Firebird News

Friday, December 23, 2005

Latest Firebird Relational Database Released (Pre Final)

The Firebird Project is pleased to announce the last release candidate for the forthcoming Firebird 1.5.3 final version.
Release Candidate 3 is available for download and testing.

This sub-release introduces a number of retrospective fixes (backports) to bugs that became apparent and were fixed in the Firebird 2 tree during the alpha and beta phases of the Firebird 2.0 development. This release candidate (RC3) will become the final stable version in about a few days.

It is probably OK to regard this as the final release version, but we do not guarantee that something won't appear during this pre-release round.


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For all Firebird fans we've prepared a nice gift - Firebird 2006 Calendar.

Dear Friends,


I sincery wish you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
I hope you will be our readers in forthcoming year.


For all Firebird fans we've prepared a nice gift - Firebird 2006 Calendar.
Details: http://ibdeveloper.com/calendar-2006/


All garthered funds will be used for preparing next issues of our free magazine.



With best regards,
Alexey Kovyazin
Editor-In-Chief
The InterBase and Firebird Developer Magazine
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Thursday, December 22, 2005

Synapse-EMR electronic medical records system that uses the open source RDBMS Firebird.

What is Synapse Electronic Medical Record?
Synapse-EMR is a powerful multi-user electronic medical records system that uses the open source RDBMS Firebird.

[ED:I like the technical]

Geek Stuff

Synapse-EMR is written using REBOL, a functional programming language with an internet bias. The GUI is written using Ashley Truter's great RebGUI, which provides added functionality over REBOL's original Visual Interface Dialect. Communication between the client and server is by multiple asynchronous encrypted tcp channels which produces a very flexible and responsive GUI.

Although apparently a client-server architecture, the server is also capable of acting as a client to another server instance allowing a number of servers to share anonymous epidemiological information, as well as provide secure messaging between servers.

Synapse-EMR uses the open source RDBMS Firebird to store all data. Firebird has a long history starting off life originally as Borland's Interbase. Firebird is reknown for being a zero administration ANSI SQL-99 database that is suitable for use in mission critical systems. It is free of licensing restrictions.



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Firebird Blogs of the week

Why everyone should be a programmer

"I don't know if I have posted this before, but everyone should be a programmer. If you work with computers at all, which for better or worse most of us do, you can make your lives much easier.
For instance: My business deals with a lot of peoples Interbase databases (Well, Firebird but you get the idea)."

More on Robin's Aussie Blog
Writing some classes in php
"Last friday i was kinda bored at work so i decided to renew my functions and write some classes, so i started with the ones that i use most, and just wrote a class to conect, execute a sql query and return an array with the data using a firebird database, nothing really usefull, but makes my life easier :)"

by Fabio Gomes on his own yet another coding blog

How to start firebird on slackware (or any linux) Indonesian blog written by Budi Raharjo
[ED: blogger Location JAWA Barat - nice name i remember some motor bikes with JAWA name)


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Firebird 1.5.3 in gobolinux.org

Firebird is included in Yet Another Linux Distro named gobolinux.org
" GoboLinux is an alternative Linux distribution which redefines the entire filesystem hierarchy.
In GoboLinux you don't need a package manager because the filesystem is the package manager: each program resides in its own directory, such as /Programs/Xorg/6.7.0/ and" /Firebird-client/1.5.3/
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Firebird was almost interesting...

Quote from planet.debian.org blog
"I was looking at the Firebird database recently. Free Software, very feature complete, and one neat feature was that it could run either client/server (like PostgreSQL) or as a standalone .so (like Sqlite). I was starting to look into using it.

Then I discovered it only supports i386 on Linux, and no progress has been made in 3 years on that."
False firebird is supported on other arhitectures

Firebird2 now builds and runs just fine on amd64.
Anyone with access to anything other than i386 or amd64 is warmly welcome to
try to build it and contact developers

Firebird3 (vulcan code name) will work on more arhitectures

Quoting From Vulcan Overview

Vulcan had four primary goals.
• Portability: Vulcan was developed simultaneously on four platforms: 32 bit
Windows using the Microsoft compiler from Visual Studio 7, 32 bit Linux and 64
bit Linux for AMD64/Opteron using various versions of gcc, and 64 bit Solaris
using the Sun Forte C++ compiler. Ports exist to 64-bit MVS UNIX, Itanium, and
AIX. See the Portability section.

Portability
Firebird
Firebird V1.5 and V2.0 are sensitive to minor variations in C++ compilers, which is a
serious liability given the somewhat cavalier attitude of compiler developers toward
version-to-version compatibility.
Vulcan
Vulcan was developed on four compilers simultaneously: gcc 2.96, gcc 3.3.4,
Solaris/Forte 5.5, and Microsoft VC7. To make that work, Vulcan eliminated the
dependency on std.lib, minimized all other dependencies outside the core clib (c library),
and reduced the complexity of template usage



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Wednesday, December 21, 2005

A review of "GoldMine Corporate Edition 7.0" - They are using firebird

A review of "GoldMine Corporate Edition 7.0" by John Clyman for PC Magazine, "Some of the biggest changes in GoldMine 7.0 happened under the hood: dBASE has been supplanted with the open-source Firebird database..."
Source for news ibphoenix.com
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Explaining interbase bottlenecks

Results of TPC-R based test attracted a lot of attention and raise many questions. The most important question is why queries 3 and 20 were so slow?
Here is the answer
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TPC-C sources, TPC-R vulcan, firebird tests on the way

Hello everyone,

Thanks for attention. Next step will be testing beta versions (Vulcan and Firebird 2), simultaneously we’re working at TPC-C, which is closer to real-life. After that we have plans to run such test on other DBMS.

Marius, all sources for tests are available here http://ibdeveloper.com/tests/tpc-r/how-to-run-tpc-r-based-test/

Sincerely, Alex Kovyazin


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Firebird mention in tuxjournal.net - blog of the day

"Il Firebird project ha appena rilasciato la prima versione beta del suo famoso database. La nuovissima versione, anche se in versione beta, contiene un grande numero di nuove caratteristiche."

http://www.tuxjournal.net/wordpress/?p=17
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xBaseView 6.2 with firebird support

xBaseView is a universal viewer and editor of databases. xBaseView can open any database via the ADO, ODBC and BDE universal technologies, and can directly open 15 types of databases. It provides direct export of the data to 16 formats (direct import - from 14 formats), and can export (and import) them to any format of databases via the universal technologies. The database experts can create up to 10 various types of files; can perform SQL-queries and other operations.

http://www.totalcmd.net/plugring/xBaseView.html
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ADODB 4.68 released (Default branch)

ADODB is a set of advanced PHP database abstraction classes. It supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, Interbase/Firebird, Informix, Sybase ...

More on freshmeat.net

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EMS SQL Manager for InterBase/Firebird (ver. 3.9.5)

Simple and powerful GUI tool for administering InterBase and Firebird.
New version released
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Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Firebird Stored Procedure written in C#

Carlos Guzman wrote an example of Stored Procedure using C# as language
and Firebird/Fyracle as server
More on his blog (spanish).You can use the babel fish to translate it

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Friday, December 16, 2005

Firebird File and Metadata Security

Paul Vinkenoog updated documentation area on sf.net and wrote:
Existing manaul docbooked and added to our documentation collection: Firebird File and Metadata Security by Geoff Worboys.

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KInterbasDB 3.2a1 released

What's new in release 3.2a1?
----------------------------
The primary goals of version 3.2 are:
- the removal of internal limits
- the exposure of more sophisticated features to the client programmer
- optimization

The code has been overhauled to enhance robustness and performance.
The documentation in general, and the Usage Guide in particular, have
already been updated to cover KInterbasDB 3.2.

