My Tiny Spreadsheet Extension - A spreadsheet that lives in your browser

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The problem

1. You need a simple fast spreadsheet 
2. Google Sheet is clutters up
3. Excel files are lost
4. Google Sheets are saved on the cloud
5. You need an account to use Google Sheet

 The solution: My Tiny Spreadsheet Extension

1. A small spreadsheet inside your browser
2. Data is saved locally
3. It's fast
4. It's good for smart note taking

 

Install Extension 

https://freesheet.io

 

GeekCon 2025 - Building an Arcade Machine (rhythm machine)

GeekCon is by far the best conference I have ever participated in.

If you are not that familiar about GeekCon, so shortly, once every year, around September we gather from all around Israel and outside of it, a bunch of heavy geeks, makers, developers, scientists and crazy technology savvy people to build crazy projects, non profit for a full weekend. Learn more.

Some examples from this year 2025, a robotic Lama that follows you and spit on you, a huge keyboard and a missile defense system that throws chairs on missiles, and more ...

This year, I went to GeekCon with my son and from his choosing we have decided to build an arcade machine, with a rhythm game. You need to press the buttons by the rhythm 

 The spec was like this:

1. Writing the game (rhythm machine game) in Python
2. Running the game on a Raspberry Pi  (Version 5)
3. Connecting the buttons and reading the buttons state on the RaspberryPi
4. Using the buttons in the game
5. Building the arcade box itself (+printing buttons)
1. We 3D printed buttons for Arcade Machine here 

 Get and see the code (Pyhton) here (on github)

 Here are some photos from the conference itself: 

 

Here are some past event projects from GeekCon I have made:

https://www.c2kb.com/geekcon/

 #geekcon #raspberrypi #pyhon #arcade #opensource

Setting program_name in mysql session_connect_attrs allows you to see the name of the program connected

I am using mysql for quite some time now.

I have noticed that looking at client connections using mysql workbench so an interesting column called "Program". I can see that the program column indicate "MySQL Workbench":

 This column can be very useful and help to filter different mysql database connections.

It took me a while to understand how to set up this column data.

So first thing I needed to do is understand where is this column name is actually coming from. I inspected the "SHOW FULL PROCESSLIST" command by mysql - but I did not get any answer there.

I then looked at the query the mysql workbench itself running to get this data "Program" column:

Using the "show details" button in the "client connections" view, show me this:

Copying the query, it looks like that:

SELECT t.PROCESSLIST_ID,IF (NAME = 'thread/sql/event_scheduler','event_scheduler',t.PROCESSLIST_USER) PROCESSLIST_USER,
t.PROCESSLIST_HOST,
t.PROCESSLIST_DB,
t.PROCESSLIST_COMMAND,
t.PROCESSLIST_TIME,
t.PROCESSLIST_STATE
,t.THREAD_ID,
t.TYPE,
t.NAME,
t.PARENT_THREAD_ID,
t.INSTRUMENTED,
t.PROCESSLIST_INFO,
a.ATTR_VALUE
FROM performance_schema.threads t  LEFT OUTER JOIN performance_schema.session_connect_attrs a ON t.processlist_id = a.processlist_id AND (a.attr_name IS NULL OR a.attr_name = 'program_name') WHERE t.TYPE <> 'BACKGROUND' 

It seems that mysql saves some extra data on the connection within the table performance_schema.session_connect_attrs and specifically the  attr_name column.

The performance_schema.session_connect_attrs table, which allows you to store custom key-value pairs associated with a client connection. This is invaluable for identifying and monitoring connections from different applications or parts of your system. 

MySQL provides a mechanism for client applications to send a set of key-value pairs (connection attributes) to the server during the connection handshake. These attributes are then exposed in the performance_schema.session_connect_attrs table (and session_account_connect_attrs for the current user's connections).

Commonly used attributes include _client_name, _client_version, _os, _pid, _platform, and program_name. You can also define your own custom attributes. Attribute names starting with an underscore (_) are reserved for internal MySQL use.

Here is how you can us Go (Golang mysql drive) to set this key-value pairs and most important the program_name field which later on views as "Program" inside MySQL Workbench.

 

user := "your_user"
    password := "your_password"
    host := "localhost"
    port := "3306"
    database := "your_database"

    // Define your custom connection attributes
    connectAttrs := "program_name:MyGoApp,environment:development,module:data_access"

    // Construct the DSN string
    // The `connectionAttributes` parameter is added to the query string part of the DSN.
    dsn := fmt.Sprintf("%s:%s@tcp(%s:%s)/%s?connectionAttributes=%s",
        user, password, host, port, database, connectAttrs)