For the next TorontoPUG (to be held on July 28th, 2008), we will be moving to an office area, where we want to hold a few quick (15-20 min) presentations on a few different topics.

This is an open call to the community asking if anyone would be interested in presenting a topic on PostgreSQL. Some topics our members would be interested in learning about include (but feel free to suggest your own topic):

• A brief overview of replication options
• PostGIS
• An overview of tweaking PostgreSQL databases
• Differences and gotchas moving from MySQL to PostgreSQL

If you are interested in presenting, please send an email to torontopug.july2008@hardcircle.net and/or to our mailing list.

Event: TorontoPUG meeting
Date: June 23rd, 2008, 7:30 PM
Location: The Rhino (www.therhino.ca), 1249 Queen St. West, Toronto
RSVP: Send a brief message to Ian: torontopug.june2008@hardcircle.net

I'm pleased to announce the first meeting of the Toronto area PostgreSQL User Group, TorontoPUG!

Our first meeting will be on June 23rd, at 7:30 PM, at the Rhino. This will be an opportunity to meet others using PostgreSQL in the area, to learn how others are using PostgreSQL in different ways, or to learn basics about the PostgreSQL project. Please RSVP by sending a quick message to torontopug.june2008@hardcircle.net so we can ensure there is enough space.

To get updates about future events, meet people between events, and suggest ideas for future events, please join our mailing list, accessible here: http://archives.postgresql.org/torontopug/.

Topic: The Relational Model
Who: Jeff Davis
Date: 6/19/08, 7pm
Where: FreeGeek, 1731 SE 10th Ave, Portland, OR

Come to our next PostgreSQL Users Group meeting where Jeff Davis will
discuss the finer points of the Relational Model, otherwise known as
the model upon which all major SQL databases systems like Oracle,
MySQL and PostgreSQL are based.

He's fresh off giving a talk about this at PgCon, where it was very
well received!

Here's his abstract from that talk:

"This talk focuses on two common data management tasks, and how the
relational model can help. First, how to answer complex questions
about your data, and provide an answer that can be understood by
non-IT people unambiguously. Second, how to effectively extract
meaning from disorganized (or under-documented) data sets for
effective data migration or reporting.

The relational model, on which all SQL DBMSs are based, is founded on
both logic and sets. Relational operators like JOIN and UNION have a
direct logical meaning, and you can use those operators to answer
complex questions from your data unambiguously. Not only can you
provide unambiguous answers, but you can translate SQL queries into
the language of logic, which can be understood by people outside of
IT.

Equally important is the utility of logic working backwards to help
find meaning in disorganized (or perhaps undocumented) data sets.
Nearly every inherited data set is less than perfectly documented, and
often inconsistent. Changes to (or replacement of) the application
require this data to be migrated. By iteratively making assertions and
then testing them using the rules of logic and the convenience of
sets, you can find exceptions and contradictions that help you refine
the meaning of data, and possibly correct inconsistencies."

The San Francisco PostgreSQL User Group, together with PostgreSQL.us, will be having several events around LinuxWorldExpo in San Francisco

On August 5th, in space generously donated by IDG, we will have a full day of PostgreSQL technical sessions. This will be followed by some kind of social event with drinks & food.

We will also have a booth, of course and are seeking booth volunteers.

Watch the SFPUG page for more details!

Topic: PostgreSQL for Pythoneers
Speaker: Jason Kirtland
Date: Thursday, 5/15/08
Location: FreeGeek, 1731 SE 10th Ave

Come join us for an evening of Pythoneering with Jason Kirtland, a key
force behind the Portland Python Interest Group -
http://wiki.python.org/moin/PortlandPythonUserGroup. They are having
Lightning Talks tomorrow night at Cubespace.

Jason hasn't provided too many details at this point, but I imagine it
will be a tour of a popular Python ORM and a discussion of using it
with PostgreSQL.

"A tour of SQLAlchemy [1], an open source database toolkit and object relational mapper in Python. The tour will be SQL heavy and Python-light, and I'm planning on focusing on the object relational mapping part of the tool.

If you have a schema that you'd like to see mapped, send it my way and I'll do my best to work it in to the presentation.

[1] http://www.sqlalchemy.org/"

Also, Jason has offered to map RT - a continuation of our refactored schema meeting for RT.

Refreshments afterward at the Lucky Lab!

Check out Baltimore / Washington PUG. They're first meeting is on May 14th, 2008.

Subscribe to the mailing list (or the RSS feed) so that you don't miss out! Mailing list is bwpug@postgresql.org. To subscribe, send the message "subscribe bwpug" in the body of the email to majordomo@postgresql.org.

Hey, y'all; let's hit the ATLPUG IRC channel at 7:30 this (Tuesday, 8 April) evening to brainstorm about topics of interest to ATLPUG. Hope to see y'all there! :)

Last Tuesday, March 18th, ATLPUG had its first successful meeting. Over half a dozen people, with PostgreSQL experience varying between interested newcomers and years of PostgreSQL experience, users with terabyte PostgreSQL installs and others checking out various PostgreSQL LiveCDs (Ubuntu | Fedora), and programmers in many languages, including Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and one brave COBOL programmer. ;) We discussed each other's projects, exchanged some tips, waxed rhapsodic about the performance improvements in 8.3, talked about some of the upcoming conferences (including PostgreSQL Conference EAST, PGCon, and OSCON PostgreSQL Day [as well as OSCON itself]) as well as the new United States PostgreSQL Association. I look forward to seeing y'all again next month!