The documentation, including a specific changelog, is available online at:
http://kinterbasdb.sourceforge.net/dist_docs/


Where can I learn more about and download KinterbasDB?
------------------------------------------------------
http://kinterbasdb.sourceforge.net

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Thursday, December 15, 2005

firebird blog of the day - Carlos Guzmán Álvarez

This is an nice surprise ;)
Is in Spanish

http://carlosga.blogspot.com/
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Firebird Banner is here

Some days ago someone requested an animated banner for Firebird.

Well, I just did one...


Get it on www.firebase.com.br/fb/banners/firebird_banner.gif

I hope you enjoy ;)

Carlos H. Cantu
WarmBoot Informatica - http://www.warmboot.com.br
FireBase - http://www.FireBase.com.br
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Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Pentaho = Open-source Business Intelligence with Firebird

pentaho.png

Business Model: The company sells open-source business intelligence software that includes: reporting, analysis, dashboards, data mining, and workflow. It is stewarding the development of a interoperable suite of software components that can be configured into an integrated BI stack. Open-source projects that it supports include: Mondrian OLAP Server, JPivot, Firebird RDBMS, Enhyra Shark, Weka Data Mining, and Eclipse BIRT.
pentano datamining.png

Original article is here
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Firebird article in "Entwickler Magazin"

in the forthcoming edition of the well-known German development magazine
"Entwickler Magazin", there will be an article about Firebird 2.0.

The cool thing *this* time is, that the article isn't only available in
the printed edition, but also Online (in German of course):
http://www.derentwickler.de/itr/online_artikel/psecom,id,783,nodeid,56.html

Enjoy!

Regards,
Thomas
and babelfish translation
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Ruby on Rails 1.0 Released with firebird support

"What else do I need?
Rails works with a wealth of web servers and databases. For web server, we recommend Apache or lighttpd running either FastCGI or SCGI. For database, you can use MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, or Firebird. Just about any operating system will do, but we recommend a 'nix-based one for deployment."

http://otherthingsnow.blogspot.com/2005/12/ruby-on-rails-10-released.html
and slashdot
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/14/0034219&tid=156&tid=8

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Tuesday, December 13, 2005

FireRuby included in RubyOnRails 0.14.4 (Active Record 1.13.1)

Details on Firebird Adapter (for Rails) page
"Now with integrated goodness! It looks like Rails 0.14.4 (Active Record 1.13.1) has the Firebird Adapter and patches to work with Firebird. Worked out the box for me with Firebird 1.5 Superserver. Skip the patching directions but all the usage rules below still apply."

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FireRuby 0.4.1

FireRuby is an extension for the Ruby language that provides an OO interface
over the Firebird open source RDBMS C API.

This is a maintenance release. Work on getting the library working on a 64 bit
platform threw up some (ahem!) questionable code. This code was corrected and
this release brings those updates to all existing supported platforms. A 64
bit Linux build has also been created and added to the list of available gems.
Thanks go to David Walthour for getting the 64 bit version working.

No new functionality has been added for this release and all existing
functionality remains unchanged. As usual check the README that accompanies
the release for more details.


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Which DB is more compatible with Lazarus?

Will there be a native component for mysql5 into Lazarus?

There already is. That is, if you use the newest fpc version from svn.
(2.0.3 or 2.1.1)


Then install the sqldb package that you can find in the components
directory of your Lazarus installation.

> It's not a troll but which DB is more compatible with Lazarus?
> eepascal.org/mailarchives

Sqldb, which is part of fpc supports Mysql 4.0,4.1,5.0,
firebird/interbase, postgresql, ODCB and Oracle.

Firebird/Interbase and Oracle supports the most features. Followed by
Postgresql, ODBC and the least supportive is MySQL.

Firebird/Interbase is tested and used the most. Oracle is brand new, and
no-one tried it really...

So if you can choose your database, I would go for Firebird, Postgres or
eventually Oracle.

--
Met vriendelijke groeten,

Joost van der Sluis
CNOC Informatiesystemen en Netwerken
http://www.cnoc.nl


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Mac OSX (10.4) port of Firebird 3.0 (Vulcan)


The Mac OSX port of Vulcan is working though it hasn't
been tested multi-user, and has some rough edges in the
build. It uses gcc 4.0 which offers some warnings that
I could live without, and will figure out how to eliminate.

Here's the procedure.

1) download vulcan from CVS

2) define the environmental variable VULCAN to be
/install

3) define ISC_USER and ISC_PASSWORD as SYSDBA and
masterkey respectively.

4) add $VULCAN/install/bin to your PATH variable

5) add $VULCAN/install/bin to your DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
variable

6) edit the file autogen.sh changing all
instances of libtool and libtoolizer to glibtool
and glibtoolizer respectively.

7) run autogen.sh

8) go to the /src/buildgen directory and

9) make buildgen (i.e. type "make")

10) in the same directory type "make install"

11) go to the /src directory

12) edit the files build and boot_build, changing gmake
to make.

13) test that you can find buildgen (which buildgen)

14) fix whatever it is that keeps you from finding buildgen

15) type "./set_platform darwin" - without the quotes of course.

16) run boot_build piping output and errors to a file.

You'll find a number of warnings about the incorrect use of
offsetof macro - MemMgr and a few other files. It works fine.
Jrd reports lots of multiply defined symbols from gds.o but
appears to work find and won't link on Windows without gds.o.
Burp gives lots warnings about
non-local variable ':: ::isc_xxx
uses anonymous type. It works too.


Regards,


Ann W. Harrison




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Monday, December 12, 2005

Morfik crew released Alpha version of their Ajax IDE - WebOS

There's been a major announcement from the Morfik crew today - the release of the Alpha version of their much anticipated Ajax IDE - WebOS.
More on http://www.ajaxdeveloper.org/news/597
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Events API implementation in Jaybird

 I've just committed the initial implementation of the Events API into
CVS. Up until now it's only been tested on my system (Linux), so I'd be
particularly interested in hearing from anyone who can test it on
Windows and other systems.

For anyone who's interested in trying it out, I would suggest looking in
the javadoc for org.firebirdsql.event.FBEventManager. It should
(hopefully) be quite self-explanatory. If there are any suggestions,
problems, questions, etc. please don't hesitate to post them.

Regards,

Gabriel

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InterBase 7.5.1 and Firebird 1.5.2 TPC-R based test results

First test results for Firebird 1.5.2 and InterBase 7.5.1 are published.

"Our first goal was testing of existed current release versions of InterBase and Firebird – InterBase 7.5.1 and Firebird 1.5.2 accordingly. Well, we’ve encountered problems with InterBase 7.5.1 testing – it generated so bad plan for queries 3 and 20 that we were not able to wait its finishing, so these queries were omitted in test results."


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Firebird is a very impressive DB - blog of the day

I agree with him and i'm not the only one who knows we need to create more "buzz" I have said many times what are the methods , You can start with small things:blog , spread firebird logo on your site ... (search in the firebird-general list archive for all the ideas)

"Firebird is a very impressive DB and could easily gain market share if those who develop it tried harder to create a buzz about it. It is free, has paid support if you want it, has many years development behind it, is light in resource usage, is cross-platform and has had many features for years (such as stored procs) which MySQL only recently gained. One to watch."
http://www.argolon.com/?p=35

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Friday, December 09, 2005

Firebird Internal Engine Version 8.0 = 3.0 (aka Vulcan)

Si Carter wrote:
> Does anybody know what version FB would now be at if it hadn't been
> renamed, re-branded etc over the last 21 years?


