The MySQL 5.1 GA Release will be on or about Dec. 6th, 2008.

How do I know?

Brian Aker delivers the keynote speech at OpenSQL Camp: State of the Open Source Databases. The presentation begins with a disclaimer:
"There is no way I'm going to tell you exactly where the future of databases go. We have way too many egos in the room to ever ...

(Note: updated with the presentation video on 11/15/2008)

At LISA 2008, I gave a presentation entitled "How to Stop Hating MySQL: Fixing Common Mistakes and Myths".

The presentation slides can be downloaded as a PDF at:

http://technocation.org/files/doc/stophatingmysql.pdf

View the video online at http://technocation.org/node/646/play or download the 202.5 MB Flash video file (.flv) ...

(one note, I have updated a previous blog post by adding the video for the LISA presentation I gave entitled "How to Stop Hating MySQL")

OpenSQL Camp is in full swing! Baron Schwartz has done an amazing job organizing this free unconference.

We are well into the 2nd session of the ...

At LISA 2008, I gave a presentation entitled "How to Stop Hating MySQL: Fixing Common Mistakes and Myths". The presentation slides can be downloaded as a PDF at: http://technocation.org/files/doc/stophatingmysql.pdf View the video online at http://technocation.org/node/646/play or download the 202.5 MB Flash video file (.flv) directly at http://technocation.org/node/646/download. Here are some notes and links I referred to: Technocation, Inc containing free videos, a MySQL podcast (currently on hiatus) and blog posts about MySQL. Why you want to switch to MySQL 5.1 How MySQL Uses Memory Query Cache Configuration EXPLAIN manual page EXPLAIN cheatsheet

At LISA 2008, I gave a presentation entitled "How to Stop Hating MySQL: Fixing Common Mistakes and Myths".

The presentation is downloadable as a PDF at:

http://technocation.org/files/doc/stophatingmysql.pdf

Here are some notes and links I referred to:

Technocation, Inc containing free videos, a MySQL podcast (currently on hiatus) and blog posts about MySQL.

Why you ...

The maximum length of a VARCHAR is only restricted by the maximum row length. In most storage engines, the maximum row length is the maximum allowed by MySQL, which is 65,535 bytes. Only the NDB storage engine has a different maximum value.

The VARCHAR data type has some overhead. ...

Happy birthday to Giuseppe Maxia, a wonderful community organizer for MySQL.

And happy birthday to Leslie Hawthorn, Google's geek herder.

Thank you for making life better for open source volunteers like me!

OpenSQL Camp is a free unconference happening Friday, Nov. 14th through Sunday, Nov. 16th in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. More details can be found at http://www.opensqlcamp.org.

Whether or not you have already registered for OpenSQL Camp by putting your name here:

http://www.opensqlcamp.org/index.php?title=Events/2008/AttendeeList

you should be aware of very important information.

I had so much to say in response to a recent post asking about virtualization from Jennifer Glore that I realized it was long enough to be a blog post.

It really depends on what you're looking to do. Many companies don't have the money and staff to have an ...