Background Knowledge

Today (2008-01-12) I loaded Pidgin and discovered that I was no longer able to connect to MSN. It appears either Microsoft is blocking the connection or a new version has been release. What the cause of the matter is I have not been able to verify with certainty at this time.

UPDATE: Pidgin v2.5.4 has been released that temporarily fixes the problem.

Error Message

“Unable to Retrieve MSN Address Book using Pidgin”. See screen shot of the error message below.

Solution

1. Close Pidgin application.
2. Download and install “msn-pecan“.
3. Run Pidgin application.
4. In Pidgin “Show Buddy List” and go to the menu “Accounts” -> “Manage Accounts”.
5. Modify your MSN account, ensure the protocol shows “MSN”.
…

Ok - this has been stewing for some time now, and I think now is the right time to announce that I am working together with Jos van Dongen from Tholis Consulting to create a book for Wiley with the tentative title "Building Pentaho Solutions".

My personal aim is to make this book the primary point of reference for DBAs and Application Developers that are familiar with Open Source products like MySQL and PostgreSQL but have no prior BI skills, as well as BI professionals that are familiar with closed source BI products like Microsoft BI and Business Objects that want to learn how to get things done with Pentaho.

The book will cover all distinct components and sub-products that make up the …

I have written a new book on SQL DML. This is a total beginner book: how to commit and rollback, how to query, how to add data, etc.

Probably not of interest to most of the people who read this blog but if you know of anyone completely new to SQL, this would make a great Christmas present. Only 14.95. It is completely vendor agnostic, although the examples all use Oracle and MySQL.

You can view the Table Of Contents, Preface and Index here. I plan to release some of the chapters for free on the blog and will make the PDF of the book available at a discount. I have several more books like this (DDL, Intro to Relational Databases and Cloud Computing) under construction. I also plan to do some …

High Performance MySQL, Second Edition
Optimization, Backups, Replication, and More

By Baron Schwartz , Peter Zaitsev , Vadim Tkachenko , Jeremy Zawodny , Arjen Lentz , Derek J. Balling
Second Edition June 2008
Pages: 708
ISBN 10: 0-596-10171-6 | ISBN 13: 9780596101718

When I first read about this book, I figured many sections would be over my head. I was pleasantly surprised when I …

I have completed a rough draft of the first chapter of "Drupal Performance and Scalability". The first chapter of this online book is divided into four sections, the first of which focuses on the importance of fully defining your performance and scalability goals, helping you to identify what you need to accomplish and how to set concrete and attainable goals. The second section discusses monitoring and measuring your ongoing progress, helping you decide what you need to monitor, and how to monitor it. The …

Tag1 Consulting is focused on improving Drupal's performance and scalability. We also believe that when information is freely shared, everyone wins. Toward these ends, we are working on an online book titled, "Drupal Performance and Scalability". The book is divided into five main sections, Drupal Performance, Front End Performance, Improved Caching and Searching, Optimizing the Database Layer, and Drupal In The Cloud. The book is primarily aimed toward users running …

My new edition of the MySQL 5.1 Cluster DBA Certification Study Guide arrived today. It features a bigger format, corrections, and much better graphics. And it is $10 less expensive.

The MySQL Cluster is just different enough from the 'old fashioned' server to be confusing to long time MySQL DBAs. This book points out common problems people have getting their clusters configured. So if you are curious about how clusters work and want more than the man pages as a reference, order you copy today!

I recently received a review copy of the book "Xen Virtualization" by Prabhakar Chaganti (Packt Publishing) and finished reading it a few days ago.

The subtitle "A fast and practical guide" is a matching description - I managed to read the ~130 pages over the course of a week. The book is by no means an exhaustive reference manual, but it gives the reader a good overview about Xen and assists with performing the first steps and getting started.

Continue reading "Book review: "Xen Virtualization" by Prabhakar Chaganti (Packt Publishing)"

IBM plans a residency to write a Redbook about the IBM DB2 for i5/OS as a Database Engine for MySQL:

Seize this opportunity to be among the first, elite IBM System i professionals worldwide to gain hands-on and practical experience with the MySQL on i5/OS. Working alongside and exchanging knowledge with some of the top database experts in the System i, you will develop a competitive edge that will serve you well in successful service delivery to System i clients. MySQL is used extensively with opensource PHP applications. As our customers deploy PHP web applications, many of them are looking to run MySQL as well.

The …

Well, it's taken over a year but it has finally arrived. I started writing the book back in Aug 2006. I finished in late Jan 2007 and the technical editor finished his work in March. Now, In Jan 2008, EnterpriseDB: The Definitive Reference is available. I'm glad I didn't wait for the movie. ;-)

It's kind of ironic. Just this morning, I posted that I am working on my second book. My wife called me at work and told me two boxes of books had arrived. 2008 is turning out to be a good year. I wonder if I should start planning my MySQL book?

Anyway, the book looks good. I've already found a few typos and grammar errors just skimming around. I like the font and the pages look really crisp. All in all, I have to say I am very happy that the book is out.

Check out …