There was only one release of Rdb/Eln... So add
1 to all the InterBase numbers. If you consider V1.0
of Firebird equivalent to V7.1 of the long historical
record, V1.5 is V7.5, and the new one is V8.

Best,


Ann

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Sourceforge Google Firebird


On 12/9/05, paulruizendaal wrote:
> If you type "sourceforge" in Google, Firebird appears as result #9.
> Somehow Firebird is more closely associated with sourceforge than
> almost all other popular projects.
Interesting ,
Is good reason to suggest sf.net so they include firebird in project
of the month
http://sourceforge.net/potm/

(Interested in having your project be Project of the Month? Here's
how to apply, it's easy: Write a note to staff at sf.net with the subject
line: POTM. Mention your project name and why you think your project
should be selected.)


ps: maybe the news page on sourceforge should be updated ,
News is included in sourceforge newsletter (more eyeballs)
http://sourceforge.net/news/?group_id=9028

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Fyracle 0.8.10 released

Fyracle 0.8.10 released
=======================

Changes:

- Added support for Delphi clients
- Added support for CAST expressions
- Added support for CREATE PACKAGE, etc.
- Added support for overloading
- Fixed the behaviour of CHECK constraints
when dealing with NULL values
- Many bug fixes and small enhancements


Download:

The new runtime installers can be downloaded from:
http://www.fyracle.org/downloads

The developer kit can be downloaded via:
http://www.janus-software.com/fb_buy.html

Read the rest on fyracle news group


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Compiere 2.5.3a for Fyracle released

Fyracle 0.8.10 is accompanied by a new Compiere port,
version 2.5.3a. The Compiere port has been created by our
partner "Jotel" and can de downloaded from:
http://www.jotel.com.pl/index.php/39/0/?&L=1

User happily working with Compiere 2.5.1g can continue
to do so. For these users, Fyracle 0.8.10 fixes a regression that had been introduced in Fyracle 0.8.7

Note that "porting" Compiere is mainly adding a Fyracle option to the login screen and moving the default database content; The core of the Compier code is unchanged. The big work in "porting" Compiere is carefully test the functionality and ensure that things work as they should.

Support for Compiere on Fyracle is available:
http://www.jotel.com.pl/index.php/37/0/?&L=1
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quote of day - alternative to mysql

"Not at all, PostgreSQL (and Firebird) licenses allow this [ed :commercial license], provided that you mention the original authors and project.
It's MySQL (GPL version!!) that doesn't allow this, you need a commercial license.Let me add that Firebird is an excellent embedded database."

Read the rest on devshed forum
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Firebird useful resources

Pabloj wrote :
"This is a list of useful resources about Firebird.
Hope people will find them useful and keep adding items to this list"

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Today, AJAX Enters The Next Phase (With Firebird help)

Well, many of you have been itching for a REAL AJAX development environment. Today is the day you can get your first taste.

Morfik, a company from Tasmania, has a very cool tool they call WebOS. WebOS is, to put it plainly, an AJAX IDE. As far as I know, it is the first one. You don't have to know javascript, or PHP, or how to configure Apache or mySQL, or some other server to build AJAX applications. You can use a graphical environment, draw up tables and queries, draw forms, reports, etc., and write your code in Basic, Pascal, C#, or Java and WebOS will build both the client and server side portions for you. The Server side is a combination of Apache for the web server and Firebird for the database server.

Read the rest on Ajax developer (blog)

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The Inquirer: Open Source databases rounded up and rodeod

Gives a general overview of why OSS DBs are becoming very important in
the market, highlighting the recent MySQL vs Oracle InnoDB mess as an
example. FB gets a mention in the round-up.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28201

[quote]
*Firebird*
Date established: 1984
Number of employees: 15
Latest release: Firebird 1.5.3, released in July
Strong points: A very mature database requiring minimal administration,
full-featured SQL ACID-compliant database engine that implements most of
the SQL-99 standard. Compiere module runs Oracle PL/SQL code, highly
portable, available in three sizes: classic, superserver and embedded,
supports databases that can span multiple files with a theoretical limit
of 64 terrabytes for a single-file database.
Weak points: Needs better public relations
Executive quote: Ann Harrison, CTO, "Our current focus is targeting
application developers creating applications for resale. We think this
is an area not well served by MySQL because of their GPL, and not well
served by postgres because it is not designed to be installed transparently"
Recent news: Very successful conference in Prague, prepping the V2.0 Beta
[/quote]

Scott


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Thursday, December 08, 2005

Turbocash looks to Linux/Firebird for expansion

"The result is that the Delphi-based accounting software is developed and optimised for Windows. The Linux version of Turbocash will have to be re-developed from the ground up. “We are looking for Python or Lazarus programmers. We have not yet decided on the final environment. The database will most likely be Firebird or MySQL,”
http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=756
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Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Firebird Slackware package [DONE]

Found it on linux package
"This site is dedicated to the the enrichment and enhancement of the Slackware Linux operating system. We are gathering a vast resource of Slackware packages from around the world. "
http://www.linuxpackages.net/pkg_details.php?id=8274
ps:some romanians are involved with site code

This web site is hand coded, it is not based off any nuke puke or any of those other prefab portals. The backend alone is a monster amount of php code and continues to grow.

Mihai Ionascu (mihai at roundpixel dot org) - Graphic Design
Cristian Voinea (trotter at opensys dot ro) - HTML template
Robert Stan (robalo at linuxpackages dot net) :-)
Jason Woodward (woodwardj at jaos dot org) Backend scripts
John Vallejos (jav at linuxpackages dot net) Package approvals and Good friend

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Firebird blog of the day

it's about EMS firebird/ib manager :
EMS Manager We are pleased to announce new version of InterBase/FireBird Manager. You can download the newest version from the download page.

..::::..

Firebird Expert released

The IBExpert team announced a new version of IBExpert with many bug fixes and new features including a script runner called IBEBlock. Look here for some examples of user scripts and IBEBlock's.
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Devrace have released FIBPlus V6.30

Devrace have released FIBPlus V6.30, more information is available in the release notes.

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Firebird Conference 2005 - Cuckoo Clock

Firebird Conference 2005: Jason Chapman and "that" Cuckoo Clock...
..::::..

Firebird Database Workbench v2.8.0 released!

We are proud to announce version 2.8.0 of Database Workbench, the next major release of our popular cross database engine developer tool. This version offers new features, many enhancements and a lot of bugfixes.

Database engines supported

* InterBase
* Firebird
* Microsoft SQL Server
* MySQL
* Oracle

New Features

Version 2.8 includes new features like:

* Microsoft SQL Server 2005/SQL Express 2005 support
* MySQL 5 support
* Increased Oracle support (v8, 9 and 10)
* Two-way Visual Query Builder
* Create INSERT script from any ODBC datasource

and much more...

Enhancements and bugfixes
Version 2.8 also includes many enhancements to make development easier and many bugfixes in many areas. Enhancements include:

* New "SQL Insight" module
* Code/SQL Editor enhancements
* Many user interface enhancements
* More complete Schema Migrate/Compare features
* Automatic image-type recognition in BLOB Editor

Download now: http://www.upscene.com

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New version of Interbase/Firebird Development Studio has been released

Interbase/Firebird Development Studio has been updated. This version
includes several new features and major improvements:
- Code Formatting
- Data Browser - a very useful tool to browse data from linked tables.
- Plan Analyzer is able to extract selectivity values for indicies used in the query plan.
- Database Designer now contains SQL Script objects.

