This is a review of Webyog's MONyog MySQL monitoring tool. The product is still in beta and has some rough edges, but holds promise. Its design includes some interesting architectural decisions I think will help distinguish it from MySQL's own Monitoring and Advisory Service.

When I wrote my first article on algorithms to compare and synchronize data between MySQL tables, Webyog's Rohit Nadhani left a comment on the article mentioning the SQLyog Job Agent, which has a similar function. Although I have been developing MySQL Table Sync essentially in isolation, I have been meaning to give SQLyog Job Agent a try. I recently did so, and then followed that up with an email conversation with Rohit. This article is about my experience using the SQLyog Job Agent from the command line, some thoughts on the algorithm as best I can deduce it, and benchmark results against MySQL Table Sync.

Last week I read two books on Nagios. I found one easy to use and the other difficult.

Pro MySQL, by Mike Kruckenberg and Jay Pipes, covers advanced MySQL topics, especially focusing on optimization and internals. I give it a solid 4 stars.

I recently read O'Reilly's SQL Hacks book. It's an interesting and rewarding mixture of tips and tricks for novice to expert users. I give it 3 out of 5 stars. Here's why.

Daniel Nichter has released version 3.0 of mysqlreport, one of my favorite tools for quickly comprehending the overall state of a MySQL server. The new version prints out the most important information about InnoDB.

Glom is an interesting graphical database front-end I've been meaning to try out for some time. Someone asked about graphical database front-ends on the #mysql IRC channel recently, and that prompted me to install Glom and learn how to use it. My overall impressions? It lands squarely in the middle of its target audience's needs, but still has a quirk here and there. With a bit of polish it will be a fine product, and it's already a winner over Microsoft Access and Filemaker, two similar programs with which you might be familiar. In this article I'll walk through installing and configuring Glom, a simple database design, a quick peek under the hood, an archaeologist's experiences using it, and give my opinions about Glom in detail.

Ben Forta sent me a copy of his latest book: MySQL Crash Course a book based on his: Teach yourself SQL in 10 minutes book.

MySQL Crash Course is a concise guide (it's actually about the size of a novel, but 300 pages) to MySQL. I am a big fan of short and to the point books. Good job keeping it short Ben, I know you have written some hefty ones. ;)

The book doesn't focus on the system administration of MySQL, but rather the programming side of things - SQL.

I think this book would be great for someone who doesn't do a …