SembleWare has released Visual Welder 2.0, which lets you assemble Microsoft® .NET-based applications from components called Parts, which can be downloaded directly into an application from an online Parts catalog or corporate Parts repository. By snapping Parts together in Visual Welder's unique 3D Spatial Editor, you can assemble and modify ready-to-run .NET-based applications, view entities and relationships, preview screens, and modify individual Parts.
Visual Welder is an add-in that manages the assembly process and generates code in Microsoft Visual Basic® .NET. The Parts are the building blocks of a business application, spanning multiple tiers of the system including user screen database structures and business rules. Examples of typical Parts include an invoice, customer, or country. Parts and Composite Parts, such as a billing system or contact management system, are self-contained, functional units that can be readily assembled using Visual Welder to create ready-to-run applications.
EC Software recently released Help & Manual 3.3, a help authoring tool that lets you create and edit your online help project and export it to a variety of file formats. Using a WYSIWYG word processor-style interface, it can output your initial help file to Adobe PDF, HTML Help, HTML, Winhelp, and other file formats. Tables of contents, keyword indices, and context-sensitive help are integrated; you create hyperlinks to other topics with a simple drag and drop and test it in design mode.
Help & Manual comes with a built-in screen capture function, an image editor optimized for screen shots, and a manual designer to customize the layout of print and PDF manuals.
R:BASE Technologies Inc. has released R:BASE 7.0, an upgrade of the company's database management system for Microsoft Windows®. Initially introduced in 1981, the product gets an update with integrated report writer options that allow users to print to most formats without third-party software. There are more than 60 new form controls, including Internet and animated AVI controls, and the ability to create customized programs in self-contained binary application files.
Internet controls, scrolling LED labels, and animated AVI controls have been added to the Form Designer, while the Report Designer also includes built-in barcode and crosstab controls for quick translation of users' data. R:BASE 7.0 includes expanded reporting options that allow output to a wide variety of formats.
The built-in HTML Writer allows reports to be viewed in HTML, and has a built-in PDF Writer. R:BASE also outputs to BMP, EMF, GIF, JPG, RTF, TIFF, WMF, and XLS formats. A variety of import and export formats, including XML, are supported by R:BASE 7.0. Data can also be shared with Microsoft Excel and other database programs. A built-in ODBC driver supports data exchange with any ODBC-compliant database. Self-contained binary application files can be password protected from design changes.
R:BASE also includes a suite of wizards (forms, reports, labels, queries, and applications).
For developers who want to fine tune their code directly, the software includes R:BASE 4GL, a full-featured programming language. R:BASE also retains the familiar R> prompt for quick searches of data sets. R:BASE 7.0 can be integrated and synchronized with any Pocket PC or Windows CE-based handheld device.
SYWARE Inc. recently announced that Visual CE 8 will add support for Short Message Service (SMS) messaging. This means mobile users can use Pocket PC or Pocket PC Phone Edition devices to send SMS messages directly from a database app. Users will not need to install additional hardware to use SMS messaging on Pocket PC Phone Edition devices. Now Pocket PC devices can use a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) card, or a Bluetooth or tethered connection to a regular cell phone.
Visual CE is a relational database program with a drag and drop interface for designing forms and databases. Database forms can be designed, maintained, and run in color either on the handheld device or the desktop computer. Once the application is developed, records can be synchronized between handheld devices and desktop machines, or beamed from one handheld device to another. Users can also share data with ODBC-enabled software like Microsoft SQL Server™, Sybase, Oracle, Microsoft Access, and Visual Basic.
An SMS message can be sent from within a Visual CE database record by simply pushing a button. A set of predefined messages can also be stored in the database. Messages can include information such as time of day, location of user, and device ID. Visual CE runs on any Windows-based mobile device, including the Pocket PC and Windows CE.
Melissa Data has announced IP2Location, which allows companies to see where customers are located based on their IP addresses. IP2Location matches an incoming IP address to the country, region, state, city, and ISP of the Web visitor.
By learning the location of visitors in real time, Web managers can display localized content, improve click-throughs and sales, prevent fraud, and implement many other solutions. For e-commerce Web sites, the IP2Location data tool can be used to identify suspicious Internet orders and their origins to reduce charge-backs, display native currency on order forms, and calculate local tax.
IP2Location can be used to improve network security as well. Web developers can use the tool to identify the origin of network intrusion, apply law enforcement, and track IP addresses to ensure compliance with national or international laws. The IP2Location database contains more than 1.5 million IP addresses from 235 countries. It has over 95 percent matching accuracy at the country and ISP levels.
Electric Cloud has announced the availability of its software build accelerator, Electric Cloud 2.0, designed to reduce the length of the build process. The program is intended for medium to large software development teams that are frustrated by ever-increasing build times.
At the core of Electric Cloud 2.0 is Electric Make, which is plug-compatible with existing Make-based build infrastructures. It accelerates the build process by distributing the software build in parallel across clusters of inexpensive servers. It scales to accommodate additional servers to enhance both performance and throughput. In order to ensure that parallel builds will not break, Electric Cloud includes a dependency management system that captures dependency information by monitoring all files accessed during a build.
Electric Cloud 2.0 records and reuses build dependency information, minimizing the Makefile maintenance required to achieve and maintain build performance.
Absolute Time Corrector 3.0, published by FlexibleSoft Co., runs on Windows 9x, Windows NT®, Windows 2000, and Windows XP and is designed to provide the exact time to local and network computers based on the time standard set forth by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Absolute Time Corrector queries NIST timeservers using the Internet and then compares NIST time to the time setting of the host computer. If there is a disparity, Absolute Time Corrector automatically adjusts the computer's time to correspond to the correct NIST time.
The new version of the software features an adjust hours-only option and smart time server selection, improved time zone support, and a LAN setup wizard. Once set up, the host computer can serve as a timeserver to any size network. The host can be set to check NIST time as often as desired, and each computer in the network can be set to check time on the host computer as often as necessary. This program comes with a list of about 250 tested time servers.
O'Reilly has published the ADO.NET Cookbook, written by Bill Hamilton. A solution is provided for each problem addressed in the book—a code sample that programmers can insert directly into their applications—as well as a discussion of how and why it works along with alternatives, limitations, and other relevant considerations. The book is intended as a companion to O'Reilly's ADO.NET in a Nutshell, which is coauthored by Hamilton.
Topics covered range from basic to highly advanced, and include data source connectivity, writing database-independent code, working with parameterized queries, retrieving and managing various types of data, and handling hierarchical data.
The book also addresses issues such as using identity and auto-increment columns, working with XML and Web Services, using strongly typed datasets, performing asynchronous operations, and maintaining database integrity. Keep up to date on new releases from O'Reilly at their Web site.
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