SLOW pG performance

Hi again, I just tried the first load in my brand new pg database...
And IT SUCKS! yeah! it took over an hour to load around 200 thousand
records, while the sqlserver2000 took about 5-7 minutes...
Im using the SAME program, some changes necessary but nothing really
important.
Im using only functions o load the records, and they all receive basically
varchar, so inside he funciont i have to cast some arguments in order to
compare char and varchar o to insert into integer columns.
I dont know if the CAST FUNCTION TAKES TOO LONG, maybe it is the source of
the problem, maybe it is something else. Al li kno is that I really need to
have the 200 thou record loaded in 10 mins tops. I have some Fkm but
sqlserver did to so it shouldnt be a prob.
Ah the db and the program are running on the same one G4 processor Mac OSX
10.2.6 machine (that is im loading locally), when loading to sqlserver2000
it is done via the 100mbps intranet.

I really dont know, any ideas to improve performance are welcome!!!
Im using prepared statements, i dont know what else to tell you, ah yes im
runnig pgphpadmin 3, so i have to run the apache web server.

Thanks a lot

JuanF
(surprised and disappointed new pg fan)