Moving a MySQL Based Message Board

. . . is a huge pain in the ass. A little over a month ago, we decided to move the Blair Wasdin Project (Red Sox/General Baseball) and Chair Chuckers (Celtics/General Basketball) message boards from the old crappy web host they were on to a newer, better web host.

The basics of this are easy:

1. Move web files
2. Move databases
3. Repoint DNS

Simple enough.

And the first step--moving the web files--is easy. FTP down from old, FTP up to new. Easy.
The last step is also trivially easy.

That leaves ...

Step 2. It's a complete bitch. Since most shared web hosts don't give you access to the MySQL server, you can't just go grab the database file and move it. You have to move the actual contents of the DB through SQL insert statements. Create tables and fields, insert data; rinse; repeat. There are some tools to make it easier, bundling the jobs up into a big batch text file, but on a message board with thousands of posts, these files become quite large. Uploading generally causes the remote web server to time out. So you have to break the file up into smaller chunks.

It's just tedious.

I'm sure there's a better way, but I was lazy and this was the best I could figure. In the end, it worked. It just took a long time, and during the time you're moving data, new data is getting inserted. So, short of turning off the board for a period of time, you're simply fighting a losing battle.

Why am I writing about this? Mostly so that I'll remember how to do this if it comes up again. Partially to remind me to think about (and Google) a better way of doing this, should the need arise. And a little bit just to vent about an annoying process and think about a way to improve this situation for shared web hosting customers (which is my job).

My Review of the Nintendo DS

Over the last couple of days I've mentioned my acquisition of a Nintendo DS, and a couple of games for it (Mario Kart, Animal Crossing). The DS is a pretty nifty device, a little bigger than I expected, with two pretty bright, detailed screens. The ones in the store don't do the screens justice, as they've been pawed and scratched to crap. It's plastic, but feels very strong and rugged. In fact, I dropped mine today and it's no worse for the wear (I'm a complete spaz).

Visually, playing a game like Mario Kart rocks. The top screen is the game screen, and it's graphics look to be N64 quality. There's no issues with speed or smearing or blockiness; everything looks great. The bottom screen is more than just a novelty gimmick, as it serves as a map/radar, and is absolutely invaluable. Once you play with it, it's nearly impossible to play without it.

I've got a little bit of issue with the size of the controls. I've got tiny hands, but even my hands cramp up using the tiny directional pad and buttons. Still, the controls are tight and responsive, and I'm able to play for an hour or so before I really need to take a break. The size of the directional pad is probably the one thing I would love to change on the DS.

There's only really one gimmicky thing on Mario Kart. In Battle Mode, when playing the traditional Balloon Battle, you actually need to blow up your extra balloons by blowing into the microphone. It's a little ridiculous, but does add a little bit of strategy to the game.

Animal Crossing doesn't have any of the niggling control issues Mario Kart does, as you simply don't have to use your hands as constantly. It's a more leisurely game, looks just like it's Gamecube counterpart, but with a slight curve to the world, which is a bit interesting. The touch screen control helps immensely when trying to write letters, move lots of items, or even just wander around. Animal Crossing is like Nintendo DS crack.

I haven't even touched on the wireless aspect of the DS. First, setup was a breeze, once I worked out a quick setting change I had to make on my fairly old D-Link wireless router. (Amusingly, this change also made the wireless connection to my TiVo significantly more stable, so kudos to Nintendo for that, too). There's room to store 3 different wireless setups, which means I can store my home setup, my work setup, and then use the 3rd to just grab whatever the local access point is. Once you connect, it just works. Mario Kart allows you to race people from around the world, and, again, it just works. Animal Crossing does the same, allowing you to connect to other towns. For this feature, or to race against folks you know in MK, you need a friend code, which I'm thinking basically is just a hash of some constants (the MAC address?) that Nintendo uses to find people who've connected to their network. Enter the code, and you can race against someone, or visit their Animal Crossing town. No charge, and it all works pretty smoothly.

I'd love if Nintendo would add a web browser, and I'm waiting for someone to come out with a media player adapter that accepts SD cards. The Nintendo DS would make a perfect device for a trip: browse the web (across both screens!) in the airport, then watch a movie (video top screen, controls bottom screen) on the flight. Considering companies released such add-ons for the Gameboy Advance, I've no doubt they'll be coming for the DS.

