Starting today (Monday) I am going to be making some pretty serious life changing choices in my work and after-work lifestyles. Okay, a little back story. I have been working on evaluating my working habits, client communications and general daily processes.

Okay, so now you are likely wondering, why the change? Well its simple really, I have been involved in some pretty stressful projects over the last few months and the daily stress has been mounting up. Last weekend I spent both days relaxing and spending time with family and then did the same this weekend.

I noticed this evening I have been much less stressed, generally more productive and all around in a better frame of mind, so that is why I have decided to start this process now. The “Band-aid” approach is because any other form will be abandoned in a few short days and I want this to work out. I have about a month before I leave for Photoshop World which of course means lots of work in a very short amount of time, so I figured now is the best time to push the idea.

Have any of you perfected a working process or other general daily task strategy? I would love to hear about them.

Here is how to quickly backup a MySQL database using the command line.

Start by opening Terminal (Mac) or Putty (Win) and follow these commands.

Backing up a database

mysqldump -h hostname -u user --password=password databasename > filename


Restoring a database

mysql -h hostname -u user --password=password databasename < filename


Recently I wrote a two part series on building a Blog in Flex using PHP for the server-side part. These articles are available in the Flash and Flex Developers Magazine in your local book stores. However I have been informed that part 2 is available for free download (newsletter registration required). Earlier in the year part 1 was available for free, so it may still be on their site, let me know if you find it.

Also be on the watch for a new article in an upcoming issue that teaches you how to build a cool Flash application using Flickr and Yahoo! Pipes. Not exactly sure which issue it will be in, but keep an eye on my twitter page for more details when they are available.