All posts by Markus Popp

db4free.net, PlanetMySQL

Concerned about db4free.net’s future?

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Recently there were some server issues at db4free.net which raised some concerns over a possible soon end of db4free.net.

Here are 3 facts that should convince you that there is no reason for concern:

  • db4free.net has doubled (!) its visit numbers in quite a short period of time. And this doesn’t look like a temporary increase, but very likely to continue and maybe even become more. So db4free.net is currently more successful than it has ever been before.
  • db4free.net recently moved to a new server, which is even slightly stronger than the old one, but costs less than half the money.
  • I invested quite some efforts to clean up the web site infrastructure (which was in a very messy state not long ago). Even though this isn’t entirely finished yet, it allows for new perspectives which seemed unrealistic before. Working on the code becomes increasingly fun again, a while ago it was more pain than fun.

So knowing these 3 facts you probably agree that now would be a really stupid time to shut down db4free.net.

db4free.net

db4free.net running on new server

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After the recent InnoDB corruption, db4free.net has moved onto a new server (from a new service provider), starting over with a fresh MySQL server for the users.

The old server can be accessed through phpMyAdmin at http://www.db4free.net/phpMyAdmin/. Select the 2nd entry (db4free.org:3306) to access that old server. Its availability is sort of limited, it still runs in InnoDB recovery mode (without it, it doesn’t even start up) and Read Only mode. My current plan is to leave the old server like this for another month (i.e. May 27, 2011).

The new server will start over fresh and clean again. So even if you had an account, please register again at http://www.db4free.net/d4f_apply.php.

This new MySQL server goes back to using MyISAM as its default storage engine. I can’t promise that corruptions like the recent one don’t happen again. But if you want to play it a bit safer, stick with MyISAM (which is more likely to be accessible in such a scenario). If you want to create an InnoDB table, simply specify the engine in your CREATE TABLE statement, like so:

CREATE TABLE [table] (...) ENGINE=INNODB;

The rules which were in place on the old server remain in place on the new one as well:

  • db4free.net is a testing environment
  • db4free.net is not suitable for production
  • if you decide to use your db4free.net database in production despite the warnings, you do that at your own risk (very frequent backups are highly recommended)
  • data loss and outages can happen at any time (any complaints about that will likely be ignored)
  • the db4free.net team is not granting any warranty or liability of any kind
  • the db4free.net team reserves the right to delete databases and/or accounts at any time without notice
  • it is up to you to get the latest information from the Forum (http://www.db4free.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=1) and the db4free.net blog (http://www.mpopp.net/category/db4free/)
db4free.net

Quick update on db4free.net

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I had migrating db4free.net to a new server (slightly stronger, much cheaper) in mind anyway. Now with the current problems, it’s probably best to go forward with this migration right away.

I will start with a fresh and clean MySQL server on this new machine (which means, everybody who had an account will have to re-register in order to keep a database at db4free.net). The old server will stay available in its current state for a while, so you can get to the data which is accessible. InnoDB seems to have quite serious issues on this damaged installation though. Currently it runs in InnoDB recovery mode (and read only), which is the only way I can keep this server up. As soon as I remove these options from the my.cnf config file, the server crashes immediately.

As a consequence of this, the new MySQL server on the new machine will return to MyISAM as default storage engine. You will still be able to create InnoDB tables by adding ENGINE=INNODB to the CREATE TABLE statement.

I have 2 domains for db4free, the default db4free.net and db4free.org. Probably I will get db4free.net connected to the new machine, while leaving db4free.org connected to the old box, as long as it remains available. It’s likely that I will nuke it before May is over.

So that’s the current state, stay tuned for updates.

And as I can’t repeat this often enough, please keep in mind that

  • db4free.net is a testing environment
  • db4free.net is not suitable for production
  • if you decide to use your db4free.net database in production despite the warnings, you do that at your own risk (very frequent backups are highly recommended)
  • data loss and outages can happen at any time (any complaints about that will likely be ignored)
  • the db4free.net team is not granting any warranty or liability of any kind
  • the db4free.net team reserves the right to delete databases and/or accounts at any time without notice
  • it is up to you to get the latest information from the Forum (http://www.db4free.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=1) and the db4free.net blog (http://www.mpopp.net/category/db4free/)
Various

Archives have grown a bit

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More blog articles have migrated from the old db4free.blogspot.com to the new mpopp.net (that’s here) blog. They can all be found in the Archives section.

