This article shows you how to use a little-known InnoDB feature to find out what is holding the lock for which an InnoDB transaction is waiting. I then show you how to use an undocumented feature to make this even easier with innotop.

This post contains links to a few different real-world datasets that can be used for populating databases for testing. The comments are good too, and include links to several more datasets.

Excellent detailed analysis of problems caused by mixing character set encodings within a table, and what to do about it.

"Since I wasn’t able to find any other authoritative source on this on the internet (and in fact, most of the other sources I’ve seen have said you really don’t want to be in this situation– while offering little help as to what to do about it if you’re already there), I thought writing a public document on the subject might help some other systems administrators out there who do find themselves unexpectedly in the middle of MySQL Character Set Hell."

Built-in MySQL procedure for analysing field values and determining the most optimal column type (possibly)

Cool script, and coolest domain name/installation method in the world.

Interesting article about MySQL scalability problems.

Article suggesting that percona patched MySQL builds combined with mysqlsla are a better option than the MySQL Query Analyzer (proprietary, only available with a MySQL Enterprise subscription).

Mysql query analyzer uses mysql proxy underneath, which is a great thing in its own right.