WAMP Step 3: Install MySQL

In the previous installments of this series (here and here), we set up and configured the Apache web server and the PHP scripting engine. Now we will add the database server, MySQL.

SQL databases implement the powerful relational database paradigm, a way of thinking about data that is based in the mathematics of set theory. This makes them (in theory) more powerful and safer than other kinds of databases that preceded them. While relational databases started life on mainframes, MySQL is an example of how the concept can be adapted to desktops. After all, your desktop is probably a more powerful computer than the 'big iron' mainframe of the 1960's!

Installing MySQL

MySQL started as the project of an independent company, which was subsequently acquired by Oracle. A free and open version is still available, called the "community" server.

The MySQL download for the Community Server is at http://www.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/. If you just got http://www.mysql.com/downloads/, you'll be offered a Windows installer that includes a whole bunch of additional software and connectors, over 200 MB of stuff! We don't need all of that to test out WordPress, which is the objective of this exercise. Just grab the installer for the Community Server.

Global Warming: a brief background

I'm writing this for an audience that isn't short on science or Google chops. I'll try to supply links where useful.

We're here to discuss global warming, and several levels of skepticism expressed about global warming.

• What is global warming (GW), and does it really exist?
• Is global warming anthropogenic (AGW)? That is to say - are human activities principally responsible for global warming?
• Is global warming catastrophic (CAGW)? Are the changes severe, irreversible and creating misery for humans and other life on the planet?

A basic issue of terminology - the problem we'll be discussing is one of heat, and heat is measured by temperature. However, there is not a one-to-one correspondence between the two ideas.

Podebrady, Poetry by Francis Klein, reviewed by Davd vun Kannon

Podebrady is a slim chapbook of poetry. The poems inside are, at times, a painfully intimate window into the author's heart. But they are also full of wisdom, beautiful words and images, and the painful intimacy is mostly the result of recognizing ourselves waiting in the mirror of these words.

I especially like the The Apple Press, and the last lines of Morning Laundry:

We are replaced by what we love.

We leave the green fields free and fallow. 

Klein is a published poet and an architect with a practice in Montclair, NJ. Podebrady is avaible from Amazon and Finishing Line Press.

Recommended.