question about WAL.

hi group,
    I've been told to investigate a real-time "transaction logging" for
our website's database, currently running postgresql 7.1.  It seems to
me that the WAL feature is what the boss is referring to but the
documentation only covers the basics (the recovery section doesn't
exist). I see from archives on google groups that recovery is not
implemented yet (as of april). I was wondering if current versions fully
supported WAL or if it's still under development? Or if there is another
approach to get an up-to-the-current log of transactions for backup and
recovery purposes? I'm currently using 'pg_dumpall' to get a backup
nightly but we would like a more up to date option in case of a crash. I
appologize if this is the wrong group of if this question is asked daily.

thanks to all,
chrisj

ps. please mail me directly as I'm not on the group yet