Hi Folks,

Now that we’re blogging again I thought I might as well continue to do so.

Today we’re reading data from MongoDB with Pentaho Data Integration.  We haven’t had a lot of requests for MongoDB support so there is no step to read from it yet.  However, it is surprisingly simple to do with the “User Defined Java Class” step.

For the following sample to work you need to be on a recent 4.2.0-M1 build.  Get it from here.

Then download mongo-2.4.jar and put it in the libext/ folder of your PDI/Kettle distribution.

Then you can read from a collection with the following “User Defined Java Class” code:

import java.math.*;
import java.util.*;
import …

This Friday at SCaLE 9x in Los Angeles, CA there will be a special build an open source cloud day teaching users how to use technologies from Cloud.com, OpenStack, Opscode and Zenoss to deploy, configure, manage and monitor infrastructure-as-a-service using open source software.

Here’s an overview of the program:

“Build a Cloud Day” will be dedicated to teaching users how to build and manage a cloud computing environment using free and open source software. The program is designed to expose attendees to the concepts and best practices around deploying …

This is the first part of many posts in a series of blog posts where I want to document how the MepSQL packages were built. By doing that, I will also end up covering the MariaDB build system (which this is based on), some of BuildBot, Amazon EC2 cloud and packaging DEBs and RPMs just in general, so it could be interesting from many perspectives. In this first part I'll simply scribble some notes about reviewing the OpenSuse Build System, Launchpad PPA service vs using your own servers and automating the builds with BuildBot.

Originally I just wanted to work on some new ideas on the automated build and QA system used by MariaDB. But since leaving Monty Program I didn't have access to any of those servers anymore, so as a first step I had to look into what alternatives there are for building binary packages for many …

After another week of hacking on MepSQL the DEB files for Ubuntu are now available.(MepSQL is my new "just a hobby" MySQL fork project.)

The Download page has instructions on how to install the packages with a simple apt-get install command. Debian packages will appear soon as they are now easy to add - I mostly just need to add new Amazon images for each.

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Today, the United States Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) unveiled a new National Broadband Map, which can be viewed at BroadbandMap.gov.

The map includes more than 25 million searchable records and it incorporates crowdsourced reporting. Built entirely upon Wordpress, the map is also one of the largest implementations of open source and open data in government to date.

Importantly, the data behind the map shows that despite an increase in broadband adoption to 68%, a digital divide persists between citizens who have full access to the rich media of the 2011 Internet and those who are limited by geography or means.

The launch of a national map of broadband Internet access fulfills a Congressional mandate created by the 2009 federal stimulus, which …

This month is a special month. It’s not because of Valentines day or even the exciting day where we see groundhogs. No, this month is special because I’m have a book contest where you, the reader, get to win something free for doing absolutely nothing more than posting a comment saying that you want one of the several books I have available in the contest.

So without getting into boring details I’ll keep this short. I’ve been reviewing a lot of books lately and I think it’s time to get some books into people’s hands to enjoy themselves. This month the giveaways are all Python oriented.

So, all you have to do is take a look at the following titles and post a comment here saying that you want one of them. At the end of the month two readers will be chosen via a random list sorting python script I’ve whipped up for just this purpose. You will then get an email from the publisher who will send a brand new e-copy of the …

Packt Publishing recently sent me a copy of MySQL for Python to review and after reading through the book I must say that I’m rather impressed at the variety of topics that the book covers.

It starts off with the basics of setting up MySQL for your testing/development needs by going over several of the common installation and configuration methods. After that it’s a quick intro for connection methods and simple error reporting for connections. The author gives a quick intro to CRUD and how it relates to databases and python before heading into the common tasks of simple queries. I was surprised to see some database profiling discussion; which is rather handy for a new coder or a person new to MySQL. Once the basics of …

In November a Mark Schonewille posted a blog on when you can't and cannot use the GPL version of MySQL together with your closed source application. The post was a result of actually talking to an Oracle lawyer which makes it valuable information. Unfortunately Mark's blog is now offline (it seems he didn't renew his domain registration?)

This is just a repost of the disappeared blog post. (The small print allows me to copy it verbatim.) There is no commentary from myself, except that what Mark wrote is the same I also heard Oracle say a year ago. That Oracle is being consistent on this point is very welcome and deserves to be kept available online.

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As you are probably aware, PHP 5.3.4 does not compile with MySQL 5.5 GA. The details can be seen in MySQL bug queue. Basically, the problem boils down to incorrect installation of MySQL headers. MySQL 5.5 build system does not install the headers under the include-prefix/mysql directly but instead installs under the include-prefix directory itself. So, when the PHP build system looks for the MySQL headers, it cannot find <mysql/psi/mysql_thread.h> and so forth.

What is the fix?

The MySQL dev team has committed patches to fix this issue in …