MySQL University has been running for the last 18 months, and we’ve covered a wide range of topics, from the internals of MySQL right up to Amazon’s EC2, using MySQL in the Solaris/OpenSolaris Webstack and a description of the forthcoming MySQL Online Backup.

Personally, I think they’re great. Obviously many times I am scribe and am there for the sessions, but I listen to lots of the sessions anyway, and I’m yet to be disappointed by the content. What’s really great is that in all the cases the person you are listening to is probably the person that either developed, or helped drive development of the particular function, or, in the case of some of the external tools (EC2, for example), these guys are expert in it. The experience is not quite as thrilling as attending the MySQL User Conference, but the content is just the same.

The problem is that despite all the work we do to get the presenters, interesting topics, and promotion of the upcoming sessions, we don’t always get as many attendees as we want or expect.

So, I’m wondering why this should be the case. We know that the current presentation system is not ideal (and we’re working on that), but I’m interested to hear people’s opinions on MySQL University. If you want to help shape the future of MySQL University, then comment here, and either answer the questions below, or make up your own.

• Have you attended any MySQL University sessions. How many?
• How would you rate the sessions generally? A simple good or bad will do
• If you haven’t attended any sessions, or don’t regularly attend them, why not?
• Have you ever looked at/listened to the past sessions that provide on MySQL Forge?

Please, I’m interested to hear.

The first of a new series of articles on using and extending the functionality of Apple’s Podcast Producer has just been published (see Podcast Producer: Anatomy of a Workflow).

One of the things that you might find useful when working with Workflows in Podcast Producer are the properties that are defined automatically when a podcast is submitted for processing. These runtime properties are used to specify information such as the source file name and job name. You need these within the action specification to select the input file, Podcast title, description and other parameters to process the content.

The combination of standard properties, and job specific properties, are combined together into a file called properties.plist that becomes part of the Workflow specification that is submitted for processing. Because global properties can change or be modified, by copying the specification into the properties.plist file during assembly, the system can ensure that the configuration at the time of submission of the podcast is used. This helps to prevent problems if the job gets queued and the configuration changes between submission and processing.

The dynamic properties submitted as part of the job will differ depending on the submission type, but the main properties generated are shown in the table below.

These dynamic properties are vital to the execution of an individual action as they provide the unique properties required to process an individual podcast processing request.

i5/OS doesn’t immediately strike you as the most natural environment for running MySQL, but in fact, there some advantages and benefits of making use of the hardware and i5/OS environment. The System i environment used with i5/OS is scalable, and the i5/OS itself provides lots of benefits over the control and separate of work.

Obviously another key advantage is that if you are already using i5/OS for your application, then being able to plug in MySQL into that equation on the same machine makes a big difference. For those companies and organizations that already have a business application on their server, you can use MySQL in combination with ODBC or more direct interfaces such as PHP to provide a web interface to your business application all in the same box.

MySQL works through PASE (Portable Application Solutions Environment) which allows AIX applications to run directly on i5/OS through a direct application binary interface.

As a supported platform for MySQL 5.0 we obviously have instructions for installing MySQL into your i5/OS environment. Once installed, MySQL on i5/OS works just like any other MySQL installation.

However, if you want a more complete view of the support, environment, and deployment of MySQL on i5/OS and more detailed instructions for setting PASE and your system to accept MySQL, then check out the IBM Redbook Discovering MySQL on IBM i5/OS.

Last week I mentioned that we had added a topic-based interface to the MySQL documentation to make it easier to go to specific topics, identified either by your needs, user type or technology.

It occurred to me at the end of the week that the information is just as useful when reading the documentation, so you can go direct to a topic within the online reference manual, rather than trying to work out what chapter it is in.

This works in all reference manuals, whether you are viewing the online HTML version:

Topics embedded in the reference manual, HTML

It also works in all the offline versions, including HTML and PDF, as here:

Topics in the reference manual, PDF

For those topics that are outside the normal scope of the manual, such as all the standalone guides, the links take you to the online version of those guides directly.

Yesterday at Computerworld I talked about the X4150 and how it fits into a general purpose piece of hardware that can easily be redeployed and reused.

Interestingly I’ve just found this item in my blog post queue from way back in 2006, Jonathan Schwartz: The Rise of the General Purpose System, where Jonathan pretty much spells out that general purpose was the way to go. Obviously the X4150 is an embodiment of that belief.

If you want to get certified for MySQL Cluster then there is only one guide that you need, the MySQL 5.1 Cluster DBA Certification Study Guide.

Since the move to Sun, we have changed the method that you can get the title. You can now order a ‘print-on-demand version of the guide directly from Vervante. You can go ahead and order a copy now using this link.

If you think you want the book, or just want a read anyway, but don’t want to commit to buying the full guide, then you can read three of the key chapters in their entirety on docs.sun.com. You can read the chapters online here.

As always, let us know what you think, whether thats about the chapters on docs.sun.com, the guide itself, or what you think of the printed Vervante guide.