A lot of minor improvements and fixes have been made.

30 days trial version is available from our download page:
http://www.sqlly.com/download.html

More detailes about Interbase/Firebird Development Studio can be found on
these pages:
http://www.sqlly.com/IBDS.html
http://www.sqlly.com/dbdesigner.html

--
Best regards,
Pavel Kutakov
SQLLY Development team
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Monday, December 05, 2005

The InterBase and Firebird Developer Magazine - third edition

I am glad to announce the third issue of “The InterBase and Firebird Developer Magazine”. Electronic version is available for free download here:

www.ibdeveloper.com/issue3/ibdeveloper03.zip
www.ibknowledgebase.com/download/ibdeveloper03.zip
http://www.ibsurgeon.com/download/ibdeveloper03.zip


Printed version is also available:
http://www.lulu.com/content/196160

We have done a lot of work and I hope you will enjoy new design and quality of our magazine (especially “luxury”print version).
Please do not forget to express your opinions, thoughts and suggestions in blog or via email readers@ibdeveloper.com

Sincerely yours,
Alexey Kovyazin
Editor-In-Chief
The InterBase and Firebird Developer Magazine

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Migrating from InterBase 6.01 to Firebird 1.5 / 2.0

"We recently converted our InterBase 6.01 application to Firebird 2.0 Beta and kept a record of differences and their effect on our conversion process. Before we started this, we searched for any conversion guidance document on the web and did not find any one summarizing document, so we decided to keep a record and make it available to others who might want to tread the same path."
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JayBird 2.0.1 released

I am pleased to announce release of JayBird 2.0.1. Since JayBird 2.0.0
release following bugs were fixed:

* Bug 1370017. NullPointerException in updatable result set if new value is
set to null.

Best regards,
Roman Rokytskyy.
.::::..

Friday, December 02, 2005

FSQL v1.4.0

FSQL is the tool I use approximately one year instead of standard ISQL.
It has some enhancements, like commands to import data from csv,
show attached users, inserting file contents into blob, etc.
To list new commands execute HELP command, short description,
some examples, and link for download is here:

http://www.volny.cz/iprenosil/interbase/

Any feedback is welcome.

Ivan Prenosil

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Wednesday, November 30, 2005

FBHook v0.2 - Firebird Hook

I am pleased to announce the first release of FBHook.

FBHook is a simple utility which will hook and report the following events
from any Firebird Client Application:

~ Database connect/disconnect
~ SQL Statements
~ Transaction Start/Commit/Rollback

FBHook can be downloaded from (http://sourceforge.net/projects/fbutils).

Rgds

Si Carter
..::::..

FBMail, FIBackup and Firebird XML Export

FBMail, FIBackup and Firebird XML Export
Have a new home at sourceforge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/fbutils)

Rgds

Si Carter
http://www.fbtalk.net/ - Web Based Firebird Forum
..::::..

Firebird ADo.NET data Provider 2.0 Beta 1 released

The Firebird ADo.NET Data Provider 2.0 Beta 1 for Microsoft.NET 2.0

Download information can be found here:

http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php?op=files&id=netprovider


· Beta 1( 2005-11-30 ) ·

(Please read the Changelog for details)

New features:

- New GDS implementation for the Firebird/Fyracle External Proceudre
engine implementation.

* Added a new namespace FirebirdSql.Data.StoredProcedureEngine
with two new classes:

- FbResultSet
- FbTriggetContext
Changes:

- Cleanup.

- Updated to build using .NET 2.0 RTM.

- Improved connection pooling implementation.

- Changes on FbConnectionStringBuilder class to use the new
FbServerType enumeration.



--
Best regards

Carlos Guzmán Álvarez

..::::..::::..::::..::::..

EMS SQL Query 2005 version 2.1 released

[From EMS Software Development]

EMS announces a new version of SQL Query 2005 - a utility for visually building SQL queries for MySQL, PostgreSQL, MS SQL, Interbase/Firebird and DB2 databases! Its user-friendly graphical interface allows you to connect to databases, select tables and fields for a query, set the selection criteria and much more.

You can download the latest version from http://www.sqlmanager.net/downloads

The article continues at http://www.sqlmanager.net/news/751


..::::..::::..::::..::::..

Connect to Firebird embedded, two faces of the same coin

Pabloj Moderator of Oracle and MsSQL forums at Devshed.com wrote :
"I'm doing some experiments with Firebird 2.0 beta 1 embedded and I found out some "interesting "features:

1. You can connect to an embedded Firebird database through ODBC
2. You can also connect to an embedded Firebird database through JDBC"

Read the rest on it's own blog
..::::..::::..::::..

Firebird Linux backup script

Ed: someone asked on support list
"For years I have used a program called GBACKSCHED on my Win32 servers
to backup firebird db's using a method that provided daily and weekly
archiving. I am now moving servers to Linux and need a utility that
will do the same and was thinking a shell script run by crontab would
do the trick."

Response From: "Ian A. Newby"
"Here mine.
It creates a backup directory named for the day of the week (except
for sunday, when it names it with the week number). It then Symlinks a
Current directory to point to the current backup directory. This is
used by a different script which fetches the backups to a different
server."

..::::..::::..

Monday, November 28, 2005

Firebird roadmap available online

For those who missed the presentation of Firebird Project Coordinator Dmitry Yemanov's conference white paper about what's happening now and through the next year or so with Firebird development, you can pick it up now. Includes a long-view roadmap and features a summary for planned future releases.
http://firebird.sourceforge.net/devel/engine/roadmap2006.html
..::::..

Saturday, November 26, 2005

KInterbasDB 3.1.3 released

What is KInterbasDB?
--------------------
KInterbasDB is a Python extension package that implements Python
Database API 2.0-compliant support for the open source relational
database Firebird and some versions of its proprietary cousin Borland
Interbase. In addition to the minimal feature set of the standard
Python DB API, KInterbasDB also exposes nearly the entire native
client API of the database engine.

KInterbasDB is free--covered by a permissive BSD-style license that
both commercial and noncommercial users should find agreeable.


What's new in release 3.1.3?
----------------------------
KInterbasDB 3.1.3, a maintenance release of the stable 3.1 branch,
fixes two bugs. This will probably be the last release in the 3.1
series. A changelog is available here:
http://kinterbasdb.sourceforge.net/dist_docs/changelog.txt


Where can I learn more about and download KinterbasDB?
------------------------------------------------------
http://kinterbasdb.sourceforge.net
..::::..::::..

Friday, November 25, 2005

Beginners guide to Firebird and PHP - updated

The paper "Beginners guide to Firebird and PHP" By Lester Caine has been updated.
..::::..::::..

Firebird vs XE (Oracle) - embedded databases war

"Personally, I can’t imagine using Oracle for the kinds of things for which they’re targeting XE. MySQL, PostgreSQL and Firebird all deal pretty nicely with the low end. Oracle even mentions using XE as an embedded database! I wonder what kind of footprint that would have. Certainly much larger than sqlite and probably much larger than Firebird as well."

via Kevin Dangoor
..::::..

Firebird Gold Mine

FrontRange Solutions has released GoldMine 7.0 Corporate Edition with an
redesigned database structure using Firebird SQL, though invisible to most users, will improve program performance and reduce server loads.

http://www.destinationcrm.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=5627

..::::..

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

The first printed issue of IBDeveloper.com

I am glad to inform you that the first printed issue of “The InterBase
and Firebird Developer Magazine” is available for ordering.
It was redesigned to 8.5x11 portrait format with professional 300 dpi
resolution.
It will be printed in full color on high-quality paper with very nice cover.

