For our first article we were exceptionally lucky to arrange an interview with Britney Spears who is over in the UK on promotional business. The interview was conducted in the famous tea room at the Ritz in London. We sent our top guy Elliot Holden to meet the Pop princess (we didn't have to ask twice).

Britney, dressed in casual jeans and a neon pink "punk" T-shirt, looked relaxed as waiters brushed to and fro in the busy tea room.


Elliot: Miss Spears, thank you for taking the time to join me here for tea.

Britney: My pleasure Elliot, I love this place it is sooo groovy, I always have to have a good cup of tea when I am in England.

Elliot: I am very sorry to hear about your recent divorce.

Britney: (shrugs) Yeah well, what can you do, I don't really want to talk about it.

Elliot: Quite, sorry. Anyway, moving on - you are here today to talk about some of your favourite MySQL backup techniques.

Britney: Yes, backing up your database is really important. Kevin walked out with my laptop when he left and so now I lost my database of my Music collection, and you guessed it - oops I did it again - no backup (laughs)

Elliot: (laughs) (slaps leg)

Britney: Also, it is all very well having a backup strategy but I must confess I still believe it is more important to be able to quickly restore the backed up data, it is going to take me forever to recatalogue my Earth Wind and Fire singles.

Elliot: Very true.

Britney: I guess the best place to start is with backing up and what would we do without mysqldump. It isn't rocket science people, it's like:

mysqldump -u [username] -p [password] [databasename] > [backupfile.sql]

There you go - all backed up and safe from harm.

Elliot: Sound advice indeed Miss Spears. And you can never back up too many times.

Britney: Totally, I'm like... back it up baby one more time, it won't hurt. (sniggers)

Elliot: Yes. Yes - that's right (chuckles). But what about restoring?

Britney: It is my prerogative to be ready to restore in an emergency, so I keep a note of the restore command, I am Lucky it is easy to remember.

mysql -u [username] -p [password] [databasename] < backupfile.sql

Elliot: Thank you for your useful and surprising advice on Mysql backups and good luck with your journey from Princess of Pop to Queen.

Britney: (laughs) Madonna ain't even gonna give up that crown. One more time - If you Boys don't back up and you lose your data, then Don't Go Knockin' on My Door, it is Outrageous and it drives me Crazy, make your backup strategy Stronger by remembering your databases, your data can't ever be too Overprotected.

Elliot: (rising) Thanks again.

Britney: (smiling) bye Elliot it was great. 

From our office in London we seek out exciting interviews with the hottest A-list celebrities. But rather than asking the usual questions about their life, love and latest plastic surgery. We ask that they help with common and advanced computing problems. Prepare to be surprised by the depth of knowledge these stars possess.