create and last update timestamp fields on mysql

As of MySQL 5.6 its easy-peasy... give it a try:

create table tweet ( 
    id integer not null auto_increment primary key, 
    stamp_created timestamp default now(), 
    stamp_updated timestamp default now() on update now(),
    message varchar(163)
)

or 

 

  `inserted` TIMESTAMP NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
  `insert_src_ver_id` INT NULL,
  `updated` TIMESTAMP NULL ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
  `update_src_ver_id` INT NULL,

for MySQL 5.5 or older 

First define them like this:
CREATE TABLE `entity` ( `entityid` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, `createDate` timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT '0000-00-00 00:00:00', `lastModified` timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT '0000-00-00 00:00:00', `name` varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL, `comment` text, PRIMARY KEY (`entityid`), ) Then add these triggers:
DELIMITER ;; CREATE trigger entityinsert BEFORE INSERT ON entity FOR EACH ROW BEGIN SET NEW.createDate=IF(ISNULL(NEW.createDate) OR NEW.createDate='0000-00-00 00:00:00', CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, IF(NEW.createDate<CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, NEW.createDate, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP));SET NEW.lastModified=NEW.createDate; END;; DELIMITER ; CREATE trigger entityupdate BEFORE UPDATE ON entity FOR EACH ROW SET NEW.lastModified=IF(NEW.lastModified<OLD.lastModified, OLD.lastModified, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);

• If you insert without specifying createDate or lastModified, they will be equal and set to the current timestamp.
• If you update them without specifying createDate or lastModified, the lastModified will be set to the current timestamp.

But here's the nice part:

• If you insert, you can specify a createDate older than the current timestamp, allowing imports from older times to work well (lastModified will be equal to createDate).
• If you update, you can specify a lastModified older than the previous value ('0000-00-00 00:00:00' works well), allowing to update an entry if you're doing cosmetic changes (fixing a typo in a comment) and you want to keep the old lastModified date. This will not modify the lastModified date.