You can buy it at here:
http://www.lulu.com/content/182432

Price is USD$14.99 without shipping.

Don’t miss an opportunity to have a hard copy of “all times greatest
hits” magazine!

Sincerely yours,
Alexey Kovyazin
Chief Editor
The InterBase and Firebird Developer Magazine
www.ibdeveloper.com


..::::..

EMS SQL Query 2005 for InterBase and Firebird V2.1 has been released.

EMS SQL Query 2005 for InterBase and Firebird V2.1 has been released.
..::::..

Articles on Embedded Firebird and ADO.NET

Brian Lakstins is writing nice articles about using Embedded Firebird in .NET
Read the rest on dotnetfirebird

..::::..::::..::::..

Railroad Barons and Open Source Databases, Conclusion?

Railroad Barons, Conclusion? by Josh Berkus

"I bet Lewis Cunnigham that within 10 years of this post, open source software will dominate the database market. Particularly, I'll bet that by November 19th, 2015:

1. At least 60% of all revenue in the database market will come from support, services, and bundled applications attached to open source, shared source, freeware or hybrid databases;
2. At least one major proprietary database vendor among the current top four (Oracle, Sybase, MS and IBM) will go out of business, open-source their main database system, or convert entirely to bundled freeware licensing;
3. At least two-thirds (measured financially) of applications vendors, integrators and hardware vendors will offer official support for one or more open source database systems, and at least one in ten will support open source databases exclusively.
4. At least one company whose primary emphasis is an open source database or related services, or one division of a larger company devoted to an open source database, will report more than $200 million in revenue (or the inflated equivalent) for the year."

http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/database/soup/archives/006598.asp?rss=1
..::::..

Intalling Firebird 1.5 on osx 10.4 (in spanish)

Instalando Firebird CS 1.5 en OS X 10.4

..::::..

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

New version of IBUtils a free Firebird database schema viewer

New features
- Firebird 2.0 support - IBUtils can now work with FB 2.0 Beta 1. I do not use FB 2.0 regularly (still working with FB 1.5), but it seems that everything works fine. In case of troubles with FB 2.0, do not hesitate to contact me. [ED: author Ales Kahanek]
http://www.riverdata.cz/ibutils/ibutils.htm




..::::..

Database Revival - Firebird mentioned

The market may be consolidating, but new players are jumping in with low-cost and open-source alternatives. There's a lot to choose from-just be sure the new products will grow with your needs.

Article By Charles Babcock
InformationWeek
..::::..

Monday, November 21, 2005

Firebird Library 0.82

Open Source Library No Data Aware for direct access to Firebird Relational Database from Borland Delphi / Kylix , Freepascal and Lazarus Changes in this version
New component TFBLParamDsql (thanks to Uwe Willmann) it's a direct TFBLDSQL descendant supporting named parameters instead of "?" placeholders, like IBX and IBObjects. lazarus package (fblib.lpk) now works with version 0.9.10 of lazarus ide.


..::::..::..::....::..::..

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

FireRuby 0.4.0

Project: FireRuby

Its been a while but version 0.4.0 of the FireRuby library has been released. The two big highlights for this release are some changes to aid in the development of the Firebird ActiveRecord adapter and the addition of functionality to obtain type information for database fields. Consult the documentation accompanying the release for more information.


..::::..::::..::::..

Monday, November 14, 2005

JayBird 2.0 released

On behalf of the JayBird team I am pleased to announce that JayBird 2.0.0 is
released. You can download it from the SourceForge.net site, the links on
the Wiki will be updated in two days (currently I'm on Firebird Conference
2005 in Prague).

Roman

..::::..::::..

Railroad Barons, follow-up Posted by Josh Berkus

"Last week Lewis Cunningham (the guy who turned me on to ITToolbox, if that matters) responded to Railroad Barons and Crippleware strongly enough for me to take it as a compliment. Since it's been a while (due to my travel schedule) I'm responding here rather than in a comment on Lewis's blog."

..::::..

Fyracle support for Delphi

Janus (janus-software.com) wrote on fyracle newsgroup:

"Please find a new build of fyracle.dll in the /dowloads area.
Let us know how it works for you.

We're all at the FB conference in Prague, so if it works okay we can announce Delphi support at the conference. "
[ED: seems to be working with ibexpress (based on delphi)]

..::::..::::..::::..

Firebird 2.0 Beta 1: New Features

Firebird 2.0 Beta 1 is available - follow the link in the download section. Some of the new features:
  1. incremental hot backup
  2. derived tables (subqueries in FROM clause)
  3. storing databases on raw devices
  4. new EXECUTE BLOCK allows the client to call an "unnamed stored procedure" which is sent as a command
  5. IIF(condition, value1, value2) added as a shortcut to CASE WHEN condition THEN value1 ELSE value2 END
  6. CROSS JOIN is supported ("a CROSS JOIN b" equals "a INNER JOIN b ON 1 = 1")
  7. ROWS introduced to replace FIRST/SKIP
  8. SEQUENCE introduced as a shortcut to GENERATOR
  9. "NEXT VALUE FOR sequence" introduced as a shortcut to "GEN_ID(sequence, 1)"
  10. Default values for stored procedure arguments
  11. Index length limit (252 bytes) is removed
  12. Expression indexes introduced
  13. Optimizer improvements
  14. New string functions: LOWER() and TRIM()
  15. Security improvements (better password encryption, active protection agains brute-force attacks, users can change their own passwords...)
  16. and many others...
See more in the release notes (PDF inside a ZIP).
Ps: article source dotnetfirebird

..::::..

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Fyracle 0.8.9 for Linux released

Changes:

- Added support for stored functions & procedures
in other languages than PL/SQL
- Added plugin for Java stored functions & procedures
- Added support for external C stored functions

Support for external stored procedures has been
contributed by Eugeney Putilin, Vlad Horsun and
Roman Rokytskyy.

Download:

The installers are available through the Janus
Software website and ftp servers. See:
http://www.janus-software.com/runtime_dl.html
for the free runtime & developer demo
and see:
http://www.janus-software.com/fb_buy.html
for the full developer version.


Upgrade:

The recommended upgrade procedure is to first
uninstall any previous versions of Fyracle and only
then to install the new 0.8.9 release. Remember
to save your configuration files (firebird.conf
and aliases.conf) if you changed them!

The uninstaller has a start menu entry on Windows
and can be found at the top of the install
directory on Linux and Windows.

If you want to use the new Java stored procedures,
please review your java configuration file (jvm.conf)
after installation. The first non-comment line should
contain a path to your java virtual machine (jvm.so).

On Linux, getting to a working JVM install is not so
easy: several shared libraries much be reachable via
the library search path.

Roadmap/Outlook:

An updated version of Compiere will be available soon.
A dotnet/mono plugin is actively being developed.
..::::..::::..::::.::::.::::.

OpenDBCon 2005 - Firebird, Postgresql, Mysql talks

Holger Klemt had firebird talks in this conference

http://www.opendbcon.net/?dir=1&id=1

I spoted the news on Josh Berkus's blog

It's pretty exciting to have all of these open source database developers in one place. So far: HSQLDB, Derby, SQLite, Firebird, Ingres, us (PostgreSQL) and of course a huge MySQL contingent (they're one of the conference sponsors). It's definitely a cool alternative to the database track at OSCON, because here we can do technical talks liable to be comprehended only by other database geeks.

http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/database/soup/archives/006461.asp?rss=1

..::::..

