Experts in Postgres and Open Source Infrastructure

As I was working on PostgreSQL Conference this weekend I happen to crawl under my desk to pick up a pin I dropped. As I was crawling back out I smacked my head on the top of the desk and in the process jostled an empty (black) computer case that was sitting there. I noticed something on top of the case so I took a long hard look and behold! …

I have closed the survey, "When to hold it" and provided the results. Of particular interest to me was the majority wanted Late March/Early April but a significant amount were also interested in having the conference in Early June. I am also glad to see that people were not interested in conflicting with Ottawa as I hear it is a very good conference.

Although I don't follow the Perl world very much, my respected peer Matt S. Trout emailed me wondering when I would be able to get the Perl 5 is Alive! video up. Apparently there are some buffoons spreading FUD about the state of this very much alive, very much supported, very much developed, very much kicking language. So take a look at the link above and see for yourself. If …

I have been negotiating (with the help of Bruce and others) with various parties to determine where we are going to hold East 2009. One of the questions that keeps popping up is, "When are we going to hold PostgreSQL Conference East: 2009". Since we now have this nifty new Drupal (with PostgreSQL) driven web site, we should take advantage of the ease of use and ask for some feedback. …

As with any PostgreSQL question, the first place you should look for answer is the PostgreSQL docs. I was recently reviewing the EXPLAIN docs as freshen up on some query tuning fu and I came across this little gem:

EXPLAIN SELECT * FROM tenk1 WHERE unique1 < 100;

                                  QUERY PLAN
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Bitmap Heap Scan on tenk1  (cost=2.37..232.35 rows=106 width=244)
   Recheck Cond: (unique1 < 100)
   ->  Bitmap Index Scan on tenk1_unique1  (cost=0.00..2.37 rows=106 width=0)
         Index Cond: (unique1 < 100)

What the above says (per the docs) is :

Here the planner has …

Last March at PostgreSQL Conference: East we video taped almost all the talks. It has taken some time to get them up and we are still encoding (and learning the tricks of the trade) but we do have a few up now that people may enjoy.

• Deploying PostgreSQL on Windows
• The magic of MVCC
• PostgreSQL Interprocess Coordination and Communication
• PostgreSQL Logic and Databases

You can find them at the newly …

In my on going efforts to secure a location for the upcoming East (MIT, Penn State, Drexel and even the Marriot are on the list), I am bound and determined to revamp the entire Pgcon.US website. I have several problems/goals I wish to solve.

1. A more community orientated site. Currently the site is 100% manage by me. Although it does use PHP it is essentially flat files.
2. A social …

The PostgreSQL Certification project has released the results of the Job Task Analysis. Thanks to everyone who participated in this important step toward delivering a quality certification. 223 members took the time and effort to fill out the survey. A couple of interesting results. There were 213 members felt we needed a certification. That is a sharp contrast to exposed opinions of some in the community. Of all the results …

Thanks to everyone that took the time to participate in the PostgreSQL Certification JTA. We received over 223 respondents which is great. We will be posting the results of the JTA shortly and if you would like to participate in the resulting project discussion please join us.

The PostgreSQL certification project is in the closing days of the JTA (Job Task Analysis). In short, what should the PostgreSQL certification project, certify? In hacker terms, "What is the problem we are trying to solve?". It is relatively long but the information is of extreme value to ensure that the project develops a relevant certification to the professional PostgreSQL community. If you haven't done so already please create an …