Animal Crossing - FOUND

Thanks to the wonderful Best Buy in Dedham, I am now the proud owner of Animal Crossing for the DS. Happy New Year. I'm off to go do some menial tasks to try and make money to pay off my house, while watching some football.

And yeah, I drove the 30 minutes to Dedham just to get this stupid game.

One Last Thing ...

This site is now officially the first search result for my name, which rocks my socks.

Fun Shows in January

Usually once or twice a month I take a look at the upcoming shows in the Boston area that I want to try to go to. I just took a look at January, and it looks alright.

January 5th - Kay Hanley at TT the Bear's
January 20th - Taxpayer at The Paradise
January 21st - Evan Dando at The Paradise Lounge
January 25th - Colin Meloy (of The Decemberists) at The Paradise
January 27th - OK Go at The Paradise
January 27th - Dear Leader at TT the Bear's
January 28th - Dear Leader at TT the Bear's

I'll definitely be at at least one of the Dear Leader shows, and probably Kay Hanley. I'd love to see Colin Meloy. So, for those of you who want to get me a late Christmas gift, well, now you've got no excuses.

Screw XBox 360

All I keep hearing about is the XBox 360 and how great it is and how hard it is to find.

Well you know what? I don't care. All I wanted post-Christmas was to sit on my couch playing Animal Crossing on a new Nintendo DS. I took my Christmas loot and giftcards and drove all over creation looking for the Mario Kart DS Bundle and Animal Crossing. Finally, at about the 15th store, I found a Mario Kart Bundle in stock.

10 stores later, still no Animal Crossing. The game is sold out everywhere. And don't give me the "it's for kiddies" crap -- everytime I walk into a store and ask if they've got it, I can tell I'm about the 50th adult to walk in that day looking for it. Everyone wants it. It's like Nintendo-brand crack. It's as hard to find as the XBox 360.

So, I'm placing a bounty on Animal Crossing. If you find it at a store, buy it, and I'll pay you back plus take you to a Red Sox game this year. Maybe even the Yankees.

In the meantime, I'm going to keep playing Mario Kart.

Happy Holidays, yo

Whatever your holiday, or even if it's just Sunday for you, hope it was good.

Keep waging that good war on Christmas.

My Favorite Songs of 2005

My favorite songs of 2005.

A handful of rules:

1. I must own the song
2. The song must have originally come out in 2005
3. Only one song per album

The rules eliminate some fun songs. No Kelly Clarkson "Since U Been Gone". Only one song from The New Pornographer's Twin Cinema album. Nothing from The Killers.

Here we go, in no particular order:

• Taxpayer - When They Were Young
  Taxpayer's a local band, and this song is just getting some airplay on FNX here now. It is well deserved. It's the song the stuck out the most when I saw them in person. I just love the hook.
• Stellastarr* - Sweet Troubled Soul
  Stellastarr* might have been my favorite live act from 2005, and this is probably the best song off the new album. It encompasses what the band does well: the fun call and return, the overlapping vocals, the sound stuck somewhere between The Killers and Interpol.
• The Perceptionists - Memorial Day
  I'm a big Mr. Lif fan. I was sorely disappointed by The Perceptionists album, which doesn't hold up to what Lif has done as a solo artist. That being said, this is the closest stuff to what Lif does solo, and that's why it sticks out. Best track on the album.
• OK Go - Do What You Want
  Pretty much everyone hates OK Go. They can be grating, but at their best, they're really good power pop. This is really good power pop. Probably should have been the second biggest hit of the summer.
• The New Pornographers - The Bleeding Heart Show
  Tough decision on this one. Damn near every song on Twin Cinema would rate in my top 20 songs of the year. My favorite changes each time I listen. I think this captures the sound the best. It's got the witty Carl Newman lyrics, the Neko Case vocals, and it just sounds great.
• Metric - Monster Hospital
  Another disappointing album, but for whatever reason, this song catches my ear every time I hear it. This would have fit in nicely on Metric's last CD.
• Kaiser Chiefs - Oh My God
  A toss up between this or "I Predict a Riot". This wins because it references Pac Man.
• Ivy - Thinking About You
  Ivy can be pretty hit or miss, but this year's album was great atmospheric pop. "Thinking About You" was the lead single, and deservedly so.
• Hot Hot Heat - You Owe Me an IOU
  I dug a couple of songs off of Elevator. I think this is my favorite because it was on MVP Baseball 2005 and I've heard it a million times and still dig it.
• Harvey Danger - Cream and Bastards Rise
  Harvey Danger release an album for free and still no one cares. That's just criminal. HD are such a great band, walking the line between emo and power pop better than anyone else, yet Jimmy Eat World get all the hype. This is the only non-piano driven song off of Little By Little. How can you not love a song with a title like that?
• Franz Ferdinand - Do You Want To
  No sophomore slump here. There's 4 or 5 great songs off the album, but this is the one I always end up coming back to.
• Fountains of Wayne - Maureen
  One of two new songs off of this year's compilation and B-sides release, this should have been the biggest hit of the summer.
• The Decemberists - On the Bus Mall
  It's hard to know what to do with The Decemberists. They sound quite different than everything else on this list, but they're right in the same vein of indie pop, just on the other end of the spectrum. Picaresque has a handful of good, Decemberist songs. This is my favorite. Yes, I am a huge pussy.
• Death Cab For Cutie - Marching Bands of Manhattan
  It just builds and builds and builds.
• Danger Doom - Old School
  MF Doom brings it on the whole Adult Swim album, but I actually think he gets held back a bit by Danger Mouse's beats. This track, with Talib Kweli, is a rare exception. Great from top to bottom.
• Josh Rouse - Winter in the Hamptons
  The final entrant on my list. Josh Rouse's Nashville is the album that every girl and Abercrombie-wearing preppy should have bought instead of Jack Johnson. The fact that Josh Rouse toils in obscurity while Dave Matthews has a huge hippie following and Jack Johnson gets to do movie soundtracks is a traveshamockery. A bigger travesty than the "War on Christmas".

