Although the book shows you how to use the command line interface to MySQL,  many developers much prefer to use the MySQL GUI Tools that you can download from http://mysql.org/downloads/gui-tools/5.0.html.

If you want to short-circuit the creation of the MySQL databases used in the book, the simplest way is to use the database restore file included in the SQL Database Files archive. It is a single file that will create and load the mashups_sql and fec databases described in the book.

The full fec database is over 150 MB, which makes it difficult even when it is compressed for people to download. Thus, the archive on this site consists of the data described in the book, but the individuals table contains only those individuals with names beginning with h. The examples rely on zip codes and geographic distribution, so this should not cause you problems as you experiment.

HOWEVER YOU MUST REMEMBER THAT THIS IS AN INCOMPLETE TEST DATABASE. DRAW NO CONCLUSIONS FROM THE DATA, BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN DISTORTED IN THIS WAY.