Archive for January 2014

iTunes ate my podcasts

iTunes is fixed now (11.1.3) but somewhere in-between it broke and deleted all of my podcast downloads as well as the subscriptions. It has been over four months that I’ve gone without listening to podcasts and I can’t say that I miss it hugely. Audiobooks (on phone, in gym particularly), Spotify and Rdio have taken its place. 

This means a lot to me – I always thought that podcasting could be big business. Maybe its just niche business?

Apple engineering needs to QA this stuff. It’s not hard. There should be test harnesses. Heck, just testing the damn upgrade. 

In other news, the up arrow key seems dodgy again on my Macbook Air. It is still only 11 months old and this is the second time its happening. I will have to find time to walk into an Apple Store to get an immediate replacement (something we can’t do in Malaysia/Singapore obviously).

Overall feeling on the Apple experience in these terms: relatively negative. Am I going to give up their stuff? No. There’s a more positive post on Apple coming soon.

OpenBSD Foundation raising funds

The OpenBSD Foundation is raising funds – they’ve got a goal of USD$150,000 (so far they’ve achieved $100,000). A few days ago they had potential trouble keeping the lights on for this secure BSD distribution, and today they’re all set in terms of electricity to power servers and looking for more around project expansion. 

If you dig MariaDB, it’s worth noting that MySQL 5.1.73 ships and the MariaDB branch in the ports tree is currently at MariaDB 10.0.7. Previously they shipped MariaDB 5.5.

Donate to keep the lights on for this secure BSD distribution. Many thanks to Brad Smith for packaging MySQL & MariaDB!

FOSDEM MySQL & Friends Devroom – signup for dinner

Snowing in Brussels. First snow of the year people sayFOSDEM happens this year, February 1&2 2014. This year is a special year as it is the 10th anniversary: great content in the schedule, you must pre-register for dinner (lot’s of wonderful Belgian food & drink), and we have a shared booth in the expo hall.

Read more about the event with a wonderful post by Kenny. Again, much thanks to Liz, dim0, Kenny, Frederic for organising the venue, and the sponsors Oracle/SkySQL/Percona.

SkySQL is well represented: 

  1. 13:35-14:05 – MariaDB CONNECT Storage engine – Serge Frezefond
  2. 15:35-16:05 – SPIDER Storage Engine – Colin Charles, Stephane Varoqui
  3. 18:05-18:35 – OSM data in MySQL – Hartmut Holzgraefe
  4. 18:35-19:05 – MaxScale, the Pluggable Router – Massimiliano Pinto, Vilho Raatikka

See you all at the Friday beer event on 31.01.2013!

MySQL Proxy lives – 0.8.4 alpha released

I was surprised to see that there is a 0.8.4 alpha release of MySQL Proxy released just a few days ago (it has been quiet for more than a year). Download it. Many of the bugs fixed are only referenced in an internal bug tracker according to the changelog. There are still about 83 bugs open in the public tracker. I reckon it is good news since it means its still getting some love from the Oracle MySQL team.

MariaDB in Japan

Pre-UC-J MySQL Dinner at GonpachiMariaDB is in Debian/unstable now, and its great to see that we already have a Japanese po-debconf translation (in under a month!). The last time I was in Tokyo, Japan we seemed to have great interest in MariaDB, especially with the backing of MariaDB.com/SkySQL investment dollars and the MariaDB Foundation to keep things real.

For me, I’m happy to go back to Tokyo to talk to users about MariaDB. If you’re in the area on Tuesday, 18 February 2013, there is a gathering of MariaDB users in Tokyo. It’s a half day event (1.30pm-10pm), you get dinner and drinks, but the best part is that the co-founders of MySQL, David Axmark and Michael “Monty” Widenius will also be there to present. 

So what are you waiting for – go ahead and register, and see you on Tuesday, 18 February 2013. Looking forward to great discussions about MariaDB, MySQL, and more.

Pic is of Monty in Japan in 2007, during the MySQL User Conference Japan

Being attentive

We just won a lot of money!As I always do, I make last minute purchases for Christmas. It’s not because of the lack of planning, more so that I’m getting busier despite the holiday season approaching.

From 10am – 10.06am I called Machines in Gardens. No one would pick up the phone. I called iStore by C-Zone in Publika. Quick answer (picked up the phone within 4 rings), stock was available, so I reserved a few units. Within a span of 1.5 hours, I had my Christmas presents ready.

You win business by picking up the phone. 

At Harrods yesterday, there were three concessions that we spent some time around – Chanel, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton. Sales people at Louis Vuitton always seemed busy and generally left one part of their concession empty. They weren’t busy per se, just not engaging. At Chanel, you could go grab a bag off the shelf yourself. At Gucci, they paid good attention to you, spent time with you and engaged heavily. Guess who won the sales then? 

Pick up your phone. Be attentive to your customers needs. Serve in the service industry. You will be rewarded by being successful in business.


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