Open Query blog

Phoebe (my 3 1/2 year old daughter) and I are travelling “to Europe” tomorrow, for three weeks – should be a grand adventure! (so now you know what Open Query profits get spent on Of course we’re there to see my family, friends, and expose the Phoebster to a bit more Dutch lingo and culture; [...]

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In the 19th Jolt Product Excellence Awards, our High Performance MySQL book is listed under the Technical Books category. That is so cool! How I found out: I don’t think O’Reilly or any of the authors were notified of this, but I got a Google alert because someone else referred to it (interesting that the [...]

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Just listened to the Net@Night #79 netcast (during my morning walk); this episode has a very interesting interview with Don Tapscott who is the author of “Grown up Digital” (follow-up from “Growing up Digital”) and many other insightful books about the online world and its humans. I was going to list some keywords of particular [...]

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Messy gift-wrapping service ‘Crapwrap’ launched by gadget retailer Firebox I reckon this is quite brilliant, and I think a nice example of a disruptive offering whereby the existing market is actually overservering the needs of a group of clients. So these guys take “good enough” to a whole other level, and it doesn’t even have [...]

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Apart from lots of interactivity, I tend to use anecdotes and humour when teaching a MySQL training course, as it really helps people to remember. Sometimes I call something “evil” (no I’m not religious), and attach a little story to it. One example the NATURAL join. It’s not a join type (like inner, left outer, [...]

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Late last week Open Query quietly launched its new subscription offering for MySQL support. Essentially, you commit to a number of hours per month for a number of months, and Open Query delivers appropriate resourcing. You can sign up for a minimum of 2 hours per month, and the cost per hour is quite low [...]

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It started with Arjen doing the last lightning talk at OSDC 2008… a quick show of hands on who else had dealt with (or was dealing with) depression. Everybody had a look around, and thus knew that they weren’t alone. Afterwards, there was more positive feedback which continued over email in the days that followed. [...]

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At the recent Barcamp Gold Coast 2, my friend Steve Dalton showed off Balsamiq Mockups. Cool and useful. The Net@Night #75 netcast (with Amber MacArthur) has an interview with the author, Giacomo ‘Peldi’ Guilizzoni.

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See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/debates/3394545/Oxford-compiles-list-of-top-ten-irritating-phrases.html At the end of the day (it’s a great song though, from Les Miserables) Fairly unique I personally At this moment in time With all due respect (usually insults follow) Absolutely It’s a nightmare Shouldn’t of 24/7 (not uncommon in database-speak either It’s not rocket science We all use some of those phrases… [...]

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What I forgot to mention in my lightning talk about depression, there’s an excellent Australian website beyondblue which has a wealth of information and resources. And for all of you who stuck their hand(s) up, well done and thanks again! One never knows what the response will be with experiments like this, but you did [...]

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