Holiday Presents for MySQL DBAs

Normally I write for the MySQL DBA audience. But this blog entry is different. Print out a hard copy and hand it to friends and family when they ask you what sort of presents you want for Christmas, Hanukkah, Festivus or other end of the year gift exchange instead of grunting ‘I do not know¹‘ and ending up with something you will have to pretend to like.

Yes, your MySQL DBA is hard to shop for during the holiday season. Their needs are few² or expensive. So what can you get them on the cheap that will make them happy?

Gift Ideas

1. T-shirts are probably the majority of your DBA’s attire, despite your best efforts.
   1. Zazzle offers a World’s Best DBA t-shirt. You may also be able to get away with remark that the Nobel Prize committee had to cut costs due to the economy being what it is and this is what they sent.
      Zazzle also offers I am a DBA in third normal form , SELECT FROM friends WHERE lame = ‘no’, and a SELECT SUM(WOOD_QTY) FROM WOOD_CHUCK WHERE CHUCK = TRUE t-shirts feature snarky DBA related humor. Do not ask for an explanation from your DBA on the humor³.
   2. Printfection offers Have you ____ your MySQl DBA today?
   3. I am the DBA not the help desk, DBAs do it on tables, and Bars, scars and varchars — the life of a DBA are available at Cafepress
   4. There’s no place like 127.0.0.01 can be purchased at Thinkgeek
   5. And Amazon sells ROSES ARE #FF0000, VIOLETS ARE #0000FF ALL MY BASE BELONG TO YOU.
2. Books — Very few new MySQl Books this year. The most notable is Effective MySQL Optimizing SQL Statements by Ronald Bradford. In 2012 we will see many more new titles. So buy a gift card to your DBA’s favorite book seller so they can get:
   1. A new edition of High Performance MySQL: Optimization, Backups, Replication, and More will be a must buy. The first edition is a classic.
   2. Oracle press will be publishing MySQL Workbench Data Modeling and Development, Effective MySQL Advanced Replication Techniques, and Effective MySQL Backup and Recovery.
   3. Mastering phpMyAdmin 3.4 for Effective MySQL Management is due out May 1st, 2012 from Packt.

   You can also go non-DBA specific for presents such as movie passes, gift cards, and other generic gifts. But the above are your best choices for your DBA this time of year. And if you have special DBA gifts, please share them here!!

   Notes:

   1. No, you are not going to get a Large Hadron Collider if you ask. There is only one and in a year there will be a fully functioning Lego kit or iPhone app that will prove all the Higgs bosons particles the world needs — and it will not be that many.
   2. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs shows MySQL DBA are already at the top of the needs pyramid just by being MySQL DBAs.
   3. Unless you really need a nap!