Saturday, November 05, 2005

Open Source Business Accounting with Quasar (hosted on Firebird+Postgresql)

Quasar comes with drivers for Firebird (a cross-platform, open source relational database system originally based on InterBase) and PostgreSQL

http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=424449

..::::..::::..

Sparky IV on eBay (Firebird RDBMS EXCLUSIVE Geek Toy)

Sparky IV has just gone up on eBay for auction (Foundation fund-raising). Search in Computers & IT for "Sparky IV Firebird". The main listing is
a www.ebay.com.au but you can reach it with that search from the others as
well.

Happy bidding! :-)) Please feel free to blog it!

Helen
..::::..

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Oracle's free software foray scorned

"Paul Beach, an administrator of the open source Firebird project, agreed that Oracle Express cannot be compared with the open source databases Firebird and ... "
Full story at zdnetwork

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/applications/0,39020384,39235152,00.htm

..::::..::..::..::..

Monday, October 31, 2005

firebird vs mysql vs postresql

Some benchmarks with above databases

In general they claim that Firebird is much more faster and scales beter than MySQL
and PostgreSQL.

http://noldor.iglu.cz/root_cz_firebird_article.pdf


original article is in slovak on root.cz

Feel free to comment the article (for wich is linked an PDF translation) at
http://www.root.cz/clanky/mysql-vs-postgresql-vs-firebird/nazory/pridat/
In default settings, you can write your name in the third text field
from top and the post title into the fourth one. Leave the radio button
as it is, as most of you probably aren't registered root.cz readers. ;-)

..::::..::..::..

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Most valuable new features in Firebird 2.0


Ann:
"Fixing indexes so garbage collecting records that participate in long
index duplicate chains is fast."
Thomas Steinmaurer:"Beside the ODS change in general (new index structures,
max. index length much higher, expression index, raised exception
message length, RDB$DESCRIPTION fields for other database objects, ...),
the following are on top of my "most valuable" list:

- Non-exclusive access when creating FOREIGN KEYs
- New database shutdown modes
- Sequence and new cursor syntax
- User-definable context variables (way cool!!!)
- Optimizer and buffer cache improvements
- Derived tables (how did I missed them when coming from Oracle)
- New INTL interface"
Frank:
"not to forget nbak"
Zaher:
"- EXECUTE BLOCK, it is like on the fly procedure
- Default paremeters in stored procedures"
Simon Carter:
"EXECUTE BLOCK
Get/Set Context - Because it paves the way for easily adding new built in
functions in future releases :-)
IIF
SUBSTRING enhancements
NEXT VALUE FOR
User can modify own passwords
Extending CREATE OR ALTER syntax to more objects."





..::::..

Nice feature request for firebird 2.0, firebird 3.0

Submitted By: Valdir Marcos da Silva

Initial Comment:
Using FB 1.5.2, via Delphi or C/C++ programming, I just
can retrieve from the server:
- name of users conected;
- DBFileName opended in my conection;
- Fetches
- CurrentMemory (in bytes) used by FB

Could I suggest here (or should I address it where to?)
in FB 2.0 or 3.0 about this subject?
The information available could be:
- the DBFileNames opened;
- memory (in MB) used by each FDB;
- fetches used by each FDB;
- locks [Is it possible to show who user(s) is locking
which table(s)/record(s)?] used by each FDB;
- users (name, IP, memory used, fetches, id of the
transactions being used, locks) in each FDB;
- log of when the FB server were started/stoped;
- log of commands sent to the server, like SQL monitors
collect;

Could we get this information via select against
special system tables?

Obtaining this information from select would be much
more ease than by developing programs via API.

Best regards,

Valdir Marcos

..::::..

Sunday, October 23, 2005

Fyracle 0.8.9 released

Changes:

- Added support for stored functions & procedures
in other languages than PL/SQL
- Added plugin for Java stored functions & procedures
- Added support for external C stored functions

Support for external stored procedures has been
contributed by Eugeney Putilin, Vlad Horsun and
Roman Rokytskyy.

The Linux builds are expected to be available during
the coming week.

Download:

The installers are available through the Janus
Software website and ftp servers. See:
http://www.janus-software.com/runtime_dl.html
for the free runtime & developer demo
and see:
http://www.janus-software.com/fb_buy.html
for the full developer version.


Upgrade:

The recommended upgrade procedure is to first
uninstall any previous versions of Fyracle and only
then to install the new 0.8.9 release. Remember
to save your configuration files (firebird.conf
and aliases.conf) if you changed them!

The uninstaller has a start menu entry on Windows
and can be found at the top of the install
directory on Linux and Windows.

If you want to use the new Java stored procedures,
please review your java configuration file (jvm.conf)
after installation. The first non-comment line should
contain a path to your java virtual machine (jvm.dll).

Roadmap/Outlook:

The Linux build and an updated version of Compiere
will be available soon.


..::::..::::..

Friday, October 21, 2005

Building debian package part2 - including svn hackery with added bonus that changes are tracked

marius popa wrote:
> An small guide for building it from sources (tested it
> on etch and should work on others :unstable, ubuntu breezy)

Thanks. Here's another one, including svn hackery with added bonus that
changes are tracked :-)

get upstream source (.tar.bz2) and repack it:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/firebird/firebird-1.5.2.4731.tar.bz2?download

$ bzcat firebird-1.5.2.4731.tar.bz2 | gzip > firebird2_1.5.2.orig.tar.gz

untar

$ tar xzf firebird2_1.5.2.orig.tar.gz
$ cd firebird-1.5.2.4731

get debian/

$ svn co svn://svn.debian.org/pkg-firebird/trunk/debian

ready... steady... go!

$ debuild -i
or
$ dpkg-buildpackage -i

this shall complain if some build-depends package is missing. install
what needed

build result is in ../
"-i" to debuild/dpkg-buildpackage tells dpkg-source to ignore .svn/ dirs
when generating diff.gz


Now is the funny part. You have something to contribute!
1. Ask to be included to pkg-firebird project on alioth.
2. in the checkout command above replace svn://svn.debian.org with
svn+ssh://svn.debian.org/svn

firebird2 uses dpatch for patch management.

3. read debian/README.dpatch and follow instructions there
4. commit your changes in debian/
5. Nice work!

If stuck, ask on pkg-firebird for a hint :-)
--
Damyan Ivanov


..::::..::::..::::..

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Building debian package - nano howto

An small guide for building it from sources (tested it
on etch and should work on others :unstable, ubuntu breezy)

Install all packages required for building it

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/ch-start.en.html

add [optional]

deb ftp://www.creditreform.bg/public sid main
deb-src ftp://www.creditreform.bg/public sid main

in file
/etc/apt/sources.list

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

apt-get source firebird2

cd firebird2-1.5.2

debbuild

[wait until DONE]
cd ../

dpkg -i *.deb
where * is package you need {superserver,classic}

..::::..::::..::::..

Firebird V1.5.2 Classic Server for HPUX11 is available

Firebird V1.5.2 Classic Server for HPUX11 is available for download.
..::::..::::..::::..
Fyracle 0.8.9pre2 released

A second pre-release is available for beta testers. The full public release may shift into next week, to enable including the final release of JayBird 2.0.0


Source for news: fyracle.org




..::::..::::..

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

1.5.2-9 is ready to be uploaded to debian archive.

Changelog since last upload (1.5.2-7) can be seen below my signature.

Source/binary packages are on
deb ftp://www.creditreform.bg/public sid main
deb-src ftp://www.creditreform.bg/public sid main

Package builds in pbuilder, has no new lintian warnings[1] and my tests show it
is OK.

