Quick update on db4free.net

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Markus Popp

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/)
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Archives have grown a bit

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Markus Popp

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!

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My first public guitar (and blues harp) videos

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Markus Popp

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!

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Videos of Moon and Saturn

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Markus Popp

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.

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db4free.net has received better language detection

Posted on April 17, 2011 by Markus Popp

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.

Posted in db4free.net, PlanetMySQL, WWW | Leave a comment

PlanetMySQL RSS Feed working again

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Markus Popp

Sorry for the hiccups of the PlanetMySQL RSS feed.

The problem has been identified and is now fixed. Everybody subscribed to the feed should now be getting updates again :) .

Posted in PlanetMySQL | 4 Comments

OurSQL Podcasts available at dev.mysql.com

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Markus Popp

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!

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MySQL 5.5 published as Generally Available release – and available at db4free.net

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Markus Popp

Today, December 15, 2010, MySQL 5.5.8 was released – and is now generally available.

db4free.net has been updated to 5.5.8 GA.

Read the Introduction to MySQL 5.5 to find out what’s new and … give it a try!

Posted in db4free.net, MySQL, PlanetMySQL | Leave a comment

New chance for crashed (port 3307) db4free.net server

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Markus Popp

One month ago I set up a new MySQL 5.5 db4free.net server instance, after the old instance started to keep crashing. Since then, the former user database server has run on port 3307 to give people a chance to rescue their data, while the new MySQL 5.5 instance started completely from scratch.

However, most of the time, the 3307 server was down and I doubt that many people had a chance to get a copy/backup of their data. Now I updated that server to MySQL 5.5 as well. It’s too early to tell whether or not that will increase people’s chances, but it may be worth to give it a new try.

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db4free.net is back again, with MySQL 5.5

Posted on November 10, 2010 by Markus Popp

Disaster struck again. Well, it’s actually not really a disaster. db4free.net is a testing environment and people are not supposed to use it for any important data, or to use it in production. When after the last server update the main server instance started crashing, it was one of these circumstances which I can’t guarantee my users not to happen, and since both my budget and the server resources are low, I can’t afford setting up a backup system which allows me to restore everything just as a commercial database provider can (or should be able to) do.

Unfortunately I received a few emails (sorry that I couldn’t answer all of them directly) which made me believe that this fact isn’t obvious to all users. Even though the Conditions of Use pretty much explain that, not everybody obviously reads them. Which is why I added this text to both the registration form and to the registration email, so that it leaves no doubt that every db4free.net user is aware that this service is good for testing, but NOT for any data which is painful for the user to lose, or to not have available if the service goes down:

By registering for a db4free.net account you agree 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

Sorry if I failed to make this clear enough in the past. Please note that these are no rule changes, but only a more thorough clarification.

OK, so now to the changes. After my InnoDB tablespace recovery attempts failed, it was clear that I need to set up a new server instance. Being a testing environment, it’s not really meaningful to use the now very mature MySQL 5.1 builds. So it’s time for an update, to MySQL 5.5, which is currently available as version 5.5.7, which is a Release Candidate (the last stage before becoming a Generally Available version).

Running a development version of course increases the chances of crashes and outages additionally, so it’s a good time to remember all users of the purpose of this service. This new server instance is fresh and new, no databases have been transferred and all users will have to register again to create a database.

What happens with the former 5.1 server instance? As it still starts up, I will keep it running until at least the end of November (unless anything else happens, the no-guarantee-rule keeps applying), on port 3307. So all former users can still access the database and try to rescue data they need. Please understand that I can’t offer any individual support for this. Please refer to the MySQL Reference Manual if you need assistance. You can also still use phpMyAdmin: go to http://www.db4free.net/phpMyAdmin/ and select “db4free.net:3307″ from the Server Choice dropdown. However, please keep in mind that this server is damaged and will likely crash frequently, and take some time to come up again.

I am sorry for any inconvenience that the recent issues have caused. However, I am confident that this is taking the right steps to make all users aware what the purpose of db4free.net is and to set expectations right. And to all future db4free.net MySQL 5.5 users I would like to say: happy testing!

Posted in db4free.net, MySQL, PlanetMySQL | Leave a comment