But if you find this blog, having expected to end up at db4free.blogspot.com (first of all: WELCOME!) … db4free.blogspot.com is no more! Well, it still sort of exists technically, but all visits are being redirected to this place here. Google Analytics allowed me to identify the most frequently accessed articles and I moved them over. So if you go e.g. to http://db4free.blogspot.com/2009/01/dolphins-in-sky.html you end up right at http://www.mpopp.net/2009/01/dolphins-in-the-sky/. If you go to an article which has not (yet?) been migrated over, you land right at the www.mpopp.net main page.

However, most articles are much older than “Dolphins in the sky”. Most of them date back to 2005-2006. Please be aware that they may be out of date, that links may be broken, and even (also that happens) that my opinions may have changed since then. So their purpose is often to maintain a piece of history. Sometimes they can still be useful.

More articles may follow, but certainly not all. For sure I will try to maintain what is worth to maintain. But db4free.blogspot.com is the past. The mpopp.net blog is the future!

Guitar, Music

My first public guitar (and blues harp) videos

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I made recordings of myself playing on the guitar and other instruments before, but I always found excuses why I didn’t want to upload them to somewhere where a larger audience can see and listen to it. Being the person who played, you always know that the lick here and the chord there wasn’t as perfect as you wished it would be.

But no excuses this time (even though either recording isn’t perfect as well).

I am more or less randomly playing around. Sure with some plan in mind, but not with every note defined in advanced. When playing with guitar and the harp (a Hohner Marine Band Deluxe in D), there isn’t so much room for fancy spontaneous ideas anyway. Because playing 2 instruments at the same time is pretty hard.

Comparably easy is to play the guitar alone. This one is really almost only what came to my mind the seconds as I played it. When I pressed the record button, I had no idea what I was going to play.

So now that a start is made to finally publishing recordings, there is a good chance that there is more to come!

Astronomy

Videos of Moon and Saturn

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Today I took videos of both the (near full) Moon and the (little past opposition) Saturn through my telescope.

First the Moon:

This one was captured with my old Kodak EasyShare C813. A camera which I bought 3 years ago for $120.

And here is Saturn:

The camera that I used on Saturn is my new Casio EX-H30. This one is capable of producing much brighter pictures, which is very helpful for Saturn, but not for the Moon (when I tried it on the Moon I got just a big bright spot, but hardly any surface features recognizable).

The weird movements of Saturn are partially the Earth’s rotation (when Saturn moves from right top to left bottom), and when I turn around on the scope. I also tried different zoom levels. However, the more I zoomed in, the more Saturn got blurred.

Saturn’s prime time for this year is already over, but the next candidate is on his way. In 2-3 months, Jupiter will begin to be in a position where I will be able to take pictures and videos of it. I’m excited to find out how much detail (and hopefully all of the Galilean Moons) I will be able to capture.

db4free.net, PlanetMySQL, WWW

db4free.net has received better language detection

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A few months ago I wrote about how to do language detection correctly, to respect the user’s preferred language setting in his/her browser, aka the HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE header.

Now, finally, db4free.net has received exactly this implementation. Took me a while, but now it’s there :).

Especially German speaking people will notice the difference. If German takes priority over English in the browser settings, the German version of db4free.net will be loaded by default. No more need to click the German flag. If neither German nor English is set, the site will default to English.

However, the English and German flags are still available, to change the language if a person chooses to. This allows for maximum flexibility.

db4free.net, MySQL, PlanetMySQL, WWW

OurSQL Podcasts available at dev.mysql.com

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Noticed the new navigation item in the MySQL Developer Zone?

Sarah Novotny and Sheeri K. Cabral have picked up the OurSQL Podcasts again which were on hiatus for a while (well, they have now been back again for a while as well). The Podcasts are available on several resources:

A nice extra to the implementation at dev.mysql.com is that it uses HTML5 audio, so provided that you are using a technically up-to-date browser, you can not only download the sound file of an episode, but play it right in the browser. No plugin required.

Enjoy!