If you're interested in joining ATLPUG, please sign up for the mailing list. Thanks again, everyone! :)

Save The Date: OSCON PostgreSQL Day

Call for papers

PostgreSQL community,

The O'Reilly Open Source Conference 2008 schedule will soon be revealed, and
some of you -- especially those speaking -- will be making your travel
arrangements to visit Portland. But, wait! Before you buy your plane
tickets, you'd better know about the PostgreSQL Day hosted by PDXPUG!

What: All-day PostgreSQL one-track mini-conference
When: Sunday, July 20th, 9am to 5pm, possible party afterwards
Who: PDXPUG will select speakers
Where: Portland Convention Center, Portland, Oregon

Of course, we are also looking for speakers for the PostgreSQL Day. PDXPUG
wants four hour-long sessions and one 2.5-hour workshop. Please
e-mail selena -at- postgresql.org with your offer to speak and speakers will be selected in mid-April.

Thanks to Josh Berkus, Joshua Drake, the OSCON conference and PDXPUG
for helping make this happen!

TOPIC: Managing internet services: using the right tool for the job
SPEAKER: Ed Sawicki
WHEN: March 20, 2008, 7pm
WHERE: FreeGeek, 1731 SE 10th Ave, Portland, OR 97214

Also: What the heck is the United States PostgreSQL Association?, Selena Deckelmann

AND: ELEPHANT BUTTONS! courtesy of David Fetter.

Here's what Ed had to say about his presentation:

"I'll probably end up doing live benchmarks, showing code
snippets, and explaining my rationale for why I chose
to do things the way I do."

"My current projects involve managing a variety
of Internet services, such as spam suppression and the
associated per-user black/white list management, DNS record
management, PKI key management, and a variety of others. Some
of these services require that I deal with the storage and
retrieval of both discrete IP addresses and CIDR blocks in
real time.

I've had to decide on data stores that include plain text
files, SQL using SQLite and Postgres, and constant databases
using tinycdb. At every stage of development I've had to
decide which of these was best based on tools available and
performance testing. For example, Postgres has IP and CIDR
data types and adequate facilities to search for IP addresses
within a CIDR block but performance pales in comparison to
simpler tools that use plain text files. As a result, my
applications use various data stores instead of just one."

Refreshment afterward at the Lucky Lab!

Hello!

We will have a meeting the Saturday March 22 2008 10:00AM for the first Moroccan Pug Meeting. Anyone who is interesting can join.
A minimal database knowledge is required, we will discuss about how Postgresql can be a better alternative for many projects we actually running. The meting will be discussed in French, English and Arabic! For more info , contact me at terminale at gmail dot com! The location will be in Tangier!

See you soon

Saturday night, February 9, at 8pm, Richard Broersma and a crew of 15 launched LAPUG. Noel Proffitt, from the City of Garden Grove, gave a great talk on time-oriented (or temporal) database design.

He presented an example of a set of columns, rules and triggers for tracking both valid and transaction time. Noel also was kind enough to give a plug to the temporal data type that Jeff Davis and I presented last PGDay before OSCON. There was some suggestion that Jeff should submit the code for version 8.4.

We also showed off the new PUGs website, and talked a little about what had brought people to the BoF.

A few students from Cal Poly were there, along with many experienced administrators from around LA. Richard mentioned that his company was willing to host the group’s first meeting, and Noel offered to bring a projector. The group also asked about potential topics, so I am going to start a talks repository on the PUGs site. Ultimately, I’d love to have the authoritative and searchable repository of PostgreSQL talks for all PUGs to use as starting points and references.

I’m looking forward to great meetings from LAPUG in the future!

It's finally here!

After much planning, discussion, and encouragement, we are happy to announce the first meeting of the Los Angeles PostgreSQL User Group (LAPUG).

LAPUG provides a forum for Postgres enthusiasts in or around the greater Los Angeles area to meet others for discussions relating to PostgreSQL.

Things to expect:

• Meeting Fellow Elephant Lovers.

• Seeing ways that PostgreSQL is used for work, in education, or simply for fun.
• There will be opportunities for those interested to engage in public speaking.
• And when appropriate, a few pints over dinner might be involved. :o)

LAPUG Mailing List:

To join the LAPUG mailing list or to view the mailing list archives visit the following link:
http://archives.postgresql.org/lapug/

Schedule for the First LAPUG Meeting:

See the following link for the time and place for the first LAPUG meeting:
http://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale6x/conference-info/social-events/bird...

We look forward to seeing you there! And feel free to invite your friends.

Recognizing those that greatly contributed to the founding of LAPUG:

It is important to recognize those that played an integral role in helping to get LAPUG off of the ground.

• Noel Proffitt:
  Noel has spent many hours developing the first LAPUG presentation on the topic of temporal databases implemented in PostgreSQL. The work he has done is certainly going to get LAPUG off to a good start.

• Selena Deckelmann:
  Selena is one of the key members of the Portland Oregon PostgreSQL User's Group. Because of the phenomenal success of the Portland PUG and because of her contributions to Postgres advocacy, she was recently nominated to become the PostgreSQL User Group Liaison. Following her lead and the direction that she offers has certainly played an integral role in getting this local chapter of PUG off the ground. And if this wasn't enough, she has also aided all of the PUGs around the world by arranging for PUG web pages and mailing lists.

• Joshua D. Drake:
  Joshua is the PostgreSQL liaison for Software in the Public Interest (SPI) and is a major contributor. It was his encouragement that got the ball rolling for starting LAPUG. In addition to this, he facilitated the arrangement to have the first LAPUG meeting at this year SCALE as part of the Best of Friends (Bof or Birds of a Feather) venue.