Thursday, December 25, 2008

Sometimes it pays to read the instructions…

First, some background. I got myself a new Dell XPS M1530 laptop for Christmas. One of the accessories I ordered with it was a Kesington sd200v docking station.

Monday, December 15, 2008

PocketBuilder Nominated for Development Tool of the Year

In the mobile category (of course). Vote quickly, as voting ends on December 15th.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Reading and writing a blob in chunks

At least with Oracle using the DBMS_LOB package. The issue with using SELECTBLOB and UPDATEBLOB is that you have to store the entire blob in memory. That could create an issue if you're trying to process extremely large amounts of data. Fortunately, there are options to pass the data in smaller, more bite size chunks.

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Some issues with PBTrace

One of the new features added beginning with PowerBuilder 10.2 was the ability to toggle database tracing on and off by setting the PBTrace parameter to either 0 or 1 in the DBParm attribute of the transaction object.

Techno-kitten.com reference

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Looking Ahead to the Next Version of Flex Builder

My final session, one focusing on new features in Gubmo (Flex Builder 4).

Optimizing Adobe Air for Code Execution

Another session on optimizing Air applications, but for which the tips often apply to Flex apps in a browser as well.

Building High Performance Applications for Adobe Air

A number of techniques for optimizing the performance of Flex apps running in Air, though many apply to any Flex app.

Flex Framework Features for Supporting Large Applications

The session largely covered the use of sub applications to support large applications, a feature that was introduced in Flex 3.2.

Playful Development

The idea of the session is that development should be fun.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Max Awards / Sneaks / Special Event

They had some sort of reception going with alcohol just before the Max awards.

REST of SOA

Another more general session, this one highlighting the differences between REST and Web Services and when REST is the preferred technology.

Deep Dive into the Flex 3 Framework

A deep dive particularly into data binding, styles, collections and the system manager.

Creating new components in Flex 3

Need to be aware of the Flex Component Lifecycle
Flex 3 – Halo
Flex 4 (Gumbo) – Spark

General Session

Just before the general session on day two, we got to all play an interactive game on the main screen.

Best Practices for Developing with Flex in a Team Environment

The session didn't have much to do with Flex at all, it was more generally about project management.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Opening Reception / Birds-of-a-Feather

Well, unfortunately I came to Adobe Max almost directly after spending a little over a week in Europe. Jet lag arrived late Monday, and I ended up missing the Opening Reception and the Birds-of-a-Feather sessions (the latter one being one of the things I was looking forward to at Max).

Real-World Collaboration: Building Rich Experiences

Didn't have much take away from this session. Might have been jet lag setting in.

Advanced Tips and Tricks for Flex Builder

My third session was "Advanced Tips and Tricks for Flex Builder". It was a mixture of various tips and admonition to use keyboard shortcuts whenever possible and a descriptionf of some of the more useful keyboard shortcuts.

SOA in the Enterprise

My next session was "SOA in the Enterprise". Nothing worth reporting on. It was a session that assumed you knew what LifeCycle was, and then talked about three customer success stories using it. Wasn't the hard core technical talk I was hoping for.

Lunch in the Exhibit Hall

Lunch all three days was in the Exhibit Hall. The first day it was warm, the next two days it was a box lunch.

Looking Ahead to the Next Version of Flex

My first session was the "Looking Ahead to the Next Version of Flex" session. They covered the new features including:

Max Opening General Session

You definitely realize that you’re at an event for a company that is involved in presentation software. The video playing before the session begins is very flashy.

Check in

Check in went smooth. Adobe sent out an email a couple of days before the conference with a bar code I was supposed to print out and then scan in when I showed up.

Registration

Adobe seems to believe in “eating their own dog food”. The registration tool is Flash based.

Monday, November 03, 2008

Mobile Star Awards 2008

Sybase took honors in several categories of the Mobile Star Awards, including a Gold in the Application Development category for PocketBuilder.

Application Development
Gold Star - Sybase PocketBuilder
Database
Gold Star - Sybase SQL Anywhere
Email
Silver Star - Sybase iAnywhere - Mobile Office
Middleware
Gold Star - Sybase iAnywhere Suite

Friday, October 24, 2008

PowerBuilder in a .NET World seminars in Australia

PowerBuilder in a .NEW World seminars will be held Friday November 14th in Sydney and Thursday November 20th in Melbourne.

Also, special Moving to PowerBuilder 11.5 Masterclasses will be held in Sydney and Melbourne.

