News

News and Notes for PostgreSQL for Mac Users  

What's Next?

Well, since there haven't been any major issues with the 8.3.1 release (or if there have been there haven't been any major reported issues), it looks like the build system has been more or less fixed. That means that we can put some resources back into the real work, enhancing the PG core, and expanding on the graphical tools.

In 8.3.1 we included the two database actions for Automator, but we need to go further.  The existing GUI tools are still rough by any real standards, and they need some enhancements, but before that, we have to address the biggest remaining issue.  

Documentation.

Sadly, we are typical developers and documentation is not something we do very well, so for the next release, everyone is focusing on documenting how to use this stuff in both local and online forms.

Apr 10, 2008 10:38 AM

8.3.1 Published

Hopefully, this release will be a little smoother than the last one was.  For this release, we have 3 download locations and servers.  The SourceForge.net download went up first, and appears to be downloading correctly.  We don't think we'll get the file corruption issues we had with 8.3.0, but only time will tell.  Second, we've placed another download location on the Druware Software Designs pipeline.  Third, we are hosting a download location on the PostgreSQLforMac host, which actually has the worst bandwidth of the three.

PostgreSQL 8.3.1 - Universal Build

Release Notes and Quick Installation Guide

Release Notes

This release contains some of the latest released code from the PostgreSQL project.

01-April-2008

Tweaked x86_64 settings for better compatabliity

Reworked installer scripts to better handle errors and permissions

Updated to PostgreSQL 8.3.1

Added Auotmator Actions from Druware


Installation Guide

This package contains three separate and distinct installers.  One for the…

Apr 2, 2008 5:05 PM

Rollout Details and Month End

xserve estimate

xserve
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...and so the release should hit the server in just a couple of hours.  Of course, in the meantime, there are a few other notes of interest.  Last month we raised another $77.19 in funding towards artwork and a new xserve.

For details, you can always keep track of the current budget, we try to update it at the beginning of each month.

Someone recently asked about why the xserve.  Well, the short answer is that we want to promote the platform by operating on the same platform as we are targetting.  We do that today, on a now aging, Dual G5 Xserve (RackMac3,1).  That machine is still running strong, but we have no redundancy for the webserver, and it is also acting as the database server for the software that we have begun prototyping for our long term hosting for both this and druware (as well as the site that is being used as the prototype, twowheeljunction.com).  In addition, we will be moving our subversion repository and our issue tracking systems away from sourceforge.net in the…

Apr 1, 2008 11:42 AM

Continuing Issues

Alright, I missed Monday.  The issue with the failed installs someties failing to create the postgres user persists.  It appears that the issue is in the script timing.  Prior the Leopard, the process that created the user account was the same script that performed the the initdb and the ownership of the logs folder.  Unfortunately, that process failed under leopard, so for 8.3.0 we altered that out into three seperate processes, and it works, most of the time.  It's the exceptions that are the issue.  When it tanks, it tanks bad, but doesn't fail the installer.

That, my friends, is a problem.

For 8.3.1, we have been testing and tweaking those processes to do two things:  Fail gracefully (report a failure), and reduce the occurrences of failures.  The initial tests looked good, but when we started running the tests on the Xserve, it started failing consistently.

So, now we have a failing situation, that is consistent, we are working on finding why and how to fix it.  I will keep…

Mar 26, 2008 11:33 AM

8.3.1 Built and Running on the miniTest

So last night the build completed so I pushed it onto the test box (miniTest, one of the 3 Mac Mini's in the office I use for build & testing).  Assuming not problems occur while it runs it's tests, I'll package everything up later today for a release tomorrow.

Mar 20, 2008 10:28 AM

Official PostgreSQL 8.3.1 Source Released

So for the next couple of days, we will be repackaging and preparing the for Mac build.  Friday or Monday will be release day, depending upon any problems that occur.

Mar 19, 2008 10:10 AM

Comments?!?

So after a little bit of thought, comments have been reenabled on the site, moderation is off, so please, keep it clean and on topic.

Mar 18, 2008 3:50 PM

Ideas & Possible Projects

So with 8.3.1 about to be released, and with that, we will begin bundling the Druware Automator actions in the distribution (Donationware, to be made open source once a certain level of donations are made). We've been batting around a few other ideas that embrace the Mac platform technologies.

Dashboard

pgQuerylet - a Dashboard widget that implements a simple adhoc query / result window to a preselected server and database.

pgReportlet - a Dashboard widget that runs and displays the results to a predefined query and server showing only the results each time the widget is displayed.

Spotlight

Example code that implements an application 'viewer' and a spotlight importer that would allow spotlight to index specific columns entities in a PostgreSQL database and quickly retrieve them in the viewer.

Xgrid

Example code that implement an analysis tool that uses PostgreSQL data with a small client that performs the data analysis, allowing smaller businesses to leverage their idle Mac's as…

Mar 18, 2008 3:21 PM

SQL Client for the iPhone?

So I was at the house last night and I was upstairs and I needed a quick number from the server, but both it and my laptop where in the basement.  I had my iPhone, and I thought, hey wouldn't that be nice, to run a quick query on the iPhone against a PostgreSQL server.  

I wonder, how much value is this?  What do you guys think?  mail me your thoughts to dru@druware.com.

Mar 14, 2008 3:27 PM

What's next?

Unfortunately, even with all of the effort, the 8.3.0 rollout went out with a few issues.    Rather than wait for an 8.3.1 release, we are working on a 'b' release that resolves some problems and includes a couple of new features.  As of now, it looks like that will be around 3/31. 

Also of note is that we have met our 2008 budget for hosting costs for the year have been covered as we have reached $125 in donations for the year 2008.  Having reached that plateau, all additional donations will be applied towards contracting an artist for icons and artwork for the packaging.  That is expected to be around $2000.  Anything above that is going into a hardware fund to acquire an Xserve to move all of our hosting to, hopefully allowing us to abandon SourceForge, which continues to be problematic for us.  

We have added a PDF of our year to date budget.  It is available from the contributions page as well as from here.

Mar 13, 2008 11:41 AM

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