Firebird News

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
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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
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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

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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


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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
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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."

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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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

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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


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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.
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Articles on Embedded Firebird and ADO.NET

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

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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
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Intalling Firebird 1.5 on osx 10.4 (in spanish)

Instalando Firebird CS 1.5 en OS X 10.4

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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




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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
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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.


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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.


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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

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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."

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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)]

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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

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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.
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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

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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

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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
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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

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