PowerBuilder Advanced Development Tour

PowerBuilder 11.5 just came out and Sybase will share how the new features and capabilities will help accelerate your development, bring aesthetic enhancements to your PowerBuilder applications, and simplify .NET development at the PowerBuilder Advanced Development Tour. So far the dates include:

Washington DC: November 13th 2008 at the Hyatt Regency
Boston: November 19th at the Burlington Marriott
New York City: November 17th 2008 at the Grand Hyatt

More dates and locations will be announced soon.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Another cool debugging tip…

In that same thread I mentioned earlier, Jeremy Lakeman provided the following as an alternative means of logging out information. Sure beats a bunch of MessageBoxes.

Rather cool debugging tip…

From a Sybase newsgroup thread where the OP asked how you could determine if you were running the application with the PB debugger. "Jari" responded with:

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Sprechen Sie Deutsch? - Part 3

Why "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" again? Because a majority of the folks in Switzerland speak German (though 3 other primary languages are spoken there as well).

I'll be joining John Strano and Steven Dunn of Sybase to do some speaking at a number of user group meetings in Europe in mid-November.

November 12th - Zurich, Switzerland
November 13th - Brussels, Belgium
November 14th - London, England

Sprechen Sie Deutsch? - Part 2

Some photos from the user group meeting are at my fotki page.

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Nice little GUID utility…

In case you don't want to try to find GENGUID on your machine, here's a web version. There's also a web service available.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

In September I'm heading to Germany to present to the German PowerBuilder user group. I'm also working on arrangements to go back over to Europe in November for other locations as well, including (hopefully), England and Switzerland. If you're interested in having me present at your user group as well, let me know.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Thursday, August 14, 2008

TechWave Conclusions

Once again I thought this was one of the best TechWaves in years. Better than last years, which was good. Having my laptop crash on me when I'm scheduled to do four sessions wasn't pleasant, and took the edge off of it for me. Otherwise, it might have been a real blast.

Friday, August 08, 2008

Friday - Trip home from TechWave

Only thought it was worth mentioning because of the weather. I'm driving back because I'm just going to LA. It takes a long to drive to Vegas from my house as it does to fly, and driving is (IMHO) more convenient.

It's 106 degrees outside as I'm flying down the I-15, and run into a rainstorm. Imagine significant rainfall and still 106 outside. There was actually a pretty significant cross-wind as well. The temperature did eventually drop to the mid-70s in the middle of the storm though.

Well, still significantly better than the hurricane that we just missed for the 2004 TechWave...

Friday - My 4th (and last) session

A repeat of my session from Wednesday on using .net assemblies from PowerBuilder. At this point, my laptop won't boot at all without crashing, even in Safe Mode. I have to borrow Terry Voth's computer and do my presentation based off the PDF version of the slides from the TechWave web site. I thought it still went fairly well considering, but I really would like to have done the demos.

Friday - ISUG Members Meeting

Interesting. They got a fairly small room and filled it with round tables so that everybody could eat their box lunch. The result is that more people showed up than we had spaces for. There was a short presentation and then a raffle than included a Wii. I hadn't heard there was going to be a raffle. Perhaps more would have shown up if the word had gotten out, but then you would have gotten folks that were just there for the raffle. I thought that this was a pretty good turnout considering. TechWave is already in shutdown mode. Depending on where you are flying out to a number of people had to leave already.

Friday - PB Web Services with Various Front Ends

Authur Hefti session on using PB web services from a number of front-ends, including Flex, Silverlight, Openlaszlo, VS.Net, PB.Net apps, Curl, etc.

Friday - Web Service Workshop

Sitting in on Dave Fish's presentation.

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Thursday - Special Event

I actually didn't go, but I heard it was a blast.

Thursday - ISUG Enhancement Session

Changing it back to just before the special event seems to have worked. This was standing room only. There was the standard stuff about putting everything we mentioned into the enchancement system on the ISUG web site. The stuff that was raised during the session included:

Thursday - My third session

This one on doing online code review. Seems to have been well received, even though I couldn't do my live demo.

Thursday - PowerLunch

OK, this year I thought it was better, but probably just because I got their earlier and end up at a table where I was actually interested in the topic. I sat in at the Visual Studio Shell table. I had meant to sit in on the .Net Interop table, but that one had pretty much filled up, but the shell topic was a close second place topic for me.

Offline for a while

During my Wednesday afternoon session, my video monitor on my laptop started failing. I won't be posting quite as much until the end of TechWave.

Thursday - .Net Security for PB Applications

The presenter also did a PBDJ article on the same material. I played Mini-Me to Dave Fish. He was responsible for playing room monitor (scanning people when they came in, letting the presenter know how they were doing on time, etc.). But I took it over from him. Since I'd already reviewed the magazine article it was pretty much information I'd already seen, so playing room monitor kept me busy and out of trouble.

