title: Getting started with postgres.app for Django application development
body: <p>I'm a newbie trying to get started with <a href="http://postgresapp.com/" rel="nofollow"><strong>postgres.app</strong></a>.  I want to make sure I'm laying the proper foundation for the eventual deployment of a Django application to Heroku.</p>
  
  <p>I've followed the steps in the <a href="http://postgresapp.com/documentation" rel="nofollow">postgres.app documentation</a> but have a few additional questions:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>In my development environment (on a personal osx machine) is it okay to have the Django application connect to the database as the default/root user ($USER) without a password?</p></li>
  <li><p>If I wanted to set up a password for the default/root user, how should I go about doing so? I've attempted <code>ALTER USER [username] with password '[password]';</code> and modifying <code>~/Library/Containers/com.heroku.postgres/Data/Library/Application Support/Postgres/var/pg_hba.conf</code> with no success: entering <code>psql</code> in the terminal still provides unauthenticated access to the postgres shell.</p></li>
  <li><p>What is the correct way to connect to the postgres.app server with <strong>pgAdmin</strong>.  My current setup is as follows. I suppose I'm mostly concerned with whether the <code>Maintenance DB</code> setting is correct:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Name: development<br>
    Host: localhost<br>
    Port: 5432<br>
    Maintenance DB: [$USER] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;# i.e., "joe"... should this be "postgres" instead?<BR>
    Username: [$USER]<br>
    Password: </p>
  </blockquote></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Many thanks, and any additional advice is always appreciated!</p>