The architectural ideas as described in the FAQ:

A micro-kernel that we then extend to add what we need (all additions come through interfaces that can be compiled/loaded in as needed). The target for the project is web infrastructure backend and cloud components.

The FAQ goes on explain the differences between Drizzle and MySQL which include:

No modes, views, triggers, prepared statements, stored procedures, query cache, data conversion inserts, ACL. Fewer data types.  Less engines, less code. Assume the primary engine is transactional.

Michael Widenius, founder and original MySQL developer, explains more about Drizzle in this blog post, including the most interesting piece (to me) - that Drizzle will always contain the most up-to-date InnoDB code, meaning you don’t need to wait around for MySQL 6 or download the plugins from Oracle each year to get the latest and greatest.

While Drizzle is still in development you can check out the code and try it out. Or maybe even get involved and help out. More information on how to do both is available on the wiki.

So, am I just too cheap to pay for apps? No, that’s not it at all. In fact, if the apps I needed were on the store I would upgrade and buy them (and possibly have some support options) and be done with it. While there are some apps that are in the store that I currently use (Shopping List, Twinkle, Book Reader) there are others that aren’t (Terminal, anyone?).

So, until I can jailbreak 2.0 or until the app store catches up with what I actually use, no dice.

That, with a little trial and error and I was able to get a PHP page to fire off a command-line PHP process to run an import of several years data into a new reporting schema. Since this import relies on some serious data manipulation it has a tendency to time out for large data sets. So, I set up the command line script to run six months worth of data and before it exits it starts a new background process for the next six months of data. In this way I was able to complete a many-hour process without worrying about timeouts. I did notice that running in the background (actually in an “invisible” command shell) that the process ran slower than when running in the foreground. This was acceptable, however, since the page returns immediately while the processing begins and the application is still usable while the process is running.

Here is how I call it from the page:

if(isset($_SERVER['PWD'])) { // *nix
    $basepath = dirname(__FILE__).'/';
    $php = 'php';
} else {
    $basepath = dirname(__FILE__).'\\';
    // edit to match your installed target environment
    $php = "C:\\php516\\php.exe";
}
ignore_user_abort(true);
set_time_limit(0);
$arg1 = 'foo';
$arg2 = 'bar';
$runCommand = "$php -q {$basepath}my_background_running.php $arg1 $arg2";
if(isset($_SERVER['PWD'])) { // *nix
    // *nix: Use the backtick operator or shell_exec()
    $nullResult = `$runCommand > /dev/null &`;
} else { // Windows: use the php COM class
    // WScript.Shell gives you the command line
    $WshShell = new COM("WScript.Shell");
    $oExec = $WshShell->Run($runCommand, 7, false);
}

I do the same from the background script to call itself recursively right before it exits.

I didn’t find the Microsoft documentation for the Windows Script Host Shell until today during lunch. I found the location in the Practical PHP Programming Online Book where he says to use the Google search “wshell object” msdn which will result in the first link pointing at the MSDN documentation. (I have a feeling it moves around quite a bit, since every link I have run across up to now that points directly at the documentation results in a nice 404 error page at Microsoft.)

For future reference: SSH and command line access beats the crap out of cPanel any day.

More as I have news.

Anyhow, the move (as I said) happens tomorrow and we will be on the road for several days. The last couple times I drove the ALCAN I did it in 3 days or less. This time we are taking our time, seeing a few things along the way and generally trying to be sane about it. As I find wireless on the way I will update twitter so those who care can see where we are.

Since my wife didn’t keep copies of her mail locally her mail “disappeared” when the DNS switched over. I will probably alter her hosts file long enough to pull all the mail off the server and cache it locally so that she can respond to a few she had lined up.

After that it is a matter of switching our mail readers to point to the right (new) server for the interim and then changing everything back once we are relocated and settled.

More later.

The iPhone (or iPod Touch) will round the corners and overlay the glass look to make it blend in to the overall look and feel of the “Springboard” (their name for the desktop on these devices.)

Mine looks like this (before the modifications which take place on the device itself):

And this is what it looks like on the iPhone: