DtSQL is a FREE universal database query and editor tools for developers and database administrators to Query, Edit, Browse, and Manage Database objects such as tables, views, indexes, procedures, functions, triggers, contraints and sequences. It can access most databases : Cache, DB2, Derby, Firebird, FrontBase, H2, HSQLDB, Informix, Ingres, JDatastore, MaxDB, Mckoi, Mimer, MySQL, Oracle, PointBase, PostgresSQL, Solid, SQLite, SQL Server, SQL Anywhere, Sybase (ASE).

1. Database Browser Tools : browse schemas, tables, columns, primary and foreign keys, constraints, views, indexes, triggers, stored procedures, functions, sequences, and so on.
2. Database Tools : create, alter, view and drop database tables, views, indexes, constraints, stored procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, and so on.
3. Database Management Tools : edit database table data including binary/BLOB and CLOB data types. Filter, sort and search query result. Insert, duplicate, update, and delete database table data. Find and replace database data, preview generated SQL. Redo or undo last table data change before update is commit.
4. SQL Tools : tools to edit, format and execute SQL scripts.
5. SQL Builder : help tools to build database select, insert, update, delete SQL scripts.
6. Import Data : tools to import data from various formats such as CSV files, Excel files, and fixed-width files. Parse import data according to integer, date, time, timestamp, and boolean pattern.

7. Export Data : tools to export database data (single table/multiple tables/query result) in various formats such as CSV files, Excel files, XML, HTML, SQL insert statements and fixed width files. Format export data according to applied integer, date, time, timestamp, and boolean pattern.

8. It is FREE to use.

9. Home: http://www.dtsql.com

10. Features: http://www.dtsql.com/database_tools.htm

Today, the Precog team has released a free implementation of Precog for PostgreSQL. Precog for PostgreSQL empowers users to easily perform data science on PostgreSQL.

This release bundles the core Precog analysis technology into a completely free package that anyone can download and deploy on their existing PostgreSQL database. Precog for PostgreSQL gives you the ability to analyze all the data in your PostgreSQL database, without forcing you to export data into another tool or write any custom code.

Precog for PostgreSQL comes bundled with Labcoat, a high-level analysis tool that lets users analyze data using Quirrel, the statistically-oriented query language. To get started, visit this page to download the zipped file (includes JAR, scripts and config file).

To get started….

1. Download the zip file
2. Configure Precog
3. Launch Precog
4. Try the API
5. Try Labcoat
6. Analyze your data!

See the read me for the complete installation and configuration instructions. We provide full support for this release so if you run into any trouble, please contact the Precog team at support@precog.com.

Have fun analyzing your data on your PostgreSQL database and let us know what you think!

NEW YORK — Feb. 8, 2013 — Microsoft Corp. announced the Microsoft Surface family of PCs is growing with Surface Pro, the newest member of the Surface family, along with a number of new products and accessories available tomorrow. Surface Pro with Windows 8 Pro is perfect for customers and businesses looking for the power and performance of a PC in a tablet package, and, starting tomorrow, it will hit physical and virtual shelves in the United States and Canada at all Microsoft retail stores and microsoftstore.com and at Staples and Best Buy in the United States and Best Buy and Future Shop in Canada.

New Products

Also starting tomorrow, customers will be able to purchase several new Surface products and accessories, letting them further personalize their computing experiences and be more productive.

• Surface RT with Windows RT will be available in a new 64GB(1) standalone version for an estimated retail price of US$599 to allow customers the option of selecting a cover of their choice.

• Customers will be able to purchase a Wedge Touch Mouse Surface Edition for an estimated retail price of US$69.95 in all markets where Surface is currently sold,(2) with additional markets to follow in the coming weeks.(3)

• Three new Touch Cover Limited Editions in red, magenta and cyan will be available for an estimated retail price of US$129.99 in all markets where Surface is currently sold.(2)

Market Expansion

Microsoft also confirmed today that a substantial increase in market availability of Surface RT will take place on Feb. 14, bringing Surface RT to Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

“We are thrilled to expand the Surface family with the release of Surface Pro,” said Panos Panay, corporate vice president, Microsoft Surface. “The launch of Surface Pro marks a pivotal moment for customers who can now do more with their machines than ever before. Within the Surface family, customers will be able to choose a combination of devices that best suit their needs: Surface Pro, which provides the power and performance of a laptop in a tablet package, or Surface RT, which offers the convenience of a tablet with some laptop capabilities so you can get things done.”

On Oct. 26, Microsoft released Surface RT — a device representative of a tablet with some laptop capabilities that weaves productivity and mobility into one beautiful product. Surface RT is great for people looking for all-day battery life (up to 8 hours battery life) and an entertainment-first experience with the ability to still get some work done. The newest addition to the Surface family, Surface Pro, is more like a full-blown Windows 8 Pro laptop that also boasts tablet capabilities. Now, customers can have a fully functional PC that looks, feels and acts like a tablet. With Surface Pro, customers can do virtually everything they’ve ever done on a PC, ranging from using traditional desktop applications to enjoying the protection of world-class safety and security technologies.

The Surface family of PCs represents an extension of the Windows experience, letting customers work, play and connect with others. From an ultralight durable casing, integrated kickstand and covers that allow customers to be productive anywhere to a full-sized USB port, 16:9 widescreen, high-definition display and 22-degree angle that make it optimal for viewing and sharing content easily, the Surface products let customers seamlessly transition between entertainment and creation.

Additional details on Surface are available at http://www.Surface.com, the Surface Blog and Surface on Facebook. Those interested can follow Surface or Panos Panay on Twitter for additional updates.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

(1) System software uses significant storage space; your storage capacity will be less. See surface.com/spec. 1GB equals 1 billion bytes.

(2) Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and the United States

(3) Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

2ndQuadrant is proud to announce the release of version 1.2.0 of Barman, Backup and Recovery Manager for PostgreSQL.

This major release introduces automated support for retention policies based on redundancy of periodical backups or recovery window.

Retention policies are integrated by a safety mechanism that allows administrators to specify a minimum number of periodical backups that must exist at any time for a server.

For a complete list of changes, see the "Release Notes" section below.

Backup retention policies

A backup retention policy is an user-defined policy that determines how long backups and related archive logs (Write Ahead Log segments in PostgreSQL) need to be retained for recovery procedures.

Through the 'retention_policy' configuration option, Barman retains the periodical backups required to satisfy the current retention policy, and any archived WAL files required for the complete recovery of those backups.

Barman users can define a retention policy in terms of backup redundancy (how many periodical backups, e.g. 5) or a recovery window (how long, e.g. 3 months).

Minimum redundancy safety --

Through the 'minimum_redundancy' configuration option, Barman controls the minimum number of backups available at any time in the catalogue for a specific server. This feature will protect users from accidental delete operations.

Links --

• Website
• Download
• Documentation
• Support

Sponsors --

The open-source development of retention policies under GPL has been sponsored by a large European company that opted to remain anonymous.

Release Notes --

• Added the "retention_policy_mode" global/server option which defines the method for enforcing retention policies (currently only "auto")
• Added the "minimum_redundancy" global/server option which defines the minimum number of backups to be kept for a server
• Added the "retention_policy" global/server option which defines retention policies management based on redunancy (e.g. REDUNDANCY 4) or recovery window (e.g. RECOVERY WINDOW OF 3 MONTHS)
• Added retention policy support to the logging infrastructure, the "check" and the "status" commands
• The "check" command now integrates minimum redundancy control
• Added retention policy states (valid, obsolete and potentially obsolete) to "show-backup" and "list-backup" commands
• The 'all' keyword is now forbidden as server name
• Added basic support for Nagios plugin output to the 'check' command through the --nagios option
• Barman now requires argh => 0.21.2 and argcomplete
• Minor bug fixes

About Barman --

Barman (Backup and Recovery Manager) is an open-source administration tool for disaster recovery of PostgreSQL servers written in Python. It allows your organisation to perform remote backups of multiple servers in business critical environments and help DBAs during the recovery phase. Barman most wanted features include backup catalogues, retention policies, remote recovery, archiving and compression of WAL files and backups.

Built on top of PostgreSQL's robust and reliable Point-In-Time-Recovery technology, Barman allows database administrators to manage the backup and recovery phases of several PostgreSQL database servers from a centralised location, using an intuitive command interface. Barman is distributed under GNU GPL 3.

Today, the Precog team has released a free implementation of Precog for PostgreSQL. Precog for PostgreSQL empowers users to easily perform data science on PostgreSQL.

This release bundles the core Precog analysis technology into a completely free package that anyone can download and deploy on their existing PostgreSQL database. Precog for PostgreSQL gives you the ability to analyze all the data in your PostgreSQL database, without forcing you to export data into another tool or write any custom code.

Precog for PostgreSQL comes bundled with Labcoat, a high-level analysis tool that lets users analyze data using Quirrel, the statistically-oriented query language. To get started, visit this page to download the zipped file (includes JAR, scripts and config file).

To get started….

1. Download the zip file
2. Configure Precog
3. Launch Precog
4. Try the API
5. Try Labcoat
6. Analyze your data!

See the read me for the complete installation and configuration instructions. We provide full support for this release so if you run into any trouble, please contact the Precog team at support@precog.com.

Have fun analyzing your data on your PostgreSQL database and let us know what you think!

The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has released a security update to all current versions of the PostgreSQL database system, including versions 9.2.3, 9.1.8, 9.0.12, 8.4.16, and 8.3.23. This update fixes a denial-of-service (DOS) vulnerability. All users should update their PostgreSQL installations as soon as possible.

The security issue fixed in this release, CVE-2013-0255, allows a previously authenticated user to crash the server by calling an internal function with invalid arguments. This issue was discovered by independent security researcher Sumit Soni this week and reported via Secunia SVCRP, and we are grateful for their efforts in making PostgreSQL more secure.

Today's update also fixes a performance regression which caused a decrease in throughput when using dynamic queries in stored procedures in version 9.2. Applications which use PL/pgSQL's EXECUTE are strongly affected by this regression and should be updated. Additionally, we have fixed intermittent crashes caused by CREATE/DROP INDEX CONCURRENTLY, and multiple minor issues with replication.

This release is expected to be the final update for version 8.3, which is now End-of-Life (EOL). Users of version 8.3 should plan to upgrade to a later version of PostgreSQL immediately. For more information, see our Versioning Policy.

This update release also contains fixes for many minor issues discovered and patched by the PostgreSQL community in the last two months, including:

• Prevent unnecessary table scans during vacuuming
• Prevent spurious cached plan error in PL/pgSQL
• Allow sub-SELECTs to be subscripted
• Prevent DROP OWNED from dropping databases or tablespaces
• Make ECPG use translated messages
• Allow PL/Python to use multi-table trigger functions (again) in 9.1 and 9.2
• Fix several activity log management issues on Windows
• Prevent autovacuum file truncation from being cancelled by deadlock_timeout
• Make extensions build with the .exe suffix automatically on Windows
• Fix concurrency issues with CREATE/DROP DATABASE
• Reject out-of-range values in to_date() conversion function
• Revert cost estimation for large indexes back to pre-9.2 behavior
• Make pg_basebackup tolerate timeline switches
• Cleanup leftover temp table entries during crash recovery
• Prevent infinite loop when COPY inserts a large tuple into a table with a large fillfactor
• Prevent integer overflow in dynahash creation
• Make pg_upgrade work with INVALID indexes
• Fix bugs in TYPE privileges
• Allow Contrib installchecks to run in their own databases
• Many documentation updates
• Add new timezone "FET".

As with other minor releases, users are not required to dump and reload their database or use pg_upgrade in order to apply this update release; you may simply shut down PostgreSQL and update its binaries. Users who have skipped multiple update releases may need to perform additional, post-update steps; see the Release Notes for details.

Links:

• Download
• Release Notes

REDMOND, Wash. — Feb . 6 , 20 13 — Today, Outlook.com launched Don’t Get Scroogled by Gmail, a national campaign at http://www.scroogled.com to educate Americans about Google’s practice of going through the contents of all Gmail emails to sell and target ads. According to a public GfK Roper study, commissioned by Microsoft Corp., 70 percent of consumers don’t know that major email providers routinely engage in the practice of reading through their personal email to sell ads — something that 88 percent of people disapprove of once they are informed. Unlike Gmail, Outlook.com doesn’t go through the content of users’ emails to show ads. Outlook.com hopes this campaign will help educate consumers about Google’s email practices and promote Outlook.com’s policy of prioritizing the privacy of its users’ emails.

To help consumers have their voice heard, today Outlook.com launched a petition to help them get the message to Google that going through personal email messages to sell ads is unacceptable. Outlook.com encourages consumers to sign the petition at Scroogled.com and tell Google to stop going through their emails to sell ads. Outlook.com encourages consumers to prioritize their privacy by switching to Outlook.com.

How Google Uses Personal Email Content to Sell Ads

Google goes through every single word of personal Gmail messages and uses that information to sell and target ads. As Google explains on its website, “In Gmail, most of the ads we show appear next to an open email message and are related to the contents of the current email conversation or thread.” For example, if you write a friend to let her know you are separating from your husband, Google sells ads against this information to divorce lawyers, who post ads alongside it. Or if you ask a friend for vacation suggestions, Google uses this information to target you with ads from travel agencies or airlines that want your business.

Google even goes through emails from non-Gmail users to generate advertising income. Gmail goes through all incoming email messages, from any email provider, and sells ads based on the content of those emails — a practice that nearly 90 percent of Americans agree should end.

Unfortunately even if they try, consumers cannot stop Google from going through their personal email for the purpose of showing them targeted ads. Google does not enable Gmail users to opt out of seeing ads based on the content of emails.

There are currently six active class action lawsuits against Google, all alleging illegal eavesdropping or interception under federal and state wiretapping laws, related to Google’s scanning of emails.