Thursday - My second session

The third edition of my "using Oracle" session. About the only updates this year were the support for High Availability events in PB11 and the new stuff in PB 11.5 which they had already covered at the keynote. My laptop would only boot into Safe Mode at this point, so I wasn't able to do any demos. Just as well, as just running through my slides took just about all the available time. I've either got to pare this thing down (which I'm loathe to do) or see if they will let me do it as a two-parter.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Wednesday - PB 11.5 Launch Party

Can't add much more than the Sybase folks did in their article on it. The photos of Jerry Siegal (middle left) and Millard Brown (bottom right) are classics. I wore my PowerSoft Conference 94 jacket and brought along my original TeamPowerSoft jacket (circa 1993), but it wasn't enough to win a prize. Don Clayton took first with his 92 conference shirt (which Alex Whitney had as well, but choose not to wear). Second place (if memory serves) went to somebody else wearing the 94 conference jacket, but who had also brought along a PowerSoft Code Partners bag. Third place (if memory serves) went to the person wearing a set of original PowerBuilder for the Mac CDs stabled to a Sybase baseball cap. I may have second and third place reversed.

The location was the House of Blues, which worked much better than the Rum Jungle (last year's location). Better lighting, easier access to food and more room. They extended the party an extra hour, and still had to kick a number of us out (including myself) at the end. They handed out some very nice jackets for the PB faithful.

Wednesday - My first session

On using .net assemblies from PowerBuilder. Some on the PB11 stuff. Mostly on using them via CCW with any version of PB. I've covered most of this in PBDJ articles. The main thing added for this session was supporting events when implementing visual components.

Wednesday - Lunch

In the Exhibit Hall. Once again, I believe it worked well.

Wednesday - Keynote

Not quite a keynote. Instead, there was:

Sybase Innovator Awards
A panel of the Sybase engineering VPs
A customer panel headed by a Forrester analyst
A talk by a futurist

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Tuesday - TeamSybase reception

And, just in case we didn't get enough to eat, TeamSybase had their own private reception after the Sponsor Reception.

Tuesday - Sponsor Reception

After the education sessions ended, we all headed over to the Exhibit Hall for the Sponsor Reception. This is the first time the Exhibit Hall is open. There were a number of sealed off booths available with chairs and tables, apparently for people who wanted to have conversation with less distractions. The Ask-The-Experts section seemed pretty busy as well.

Tuesday - Education Session

Mine was EDU206 - Performance and Tuning for PowerBuilder: Advanced Tips and Techniques - Hands On

Tuesday - ISV Luncheon

At lunchtime met with Sue Dunnell, John Strano and others for an ISV luncheon.

Tuesday - Plenary Session

There were 5 (count them 5!) simultaneous plenary sessions this year. I went to the PowerBuilder one of course. There was some discussion and demonstration of features in PowerBuilder 11.5, the release date for which was just announced today. There was also quite a bit of discussion and demonstration of upcoming features of PowerBuilder 12.0, even though it is still very early in it's development cycle. The ISUG Technical Journal Award was handed out during between the discussion of 11.5 and 12.0.

Tuesday - Keynote

John Chen spoke first and gave some discussion of the overall position of Sybase. One item of particular interest (at least to me) is that TechWave is moving back to the east coast next year. Yeah! Raj Nathan spoke next and discussed the Sybase Unwired Platorm. Finally, Geoffory Moore spoke and then led an industry panel consisting of SAP, IBM and MicroStrategy. Geoffory Moore is, among other things, the author of "Crossing the Chasm". You may remember that I quoted from his extensively in my "Innovate or Die" postings a couple of years ago.

PowerBuilder 11.5 release announced

Sybase announced the planned availability date of PowerBuilder 11.5. The latest release of PowerBuilder continues Sybase's commitment to simplify complex data access, manipulation and presentation through its patented DataWindow technology, especially for developers looking to deploy PowerBuilder applications to the .NET framework.

PowerBuilder wins Visual Studio Magazine Award Readers Choice Merit Award

Sybase announced that it has been recognized by Visual Studio Magazine with a Readers Choice Merit Award in the category of Software Design, Frameworks and Modeling Tools. The annual awards honor the best Visual Studio-focused tools in 22 categories, and the winners are selected by readers of Visual Studio Magazine. Winners are recognized in three overarching categories, including Readers Choice, Readers Choice Merit and Editors Choice. The Readers Choice Merit category, in which PowerBuilder was recognized, is reserved for products that received a high number of votes, and also demonstrated clear value to Visual Studio Magazine readers. The editors of the magazine note that the Readers Choice awards are particularly significant because they reflect the preferences of the actual users who have daily experience with a broad range of Visual Studio developer tools. The winning products were chosen because they help professional developers do their jobs more efficiently and cost-effectively.

Monday - Techwave Reception

This year the reception buffet featured food from "around the world". