Jul 07, 2008 by Newbie_SanDiego | Posted in Maintenance & Repairs
Yesterday it ran out of gas so I replaced with what I thought was my can with oil/gas mix. It ran for another 5 mins then completely died. I thought I heard a little bit of a "grind" when it stopped. Then I realized that I had accidentally
When you ran it without oil you may have damaged the piston, rings, and cylinder. When you pull the starter cord can you feel any compression? I would remove the carburetor and the muffler and look at as much of the piston and cylinder as I could.
The former was pretty terrible, and it’s all available online anyways so there’s absolutely no reason to buy it. Why is it so bad? Despite being written by MySQL, it is completely impractical and totally bogged down with details. I defy you to figure out how to efficiently back up your database by using that guide. I couldn’t.
The latter was very useful for introducing concepts like data normalization and, while a little out of date, gives a quick sense of the products that are out there. I highly recommend it as a first read. but it’s not MySQL specific – so where to go then?
Finally, I found this book. It took me about 1 minute to find the tools I would need to back up a database and another 10 seconds to find a detailed discussion of what’s going on when you back up a database.
It’s also very recent (as of 2009/06) – it really reflects the state of the tools out there and I was pleasantly surprised to find that all of the developments I had been reading about in my online research were reflected in the book. Instead of glossing over complex topics like MySQL Cluster, memcached, DRBD, Linux HA (see, I wasn’t kidding about its coverage), it points you to external resources that are actually helpful.
I haven’t yet read all of it but, to my knowledge, there is nothing comparable out there. If you have a good idea of the basics behind database administration and need a practical guide to how to actually administer a MySQL database, including the tools available to you, I’d seriously recommend that you take a look at this book.
LIMITATIONS: - As another reader pointed out, it’s not the easiest read. But then, if you’ve never used SQL, never mind MySQL before, then trying to understand concepts like the difference between READ COMMITTED and SERIALIZABLE isolation levels will surely result in pain and death. This book is much better if you have a question like “How do I backup a MySQL database?”, “How do I make a trigger”, or “How do I set up replication?”
