Mark Dastmalchi-Round

Mark Dastmalchi-Round

I’m a DevOps architect, musician, animal lover and all-round geek. If it’s got shiny lights on it, makes loud noises or purrs/wags its tail when you stroke it, I’m all for it. When I’m not writing code or fiddling with computers for a living, I produce my own music and provide the low-end rumble for my band in West Sussex.

Featured articles

DevOps for the Sinclair Spectrum! A series of articles exploring a modern development environment for the classic 8-bit 1980s home computer

Haiku Package Management: A tour of the unique package management capabilities of the alternative Haiku Operating System

Amiga Systems Programming in 2023: A look at developing, packaging and distributing software for AmigaOS and derivatives

Recent Posts

PostgreSQL 8.1.3 out

Hot on the heels of the 8.1.2 package, 8.1.3 has been released. This fixes a serious security issue, and while it hasn’t yet made it into Blastwave’s “unstable” tree, you can grab it from our testing directory. Expect to see it available from our mirrors through pkg-get shortly.

PostgreSQL 8.1.2 now in “unstable”

New PostgreSQL and related packages (postgresql, libpq and postgresqlcontrib) have been released to the “unstable” tree. These packages bump the version to 8.1.2, and include a number of important bug fixes. Of particular importance is the resolution of a bug present in previous versions of PostgreSQL that could lead to data loss - for more details, please see the 8.1.2 release announcment.

Nessus 3.0 released

While I’ve been preparing an update to the 2.2.6 Blastwave packages of nessus, Teneable just released their new 3.0 package - offering a whole host of enhancements including a very funky looking RSS feed for plugin updating, and major performance improvements to name just two. Except this time, I’m not doing my usual w00t-dance, and I won’t be packaging it, or even running it, for that matter.

Insanely cool new Sun servers

Yesterday, Sun announced the availability of their new CoolThreads powered servers. They’re powered by the latest incarnation of the UltraSPARC range of processors - so naturally, you get all the full binary compatibility assurances that brings. Sun are making much of the efficiency and "greenness" of these new boxes; but while I’m all for saving penguins and polar bears, what really stands out is the sheer performance these boxes bring. Check out the entry-level T1000 , f...

PostgreSQL 8.1.0 packages now available

I’m pleased to announce that PostgreSQL 8.1.0 packages are now available from Blastwave, and should be making their way out to the mirrors as I type. This set of packages includes libpq, the core postgresql package, contrib, and the updated set of JDBC drivers.