Randy
The valuable value of MySQL NULL
In many programming languages, coders often use NULL or null as an equivalent to the numeric ‘0’ (zero) in comparison tests. This normally works out, but it’s worth mentioning that in the database world, ‘NULL’ means something else. To illustrate this, in MySQL we can see that querying NULL returns a string representing the keyword/value […]
Insomnia – a tactical approach
2018 Update / Hack:// taking a Zyrtec after dinner works great for me. I’m writing this today to relay my tactics for combating insomnia. Please comment if you want to share your tactics! For years, I battled insomnia to the point where I began documenting my trial-and-error approach in an attempt to find what worked […]
Backing up with mysqldump part deux
MYSQLDUMP is a utility for outputting database contents into text files. This is nice, but has many configuration options. One, often missed detail is the specific permissions required to accomplish the job. I made a note on the mysql manual (bottom of page) to illustrate what I consider to be a best practice for automated […]
My Favorite Data Visualization Libraries and Frameworks
As a dba, programmer, business intelligence developer and all-things-data for my company, part of my job is to create useful info-graphics and dashboards for our management team. The numbers alone are fascinating, but when you present them graphically, the trends are easily and instantly understood. Here is a list of my fav tools: jqPlot jVectorMap […]
Using screen in the Linux shell
Have you ever been remotely connected to a host using SSH and thought to yourself: “self, I wish I had more than one window…” So naturally, you opened an additional SSH session. This is fine, but then you need to organize desktop windows when there’s a much simpler solution: Use the screen shell program. Screen […]
plotto the office lottery pool iphone app
Update: 2011-08-27 – Price change to $.95! yes, just Ninety-Five cents! Rock out America! – Version 1.1 coming soon! – Also, there’s been some curiosity about data persistence in the app, so let me clear this up. All app data is stored on the phone using a SQLite database. No data is stored remotely and […]
My favority BASH one-liners
Let me preface this post by saying, these are hacks. Neither the best or the only ways to achieve the desired results. But hey, if they work for me, they may work for you. Enjoy! ping -i 10 4.2.2.2 Send a ping request to an IP address once every 10 seconds. Why would I do […]
Use BASH to extract MySQL ACL list
Need to quickly extract all the GRANT info for your database users? Here’s a one-liner: for i in $( mysql -u readuser -pReadPassword -h your.host -e “SELECT CONCAT(user,’@\”,host,’\”) AS ACL FROM mysql.user ORDER BY user” -s ); do mysql -u readuser -pReadPassword -h your.host -e “SHOW GRANTS FOR $i” -s ; done ; Here’s a […]
Shocking your system into weight loss
As I’ve aged after about 25 years old, I’ve noticed that my metabolism is incredibly slow and weight loss using conventional means, balanced diet and exercise, was impossible. I’ve had to resort to research and experiments to find what works for me. Some of the conclusions I’ve made have been echoed in other diet books […]
