Monday, July 27, 2009

North Texas MySQL Meeting

The next meeting of the North Texas MySQL Users Group will be Monday, August 3rd 2009 at 7PM sharp. We will meet at the Sun Offices, Suite 700, 16000 Dallas Tollway, Dallas.

The presentation will be on MySQL Basics -- How to install and run a MySQL database. This is an introductory level talk but experienced folks are invited to contribute their insights also. We hope to have a series of talks for those just starting with MySQL so that later we can build demand for more advanced topics.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Prometric MySQL exam numbers; plus watch out for that giraffe on the road

Prometric is beginning to offer the MySQL Exams as part of the Sun catalog. Currently only the Associate and Developer exams are listed but the DBA 5.0 and cluster exams are on the way.

IDExam
310-810DBA 5.0 I
310-811DBA 5.0 II
310-812Dev 5.0 I
310-813Dev 5.0 II
310-814Associate
310-815Cluster DBA 5.1


I find myself working while on vacation this week. Originally I planned to give my younger son some 'seat time' so he can practice for his driving test. But he is resting after a frantic day driving the hills and valleys of the Fossil Rim Wildlife Park. Managing an unfamiliar vehicle on poor to bad roads while watching out for zebras, Emus, deer, and ostriches is not easy. There is something about teaching a person in their mid-teens to drive that points out how much experience at an activity brings proficiency. Many common tasks done over and over again become ingrained and automatic. Live avoiding animals in the road while driving or checking on data backups as a DBA. It is easy to forget all the little skills that need to be built to be able to handle a car or a database well.

That reminds me of the old joke about the DBA who asked the system admin is the systems were backed up every night. The sysadmin then walked over to the server rack and physically pushes the rack before answering 'yup'!