Matt Loney's Blog

Gatwick airport has suffered a brief loss of air traffic control systems this afternoon. I'm currently sat in Jersey airport, where staff announced there was a "failure of UK air traffic control". I suspect they might have been referring to Gatwick alone, and that the systems are now back up as we're hearing that flights are being allocated landing slots again.

We're being warned of two-hour delays. No word as to the cause. If it is computer related then it won't be the first time by a long stretch. I'm sure we'll be hearing more on this in the computing press.

Update (5.12pm): We've heard it's a data link problem affecting the South East, with the result that planes are taking off/landing every four or five minutes - way down on the usual 90 seconds.

It's nothing new - in fact the command line interface implemented at Goosh.org harks back to the days somewhere between the fall from grace of the punched card and the rise to fame (or infamy) of the GUI. But I was rather struck by Goosh because it recognises Google for what it is - a command-line interface with a thin veneer of GUI on top.

Google has long been known for the (almost fanatical) simplicity of its front page, which hides an ever-increasing range of services. Some put its success down to this every bit as much as to its famous PageRank algorithms (for there are many), and AdSense service.

Learning any command line syntax is like learning to snowboard - you have to get through those first few days of pain to really 'get it' and start to have fun. Once you do this, the benefits of the command line start to reveal themselves: you can often do more, and do it more quickly than in a QUI, with less rick of RSI. For me Goosh is still slightly the wrong side of the pain barrier - I suspect I'll find myself sticking to the GUI for now. But if one of the promises that command line interface hold out over GUIs - that of enabling an actual conversation - I could be tempted in future to switch.

CNET Networks UK is currently accepting entries for the CNET Networks UK Business Technology Awards 2008, and for the IT Community Hero award we though we’d put it out there to ask you who you think deserves to win.

The award is meant to honour the person, team or organisation who has done the most to make the lives and jobs of people in IT easier and more productive through building connections fostering a sense of community. The judges will be looking for a strong community focus on IT through inclusiveness, outreach and collaboration. We could be talking anything from a blog to work on a project with community aspects, to sponsorship of a community project.

Please take a moment to tell us about your nomination for IT Community Hero – either use the form below or, if you have a ZDNet account, feel free to leave a comment to this post.

Name of your IT Community Hero:

Name of their company or organisation:

URL of their website:

Use this space to describe briefly why your nomination deserves to win

What is your name? (optional)

What is your email address? (optional)

(Your name and email address will help us if we need to contact you to discuss your nomination. They will not be used for any other purpose.)

OK, its a pretty small piece of functionality, but we've just added a feature to allow you to upload your own avatars to ZDNet. When you're logged in and go to you profile page you'll see a 'change picture' button below your picture. You should be able to figure it out from there. Just note that images should be 100 pixels square. You can upload larger images and they'll be scaled. You can upload rectangular images, in which case they'll be cropped automatically to a square, which means that if your face is over to one side of the image it might get lost altogether. Best stick to squares.

If you already had one of our stock avatars your profile will retain this until you decide to upgrade to a real picure of you. Go on, you know it's always good to put a face to a name.

How you do pronounce MySQL? I've spent a good few years correcting those who say it 'mysequel', firm in the knowledge that My.S.Q.L. was correct, only to discover today from co-founder David Azmark that I have been sorely deluded. Instead, I should have taken lessons from Ali G.

In the austere confines of London's ancient Royal Geopgrahical Society today, Azmark poured forth on many aspects of MySQL's history and its future under Sun.

Among them was the history of the name. MySQL is named after the daughter of the other co-founder Michael Widenius, as Wikipedia already knows. According to Azmark, the correct pronounciation of My is 'Me', and the correct way to pronounce MySQL is and always has been 'Me.S.Q.L.', making it sound to the English ear like Ali G's database. Azmark then proceded to pronounce it as in 'my', noting that now even he's started referring to it this way. I suspect the widely used pronunciation will stick, though there is something about the original pronunciation that I really do like - it is a great prefix. Just think if you were running it on MeSUSE.