“Emails are personal — and people feel that reading through their emails to sell ads is out of bounds,” said Stefan Weitz, senior director of Online Services at Microsoft. “We honor the privacy of our Outlook.com users, and we are concerned that Google violates that privacy every time an Outlook.com user exchanges messages with someone on Gmail. This campaign is as much about protecting Outlook.com users from Gmail as it is about making sure Gmail users know what Google’s doing.”

New GfK Roper P oll: Public L argely U naware and S trongly D isapprove s of the P ractice

A new GfK Roper poll, commissioned by Microsoft, shows that only 30 percent of Americans are aware that any email service goes through the content of personal emails to sell ads, and 88 percent of consumers disapprove of this practice.

Key results from this survey include the following:

• 88 percent of Americans disapprove of email service providers scanning the content of their personal emails in order to target ads, and 52 percent disapprove strongly.

• 89 percent of Americans agree that email service providers should not be allowed to scan the content of personal emails in order to target ads.

• 83 percent of Americans agree that email service providers scanning the content of their personal emails to target ads is an invasion of privacy.

• 70 percent of Americans didn’t believe or didn’t know that any major email service provider scans the content of personal emails in order to target ads.

• 88 percent of email users believe that email service providers should allow users to “opt out” if they prefer that the content of their emails not be scanned in order to target ads.

Outlook.com believes users should be informed about Google’s email privacy intrusions and consumers should know they have a choice to switch to Outlook.com.

About the Don’t Get Scroogled Campaign

With the Don’t Get Scroogled by Gmail consumer education campaign, Outlook.com is doing two things: First, it is highlighting Google’s practice of going through the personal contents of emails to benefit Google’s bottom line ahead of the user. Outlook.com has launched this education campaign and petition to help consumers get the message to Google that going through personal email messages to sell ads is unacceptable. Second, Outlook.com wants to highlight that it is an email service that puts consumers’ privacy first.

Beginning today and continuing for the next few weeks, the Outlook.com-sponsored Don’t Get Scroogled activities will appear online and offline, demonstrating why consumers should be concerned and helping them take action. Outlook.com is also calling on consumers to join the petition drive to tell Google to stop going through their users’ email to sell ads. Consumers can also visit http://www.scroogled.com to get information about Google’s practices and updates on the situation.

“Outlook.com believes your privacy is not for sale,” Weitz said. “We believe people should have choice and control over their private email messages, whether they are sharing banking information or pictures of their family or discussing their medical history.”

Weitz added, “Outlook.com does not scan the contents of your personal email to sell ads. Outlook.com is an email service that prioritizes your own and your family’s privacy. You wouldn’t let the post office look inside your mail, so why would you let Google?”

More information about how Outlook.com prioritizes your privacy can be found at http://www.scroogled.com.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

About this study: The RDD telephone survey was conducted Feb. 1-4, 2013 by GfK’s Public Affairs & Corporate Communications division, among a nationally representative sample of 1,006 adults ages 18 or older. Interviews were conducted with 753 respondents on landlines and 253 respondents on cellular telephones. The data were weighted on age, sex, education, race and geographic region. The margin of error on results based on the full sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

DtSQL is a free universal database query and editor tools for developers and database administrators to Query, Edit, Browse, and Manage Database objects such as tables, views, indexes, procedures, functions, triggers, contraints and sequences. It can access most databases : Cache, DB2, Derby, Firebird, FrontBase, H2, HSQLDB, Informix, Ingres, JDatastore, MaxDB, Mckoi, Mimer, MySQL, Oracle, PointBase, PostgresSQL, Solid, SQLite, SQL Server, SQL Anywhere, Sybase (ASE).

1. Database Browser Tools : browse schemas, tables, columns, primary and foreign keys, constraints, views, indexes, triggers, stored procedures, functions, sequences, and so on.
2. Database Tools : create, alter, view and drop database tables, views, indexes, constraints, stored procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, and so on.
3. Data Management Tools : edit database table data including binary/BLOB and CLOB data types. Filter, sort and search query result. Insert, duplicate, update, and delete table data. Find and replace data, preview generated SQL. Redo or undo last table data change before update is commit.
4. SQL Tools : edit, format and execute SQL scripts.
5. SQL Builder : help tools to build database select, insert, update, delete SQL scripts.
6. Import Data : tools to import data from various formats such as CSV files, Excel files, and fixed-width files. Parse import data according to integer, date, time, timestamp, and boolean pattern.

7. Export Data : tools to export database data (single table/multiple tables/query result) in various formats such as CSV files, Excel files, XML, HTML, SQL insert statements and fixed width files. Format export data according to applied integer, date, time, timestamp, and boolean pattern.

8. It is FREE to use.

9. Home: http://www.dtsql.com

10. Features: http://www.dtsql.com/database_tools.htm