There you have it.

Mobile Google Maps / Google Local

The other day I poked on over to Google Maps to find out exactly where a particular store was so I could finish up some Christmas shopping. I noticed a new link to download Google Local to my cell phone. Being curious, I clicked on it and found that they had a version that worked on my Sanyo MM-7400.

I've had a couple of days to play around with it and it's pretty amazing. There are times when Google does things really poorly (Google Reader) and times when they get it right (Google Maps). This falls in the latter category.

The download is about 100KB, and they've got a little wizard that lets you pick your mobile provide and phone to make sure you get the right version. Google even lets you give them a cell number so they can text message you the link.

Once downloaded, you load it up, and after a few seconds, there's your map, looking damn near like it does on your computer monitor. You can do local searches to find local restaurants and shops, just like on Google Local. It does driving directions, just like Google Maps.

Oh, and it even has the satellite view. Yep, I can see my house on my phone.

There are some minor quibbles I have.

• The interface to enter addresses is pretty crappy, since it doesn't support T9 (as far as I can tell).
• It'd be nice if it could pull addresses from my address book, so I could say "I want to go here" and then have it give me directions.
• I'm not completely sold on the directions interface, since I couldn't seem to zoom out far enough to get a good idea of the scope of the path. The interface is pretty nifty in that you click a button and it takes you to the next step of the directions (actually travelling along the map path).

Combine this Google Maps Mobile application with the new Yahoo! RSS feed notification and SMS services, and it's becoming pretty nice to have a decent mobile data plan. I can set up my phone to send me a score alert anytime the score of the Celtics game changes, or at half time, or only at the end of the game via Yahoo! When the Celtics lose, I can search for local bars on my phone, get directions there, and head over to console myself, knowing that I'll find the place using the Google Map and Satellite views. If only they could triangulate my position and let me use that as the starting point for any map ...

The Funniest Bit from The Colbert Report

I TiVo The Colbert Report every day, generally not watching them until the weekend. The show is quite funny. Yeah, it's a one note gag (making fun of Bill O'Reilly), but it's a funny gag nonetheless. Almost without fail, the best moment of the show is "The Word" -- The Colbert Report parody of O'Reilly's "Talking Points Memo."

Last weekend, I was chugging through episodes when I watched the episode from December 7th. Colbert was talking about the Hugo Chavez offer of cheap heating oil to a handful of US cities (Boston, New York). Colbert's O'Reilly-like take was that the cities should tell Chavez to screw.

Honestly, words can't do the bit justice. So, I've encoded a video of it. And now that YouTube is huge, I've replaced my video with a YouTube link.
Watch "The Word" from the 12/7 episode of The Colbert Report.

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