MySQL Workbench has already received some great accolades this year and there is more to come!

Now, those attending the MySQL Users Conference will have a chance to become a MySQL schema design expert.

The Conference will include a free MySQL Workbench workshop called “Introduction to Data Modeling with MySQL Workbench” on Thursday (April 23, 2009) 3 - 4:30 PM in the Santa Clara Ballroom. According to Mike Zinner, MySQL Workbench …

The Sunday before the MySQL User Conference is always full of trying to meet up with new or old friends, even if your flight lands after dinnertime. With that in mind, the very first event of the week is MySQL Camp’s “Games Day”.

From 12 noon until midnight on the Mezzanine of the Santa Clara Hyatt Hotel (adjoining the Santa Clara Convention Center), there will be an informal games day. The list of games that are definitely appearing are on the MySQL Forge at:

http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/MySQLConf2009SundayNotes

There is still one game I would like to see appear (Set), though there is plenty to keep folks busy — board games, a puzzle, decks of cards, even building toys. I’ll probably be knitting, so if you are the crafty sort and can bring your craft with you that’s …

On early Tuesday morning, I made a quick trip to Paris, France, to attend and speak at the Solutions Linux / Open Source 2009 Conference. I've never been to this conference before and was quite surprised about its size - it's actually the largest Open Source event in France and it reminded me a lot of LinuxTag in Germany. Many well-known vendors (e.g. Sun, Novell, Canonical, Bull, etc.) were exhibiting. The also was a large "DotOrg" section for various Open Source projects and I was very happy to see that LeMUG.fr, the official MySQL User Group of France, had a table there, too! A big Thank You goes to Pascal Borghino, who manned that table on his own most of the time and answered questions about MySQL. I …

This year I am again giving a MySQL Cluster Tutorial at the MySQL Conference and Expo. As those who have attended before can tell you, this is a hands on tutorial. I don’t just stand up the front and talk at you for a day, that would be very boring (for all of us). While there is a good amount of presented material (there is a decent amount of theory to get through), there is a large component that involves setting up a cluster, putting data in, getting data out, backup, restore.

So if you’re wanting to learn about MySQL Cluster in a nice and friendly hands-on environment, I can recommend coming to my tutorial.

The tutorial isn’t the be-all and end-all tutorial. It does not teach you everything. It does give you a decent introduction though.

As folks are making their plans to go to the MySQL User Conference, I just wanted to remind folks of the schedule of MySQL Camp.

One feature I put together for MySQL Camp but anyone can use is a restaurant list for the hotel area. There’s very little within walking distance, but many people will be local or will rent a car, so finding someone to drive with should not be a problem. The restaurant list is on the MySQL Forge Wiki at http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/SantaClaraRestaurants — updates are welcome!

About MySQL Camp: MySQL Camp is completely free, just walk on in and enjoy the sessions. All sessions are in the Bayshore room off the Mezzanine, and there will be signs directing you to the MySQL Camp room. I describe it as being like “an additional room for the MySQL Conference, but it’s …

My travel schedule is getting quite crowded for the next months - I just received confirmation that I will be speaking at the phpDay in Verona, Italy on May 15-16th. I'll be talking about bzr - The Bazaar source revision control system as well as MySQL Backup and Security - Best practices in the developer track of the conference. I've never been to Verona, but it seems like it's a beautiful city. I look forward to being there!

Here is a list of talks at the MySQL user conference that focus on new and upcoming features in MySQL. I will try to attend most of these myself, although I have some certifications to acquire and other topics of interest. It’s almost like I would like to split myself in multiple threads so I [...]

Finally we got our proposal approved for the the MySQL conference and Victor and I will be speaking on April 22 about Testing the cluster with ANSTE.

At this year's CeBit 2009 trade fair, there was a dedicated exhibition area called the Open Source Forum. In addition to providing booths for various Open Source projects, they also had a stage for presentations about different topics. Every talk was recorded and available as a live stream during the show.

My dear colleague Simon Phipps spoke about "Adoption-Led: The Third Wave of Open Source" on Wednesday, I gave a presentation about "MySQL Backup and Security Best Practices" on Friday. The recording of these and all other talks as well as the Linux New Media Award ceremony are now available from the archives. Enjoy!