Jesse Ezell Blog

MySQL 5.0 Released

MySQL 5.0 was just released for production use. I've been using MySQL for a recent project, and I must say that I have been pretty impressed. The latest version adds support for triggers, views, cursors, stored procs, etc., reducing the number of "big" missing features from MySQL by a bit. The thing that has most impressed me about MySQL so far is the tool support. Usually, when you work with OpenSource products, you get some inferior, thrown together piece of crap or some command line only admin option. However, in the case of MySQL, you have a ton of great tools with UIs that are much better than the current generation of MS SQL tools IMO. There is also a tool that I had a chance to use that is far superior to anything Microsoft offers when converting databases (MySQL Migration Toolkit). It takes existing SQL Server, Oracle, Access, etc. databases and will not only construct the matching schema and create the tables in MySQL, but will also import your existing data. I used this to transfer an existing SQL Server DB and it worked insanely well.

In any case, MySQL has definately managed to grab my attention. I'm not completely sold yet, but I am definately impressed. MySQL has come a long way.

OpenOffice = Bloatware?

Interesting comparison of CPU/Memory usage of OpenOffice and MS Office:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/index.php?p=120

A good lesson that software isn't less bloated just because it has the magical OpenSource sticker on it. The only reason open source software has generally enjoyed a bloatware free status is because it generally does a hell of a lot less.

Articulate Presenter Wins Again

Articulate Presenter took the gold for the "Most Innovative" E-Learning technology of 2005 at the Brandon Hall Excellence in E-Learning awards, beating out its main competitor Macromedia Breeze once again (Breeze ended up taking home the bronze). Last month, Presenter took home the "Best of Show" award at TechLearn. I've hand a hand in the product's code since the first release, so it is nice to see Articulate really taking off lately, racking up some big awards, and smashing the competition. It's definately a pleasure to have the opportunity to work on such a great product for a company full of such awesome people.

Exorcism

I haven't seen The Exorcism of Emily Rose quite yet. From what I had heard, it seemed like just another failed attempt to top the all time scariest movie ever in many people's minds, The Exorcist. However, the story of Emily Rose is apparently quite different than the story of the little boy that  The Exorcist was based off of. Apparently, the story comes from the events in the life of Anneliese Michel, a woman who died during what many believe was a misdiagnosis of epilepsy/schizophrenia as demonic possession. In any case, after reading this article from Newsweek, I am tempted to see the movie, which is based on a story that illustrates a point that is quite the opposite of the one in The Exorcist. Either Hollywood really jazzed up the story and cut out the main point, or everyone I have talked to that has seen the movie seems to have missed it

[1] http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/paranormal_realm/118382
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anneliese_Michel
[3] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9711921/site/newsweek/

Speaking of IM

If you needed one more reason not to use Google Talk...looks like Microsoft and Yahoo have agreed to play together.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9667190/

Microsoft seems to be making a lot of deals lately centered around playing nice with others. To me, this indicates that Microsoft has truely embraced the service oriented world. Assuming SOA takes off as planned and interop difficulties are significantly reduced, deals like this won't be suprising in the future, they will be expected.

Google Talk Not Talking

So it's been a month or so since I said Google talk was a bit too crappy to get people to switch over. I've had it running in my toolbar since the day it was released. Since day two: I have received zero IMs, I have received zero invitations, I have heard nothing about it.

Just out of curiousity does anyone have a different story?

VPC / Virtual Server About to Get a Lot Cheaper

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5892155.html

Microsoft will be announcing some changes to how their licenses work when running in VPC / virtual servers. Great news.

The Making of Flash 8

This "The Making of Flash 8" video reminds me of what Microsoft is doing with Channel9... quite a  bit more commercialized (like the kind of thing you would expect to see playing during a Macromedia conference), but pretty of cool nontheless.

http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/flash/video/team/

Sexiest Woman Alive?

Ok, this might be a little off topic, but it definately deserves some mention...

According to Esquire, Jessica Biel is the sexiest woman alive... I can think of no way to explain this other than someone's publicist paid off someone, or the guys at Esquire were doing a little too much smoking and not enough research. Don't get me wrong, Jessica Biel is a good looking girl... but I think everyone in their right mind knows that another Jessica is much hotter:

http://www.esquire.com/sexiestwoman/

vs

http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing?id=content_847

or even:

http://www.streaming-clips.com/videoclips/2524/Jessica-Simpson/These-boots-are-made-for-walkin.php

Admittedly, everyone has their own tastes... but I can think of not a single time that anyone has mentioned to me how hot they think Jessica Biel is, while this is not the case with numerous others. Come to think of it, I probably don't even know a single person that would put her on their top ten list.... but somehow she made Esquire's #1. Maybe next month they will name Keanu Reeves as the world's best actor.

Flash Player 8.5 / Flex 2: Targetting Developers

http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex2_intro.html

Here is a DevNet article that gives a glimpse of the direction that Macromedia is heading with the Flash player and some related technologies. Flex 2 / Flash player 8.5 result in part from Mark Ander's work over at Macromedia (for those of you who don't know or have forgotten, Mark was a major component of the original ASP.NET team).

I had a chance to chat with Mark and some other guys from Macromedia and preview the tools coming down the pipe the other day. The tools are definately a step in the right direction, though they are still very much alpha. One nice feature is the addition of AS3, which has support for strong typing and significantly better XML support. Personally, I would much rather have a C# compliant compiler than yet another revision of Javascript, which never really took off outside of the browser and has never really been suitable for doing much other than UI work (and even there it can be quite painful). Maybe AS3 will solve some problems, but coding my UI teir in Javascript and then my backend in C#/Java just plain irks me. Maybe I am just lazy, but I want to work with one language and one language only (and I sure as hell am not going to be writing my backend in Javascript, even if there was a AS3 compiler for .NET).

I would also much prefer a VS.NET integrated Flex Builder than an Eclipse integrated version... but as much as that would be heaven for anyone who is already spoiled by VS.NET, it is easy to see why Macromedia won't be doing this any time soon. Why would they want to force everyone to install one of their main competitor's tools to use their product? Its really too bad that Adobe bought Macromedia instead of Microsoft.

In any case, I really like how Macromedia is going to be making beta / alpha versions of their tools available to the public at large. At the very least, people like me will be able to bitch and moan about the products to Macromedia before they come out, hopefully resulting in a final product that is much more suitable. I am also quite pleased that I was assured that the file format specs should be delivered in a more timely manner in the future. No more waiting a year or so after the product release till 3rd party devs can start integrating the latest Flash features into their applications. Probably not a big deal for some people, but very important for the work I will be doing with Articulate as we get closer to the Office 12 launch. IMO, these specs should be available along with the Alphas and Betas so that 3rd party SWF developers can continue to push the boundaries with their own tools, but I'll take what I can get.