Francesco, may I ask you to upload it in the archive? In case you rebuild the
source package (and .changes), please remember to use "-v1.5.2-7" to make
.changes get -8 and -9 changelogs and the "Closes: xyz" correctly.


Thanks in advance
dam

[1] there is one lintian warning about unknown archtectures. This warning is
because type-handling is used to set package architectures and `type-handling
i386,amd64 any' returns much too optimistic set of architectures like
freebsd-i386, hurd-amd64 and similar. I am not yet certain if this is a bad thing.

--
Damyan Ivanov Creditreform Bulgaria
divanov@creditreform.bg http://www.creditreform.bg/
phone: +359(2)928-2611, 929-3993 fax: +359(2)920-0994
mob. +359(88)856-6067 dam@jabber.minus273.org/Gaim


firebird2 (1.5.2-9) unstable; urgency=low
.
* Added README.dpatch in debian/ to help further maintainers/QA team in
handling this package if such need araises.
Thaks to Florian Ernst.
* Added README.Debian to /usr/share/doc/firebird2-examples, explaining how
to prepare employee sample database for usage.
Thanks to Marius Popa.
* Corrected firebird2-{super,classic}-server.{postinst,preinst,prerm} to put
correct data in SYSDBA.password. s/PASSWD/PASSWORD/
.
firebird2 (1.5.2-8) unstable; urgency=low
.
* "Cleaning up the house"
.
* debian/control.in: Fix short description of firebird2-super-server.
Closes: #299983
* Make editline to not rely on system vis.h and always use its own.
Fixes FTBFS with kerberos4kth-dev 1.2.2-11: undefined reference to
`strunvis' (Closes: #283911)
Reported and fix suggested by Kalle Olavi Niemitalo
* Improve long descriptions of libfbembed1 and libfbclient1.
Closes: #329330 "libfbclient1: long description lacks everything"
Gerfried Fuchs spotted this. Thanks.
* Corrected sections:
- libfbclient1, libfbembed1 -> libs
- firebird2-utils-* -> utils
- firebird2-dev -> libdevel
- firebird2-examples -> doc
Gerfried Fuchs spotted this too. Thanks again.
* debian/README.64bit: add note about 64/32-bit incompatibility of
on-disk-structure of databases
* Fix typo in debian/make_packages.sh, causing UDF definition .sql files to
be installed in -classic-server. Now they go in -server-common.
Closes: #322199 firebird2-classic-server: Missing sql for functions of
ib_udf and fbudf
* firebird2-classic-server: xinetd configuration file is now installed
regardless of xinetd presense. Provided xinetd configuration is disabled,
however.
* fmbgr.bin fixed to point to /var/log/firebird.log when a problem occurs.
Prevoiusly pointed to $FIREBIRD/log/firebird.log
+ debian/patches/fbmgr_correct_log_path.dpatch
* Turn off echo when asking for sysdba password
* Ask for sysdba password only on one is not yet set (very first install)
* Move SYSDBA.password from /usr/lib/firebird2 to /etc/firebird2
* /etc/init.d/firebird2: source /etc/firebird2/SYSDBA.password to get sysdba
password.
* pre-boot autotools
+ debian/patches/autoboot.dpatch
+ remove autoconf and libtool from Build-Depends
* update src/extern/editline/config.{guess,sub} to those from 2005-09-13
+ fixes two lintian warnings
* aliases.conf: use /var/lib/firebird2/data for employee.fdb
* firebird-classic-server.prerm: detect active connections using
fb_lock_print



..::::..

Firebird Conference Ad on debcentral.org


"I am pleased to inform you that your banner ad is now active on
DebCentral.org. I apologize for the delay in getting it published. If
there is any more we can do for you, please don't hesitate to contact
us. Thank you.

Best Regards,
Josh King"

[ED:Thank you Josh]

..::::..::::..

Monday, October 17, 2005

Fyracle 0.8.9pre released

Fyracle 0.8.9pre released
==============================

Changes:

- Added support for stored functions & procedures
in other languages than PL/SQL
- Added plugin for Java stored functions & procedures
- Added support for external C stored functions

Support for external stored procedures has been
contributed by Eugeney Putilin, Vlad Horsun and
Roman Rokytskyy.

Download:

This pre-release is available to beta testers only.
Only a Win32 version is available at this point in
time.


Upgrade:

The recommended upgrade procedure is to first
uninstall any previous versions of Fyracle and only
then to install the new 0.8.9 release. Remember
to save your configuration files (firebird.conf
and aliases.conf) if you changed them!

The uninstaller has a start menu entry on Windows
and can be found at the top of the install
directory on Linux and Windows.

Please review your java configuration file after
installation. The first non-comment line should
contain a path to your java virtual machine (jvm.dll),
the second non-comment line should contain a path
to the plugin jdbc driver.


Roadmap/Outlook:

Full public releases of Fyracle 0.8.9 should be available
in the course of the week commencing 17 October.

..::::..::::..

Second issue of “The InterBase and Firebird Developer Magazine” is published.

It is available for downloading on http://www.ibdeveloper.com. Also you may find a lot of information there: articles from previous issues, bonus articles, recent news and events, advertising articles.

We invite you to participate in blog discussions – place your comments, ask questions and do not hesitate to contact us (readers@ibdeveloper.com)!

Looking forward for your feedback!

Sincerely yours,
Alexey Kovyazin
Chief Editor
The InterBase and Firebird Developer Magazine
www.ibdeveloper.com


..::::..

Friday, October 14, 2005

MDO Team announce a new version of Mercury Database Objects

Artur Anjos and the MDO Team announce a new version of Mercury Database Objects, an open source data-access component suite, providing direct access to Firebird from Borland Delphi applications. MDO is a descendant of FreeIBComponents by Greg Deatz, so IBX users looking for a migration path to Firebird can have a look at these. Download MDO here.
..::::..::::..::::..

Firebird JDBC Driver V1.5.6 Final and V2.0 Release Candidate 3 are now available for download

Jaybird (Firebird Class 4 JCA-JDBC Driver) V1.5.6 and V2.0 Release Candidate 3 are now available for download.
..::::..::::..::::..

Firebird .NET Data Provider V1.7.1 Release CaFirebird .NET Data Provider V1.7.1 Release Candidate 3

Carlos Guzmán Álvarez has announced the availability of the Firebird .NET Data Provider V1.7.1 Release Candidate 3 for download with improved input parameter handling.

..::::..::::..::::..

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Results of the Race to Linux

"CodeProject today announced the winners. In one case an application
was rewritten line-by-line with PHP, which took twenty three hours."

"The Reports Starter Kit and TimeTracker were ported to Linux using
Mono and the database replaced with Firebird SQL."

http://www.mono-project.com/news/archive/2005/Oct-11.html
..::::..

Monday, October 10, 2005

firebird2_1.5.2-8 ready for testing in Debian Unstable (aka sid)

I've prepared the next upload of firebird2-1.5.2.

Source and binary packages are in ftp://www.creditreform.bg/public/dists/sid/main

It would be nice if any of you wishes to help by installing/upgrading the packages.

All packages and the Release files are signed by me, so you can verify the
signatures with apt 0.6.

Revision history is available on
http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/pkg-firebird/trunk/debian/?rev=0&sc=0

I'll wait a week for bugreports and then ask Francesco for an upload.

