MySQL Control Center is a free, platform independent GUI administration client for the MySQL database server, but unfortunately falls short in its inability to create and delete foreign key relationships through a design table interface. Consequently, I investigated the use of three alternative, commercial MySQL clients: SQLyog, Navicat, and Aqua Data Studio

SQLyog offers an array of advanced features, but appears to be less stable than Navicat and has no obvious method of dynamically sorting columns in a table after the result set is returned. This is particularly annoying on large data sets. Finally, the software only runs on the Microsoft Windows platform. SQLyog is good for seasoned SQL developers and those interested in obtaining full access to the guts of a MySQL database.

Navicat, runs on multiple platforms, including Linux and Mac OS X. Its interface is clean, responsive, and incredibly intuitive. In fact, I was able to set up foreign key relationships within minutes of installing the software. Navicat also offers a query builder for users who don’t need or want to learn SQL syntax. Navicat caters to developers who are not necessarily database experts, and provides a higher level of abstraction that hides the nitty-gritty database details from the developer.

Aqua Data Studio is free for personal use, multi-platform, and written using Java. It has a lot features that are similar to Navicat, but its interface feels somewhat sluggish, primarily a result of Java API limitations.

A late lunch with Farhana at the Atlanta Coney Island, a restaurant on West Peachtree via the Tech Trolley that serves an interesting mix of American and Greek specialties. They have an excellent lamb gyro. We are both very excited to be graduating at the end of this month. Farhana will be moving on to graduate school here at Georgia Tech, while I shall be pursuing other routes of employment.

Juan and I met in the afternoon to work on our senior design project. I fixed the remaining bugs in the siso interface and we began work on the function generator portion of the project before heading to dinner and drinks with our usual group at the Highlander.

Spent most of the day with Josh at his new house in Roswell working on spackling and sanding the drywalls in his bedroom. Had lunch at the Waffle House with a break at Bruster’s ice cream while waiting for the spackle to dry. It’s a little bit like watching grass grow, except more toxic.

Met Benton, Sanjay, Mike, and Mike’s parents in the early afternoon at the Georgia Tech Sailing Club on Tenth Street to go sailing at Lake Lanier, located forty-five minutes northeast of Atlanta. The weather reports indicated scattered thunderstorms but luck was on side and our sailing experience turned out to be quite pleasant. Benton, Sanjay, and I sailed together on a Coronado 15, a two-handed dinghy. I had an opportunity to learn about basic sailing techniques, including tacking, gybing, and heeling. I think that all of us had a great time.

Lunch with Nicky at Ruby Tuesday followed by a trip to Cumberland Mall. Mark and I went to the Brewhouse Cafe in Little Five Points before attending Kelly’s birthday party in Decatur in the evening. The bar provides international beers, which until July 1st could not be sold in the state of Georgia because they exceeded the state’s six percent alcohol limit for beer by volume. The new state law increases the alcohol content limit to fourteen percent, thanks in large part to DeKalb County representative Stephanie Stuckey Benfield and the Georgians for World Class Beer. All I can say is that it’s about time.

Met lots of interesting and nice people, including students from Oglethorpe, Emory, and even a Computer Science Georgia Tech alumnus or two. Thanks to Kelly’s sister for hosting this excellent party.

I modified some of the final exam questions since we won’t be covering first and follow sets this semester and found a neat little Java applet by Ronald Mak that display the IEEE 754 single-precision and double-precision floating point formats. Discussed the hairy details of pointers and memory allocation in C at the TA meeting. It’s hard to believe that there is only one more recitation left until the end of the semester.

Dad’s Garage was top notch. You can usually tell how good a show will be simply from the cast that performs that night. They had one of the best shows that I’ve seen in a long time. Sanjay’s friends Hillary and Liz also joined us.

I joined Mark and his friend Kelly at the Highlander in the evening to catch up on various things. Kelly is an interesting person. She has Spider-Man like powers and collects computer programmers for a living. She’s also pretty cute. I’m not making this up. Anyway, it’s nice to meet new people in the Atlanta area. We’ll probably hang out again sometime soon.

Unfortunately, whatever remaining free time was left during the day somehow mysteriously dissapeared in the process of writing the comprehensive final exam for Languages and Translation.

Spent the morning working on foreign key constraints in SQL, but didn’t make a lot of progress. Referential integrity is much harder than it looks, especially when you don’t plan it well from the ground up. Created a simple scanner for the Languages and Translation project using flex, wrote several potential final exam questions, and graded Lab 8 with the aid of another diff-based bash autograder.

The PHP team has also announced its final release of PHP 5. Shortly after, the unstable build of the online journal was upgraded to the new release. The PHP ChangeLog has more details.

I’m sore all over, and spent the day at home relaxing. Saw The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966), starring Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef. Just goes to show that you don’t need fancy special effects to tell a great story.

When I’m in the pit, I’m gonna punch and kick. Amazing six hour live band performance at the Coca-Cola Roxy Theatre in Buckhead, featuring Suburban Legends, Lucky Boys Confusion, RX Bandits, Catch 22, and Reel Big Fish.