Friday, April 30, 2010

It's time for something fun

So, a few years ago I had this rule that about every 6 months I would use a version of Linux for a few weeks just to see how it had progressed and compare that to Windows.  I can't really recall when I stopped but I do remember that I really enjoyed having a better understanding of other systems.  I think it's time to do it again.  However, this time I won't be using Linux.

I have access to both Windows 7 and Macs.  I've been a Windows developer for a long time but with the improvements made in virtual machine solutions I've started doing most of my development work in vms.  I find it refreshing to keep all my development work sandboxed in a system that I can easily take and rollback snapshots as needed.  I recently ran some winsat checks on my native box (a Core i7 rig with 8gigs DDR3 memory) and a virtual machine configured to use all 8 cpus.  The results were nearly identical with the virtual machine turning in 95% performance on cpu tests and beating the host system in disk tests (the vm was using a 80gig file as a disk).

So, since the VM is giving me enough performance to do my work I am really free to use whatever I like as a host system.  So, here I am preparing to embark on a fun adventure.

I"m going to use Snow Leopard (in 64 bit mode) for 30 days while doing my Windows work in a VM.  I don't intend to run back to Windows for anything during that time as I really want to force myself to use OS/X.  During this time I'll blog frequently about issues I'm facing, things I like, things I don't like, and work arounds I've found.

So, to get started here's what my day normally looks like on the computer.

  • Lots of development work on Windows (Visual Studio 2008 and 2010)

  • IRC/Skype chatting with friends and co-workers

  • Email with co-workers

  • Using Google calendar to manage my day to day activities

  • Editing Word/Excel/Powerpoint documents (these are more rare these days but they do happen)

  • Watching recorded tv shows from my Media Center HTPC

  • Watching shows from NetFlix and Hulu

  • Listening to music from Pandora, Slacker, Sky.FM, and personal music collection

  • Blog reading/writing

  • Facebook and twitter'ing


Well, wish me luck.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

MySQL Connector/Net 6.1.4 has been released

MySQL Connector/Net 6.1.4, a new version of the all-managed .NET driver for MySQL has been released. This is our latest GA release and is suitable for use in all scenarios against servers ranging from version 4.1 to 5.5!

It is now available in source and binary form from [http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/net/6.1.html] and mirror sites (note that not all mirror sites may be up to date at this point of time - if you can't find this version on some mirror, please try again later or choose another download site.)

This is a maintenance release and includes many bug fixes.  Please review the change log for details.

Thank you for using our product!

MySQL Connector/Net 6.0.6 has been released

MySQL Connector/Net 6.0.6, a new version of the all-managed .NET driver for MySQL has been released. This is a maintenance release and is approved for use in all situations.

It is now available in source and binary form from [http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/net/6.0.html] and mirror sites (note that not all mirror sites may be up to date at this point of time - if you can't find this version on some mirror, please try again later or choose another download site.)

There are lots of bug fixes in this release so please review the changelog.

Thank you!