Changelog follows:

firebird2 (1.5.2-8) unstable; urgency=low

* "Cleaning up the house"

* debian/control.in: Fix short description of firebird2-super-server.
Closes: #299983
* Make editline to not rely on system vis.h and always use its own.
Fixes FTBFS with kerberos4kth-dev 1.2.2-11: undefined reference to
`strunvis' (Closes: #283911)
Reported and fix suggested by Kalle Olavi Niemitalo
* Improve long descriptions of libfbembed1 and libfbclient1.
Closes: #329330 "libfbclient1: long description lacks everything"
Gerfried Fuchs spotted this. Thanks.
* Corrected sections:
- libfbclient1, libfbembed1 -> libs
- firebird2-utils-* -> utils
- firebird2-dev -> libdevel
- firebird2-examples -> doc
Gerfried Fuchs spotted this too. Thanks again.
* debian/README.64bit: add note about 64/32-bit incompatibility of
on-disk-structure of databases
* Fix typo in debian/make_packages.sh, causing UDF definition .sql files to
be installed in -classic-server. Now they go in -server-common.
Closes: #322199 firebird2-classic-server: Missing sql for functions of
ib_udf and fbudf
* firebird2-classic-server: xinetd configuration file is now installed
regardless of xinetd presense. Provided xinetd configuration is disabled,
however.
* fmbgr.bin fixed to point to /var/log/firebird.log when a problem occurs.
Prevoiusly pointed to $FIREBIRD/log/firebird.log
+ debian/patches/fbmgr_correct_log_path.dpatch
* Turn off echo when asking for sysdba password
* Ask for sysdba password only on one is not yet set (very first install)
* Move SYSDBA.password from /usr/lib/firebird2 to /etc/firebird2
* /etc/init.d/firebird2: source /etc/firebird2/SYSDBA.password to get sysdba
password.
* pre-boot autotools
+ debian/patches/autoboot.dpatch
+ remove autoconf and libtool from Build-Depends
* update src/extern/editline/config.{guess,sub} to those from 2005-09-13
+ fixes two lintian warnings
* aliases.conf: use /var/lib/firebird2/data for employee.fdb
* firebird-classic-server.prerm: detect active connections using
fb_lock_print

-- Damyan Ivanov Sat, 8 Oct 2005 20:47:51 +0300

-- Damyan Ivanov Creditreform Bulgaria
divanov at creditreform.bg
..::::..::::..::::..

Thursday, October 06, 2005

quote of the day - claudio valderama

This what I found in firebird check-ins archive

"Trying to constify Vulcan from pure source code inspection. Now Jim's turn to try to compile."

and Jim's response

"From time to time it becomes appropriate to elect project members to
semi-honorary office. I, for example, am the Project Wolf.
Accordingly, it gives me great pleasure to nominate Claudio to the
official Firebird Const-able."


..::::..

c't Magazine Database Contest

Thanks to Heiko Tappe, we now have the specs and links for the database
programming contest translated to English and hosted at our own website.

URL:

http://firebird.sourceforge.net/connect/ct-dbContest.html

Take a look and have a go!
Good luck!

cheers,
Helen

..::::..

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Firebird and Postfix

Is there any interest at all in getting Firebird support within Postfix?

I have been working on implementing this for my own use and am willing to make it generally available once it is complete if there is interest.

Regards,

Dan Wilson

[ed:Sure we are interested about it , maybe we can write an howto for
postfix to be added on http://www.postfix.org (watch Database support
area)]

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

firebird slackware 10.2 package on the way

Hugo Bernier wrote on support list:
"I'm creating a slackware 10.2 package for my own use of
Firebird-1.5.3-RC1. When Firebird 1.5.3 goes public, I'll probably
submit the package for public consumption.

I will undoubtedly do the same for firebird 2.0.x

I would like to use part of the description of firebird on the main
website for the package description, and part of it in a file that
details the licensing scheme of firebird. I was curious who I should
be asking permission.
"


..::::..::::..::::..

Friday, September 30, 2005

Last day for early bird discount

Today is the last day that a conference attendee can get the "early bird" discount. The conference will cover Firebird developments and roadmap, development technologies (delphi, java, .net & php; 1/2/3-tier, SOA's), user experiences and applications, and developer tips and tricks. Best of all, the conference will enable you to meet many of the core developers and personalities.

..::::..

IBAnalyst 1.9 -released

We are proudly present to you the new version of our unique analytic
tool – IBAnalyst 1.9. Now IBAnalyst brings you

the new quality of database statistics analysis – it can load metadata
of the database and provide more exact hints

and recommendations.

Also the full version contains several white papers and "how-to guides"
regarding database statistics interpretation

and database optimization.

What’s new In IBAnalyst 1.9

* New "Load metadata" option in Services API dialog. Enabling this
option will load metadata (table structure)
* Added column Statistics (Index view). Information is taken from
Services API (if Load Metadata is On). Column

shows rdb$indices.rdb$statistics data. If this information is outdated,
it will be marked yellow for less than 20%

difference with calculated index selectivity, or red if difference
greater than 20%. For that indices right mouse

click on Statistics column enables to recompute selectivity.
* Added total index size into row "Data version percent" at Summary view
* Added column "Size, mb" to Index view.
* TIP size report in recommendations fixed from bytes to kilobytes
* Option "take only header page" in Services API dialog is saved/restored
* Added recommendation about outdated index statistics.
* ODS 9.x information about numeric fields is now taken correctly
* "Wrong ODS" error now processed and reported correctly
* Fixed report in recommendations about gap between Oldest Snapshot and
Oldest Active
* Several interface improvements
* and more!

Download trial version of IBAnalyst 1.9 now from www.ibanalyst.com!

--
Sincerely yours,
Alexey Kovyazin
www.ibsurgeon.com

..::::..

Requesting news about your products (fbdeveloper.com)

Dear Colleagues!

As you know we've published the first issue of "The InterBase and
Firebird Developer Magazine" at September 1.
The second issue will be published at October 15.

We will be glad to publish fresh news about your products - please send
your press releases to press@...
Exclusive news, news about forthcoming products/releases and news
regarding open source initiatives have the highest priority for publication.

Sincerely yours,
Alexey Kovyazin
www.ibdeveloper.com
The Interbase and Firebird Developer Magazine

..::::..

request for fbconference ad on debiancentral.org

It should apear in banner top area (they host ads for open source projects)
http://debcentral.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=38

..::::..

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Spreading the word about the firebird conference

If you want to help spreading the word about the conference, attached
to this message is a banner that you can use.




Cantu (Membro do TeamFB - FireBase)
http://www.warmboot.com.br
FireBase - http://www.FireBase.com.br

..::::..

Friday, September 23, 2005

Version 1.11 of FBCopy tool is released

Version 1.11 of FBCopy tool is released. Grab it while it's hot. :)

With FBCopy, you can easily copy data between Firebird tables and
databases. FBCopy is a command-line tool, so you can use it
inside batch scripts, cron jobs, etc. You can also use the HTML output
option to get a clear overview of database differences.

There are a lot of nice GUI tools that do it, but they all require
thay you have fast access to database. If you have databases on remote
server, which are too big to copy them to your computer, pump the
data, and copy back, FBCopy is the choice.

Also, if you need to pump data on Linux or FreeBSD, this is (AFAIK) the
only native program that does it.


New features:

- Automatic detection of database's charset
- Option to keep going even if some data could not be copied
- Option to disable triggers during copying


Bugfixes and enhancements:

- Computed fields aren't copied anymore
- Detect when tables depend on each other via CHECK constraints
- Fixed dependency sorting (code contributed by Thiago Borges)
- Dependencies via check constraints are taken in consideration


More info and downloads:
http://fbexport.sourceforge.net/fbcopy.html


The tool is open sourced, download and use is free.

--
Milan Babuskov
http://fbexport.sourceforge.net
http://www.flamerobin.org

..::::..