Bradford, Oracle Ace Director and long-time MySQL community advocate will also be there, speaking about …

Yesterday afternoon I returned from the SAPO CodeBits 2010 conference, which took place in Lisbon, Portugal. Just like the previous year, CodeBits has been a great conference to be at and I am grateful for having been selected for participation. Thursday, the first conference day was quite a busy one for me — I gave two presentations in a row:

• What's new in MySQL 5.5? (Slides)
• How to build you own Quadrocopter (Slides)

Afterwards, I also participated in a panel discussion about " …

I've been informed about two upcoming events/conferences that are organized by the independent Oracle user groups of the respective countries. If you're nearby, how about submitting a talk about a MySQL-related topic?

On March 29, 2011 the the Oracle Benelux User Group will have their yearly OBUG Benelux Connect 2011 conference, which will take place in Brussels, Belgium. You can submit your proposal until December 3rd, 2010 via this link.

On May 19th and 20th, …

I’m stoked to be going to FOSSASIA this week. It is in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in Vietnam from 12-14 November (thats this week on Friday-Sunday). There’s a pretty large amount of activities going on, including a MiniDebConf. There also seem to be a huge amount of topics being covered and some pretty interesting speakers, so I can’t hardly wait.

If you’re into MariaDB or MySQL, come catch me at:

• Friday, 10.15-10.30am: 15-minute lightning talk on MariaDB
• Saturday, 3.30-4.30pm: talk on MariaDB
• Sunday, 9.00-11.00am: a hand’s on workshop introducing you to MariaDB/MySQL

I come into Saigon in the evening on the 11th, and depart in the morning on the 15th, but if you have time and want to catch up, don’t hesitate to drop me a line at colin AT askmonty DOT org.

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It's that time of the year again — the nice folks at FOSDEM have granted us a developer room at their upcoming conference (February 5+6 2011 in Brussels, Belgium)!

As usual there were more applications than they were able to accommodate, so we are very grateful for this opportunity for collaboration. Titled "MySQL and Friends", our room next year will be H.2213 with a capacity of 100 seats. It will be at our disposal on Saturday 5th, from 13:00 till 19:00. Like last year, we would like to set up a schedule of talks related to the MySQL server and the various projects that surround it. Each talk will last 20 minutes, plus 5 minutes of Q&A and a 5 minute break for switching speakers, giving us 12 slots in total to fill with …

The UK Oracle User Group (UKOUG) is an independent non-profit organisation of users of Oracle products in the UK, which organizes over 80 events per year all across the UK and Ireland. They have more that 15.000 members and were established over 25 years ago. Currently, they are in the final stretch of the preparations for their annual Technology & E-Business Conference, which will take place from November, 29th - December, 1st in Birmingham (UK).

For the first time, the conference will host a dedicated stream of presentations related to MySQL, which is scheduled for Wednesday (Dec. 1st). Targeted at database administrators, developers as well as users new to MySQL, there will be presentations from well-known speakers and participants of the MySQL community as …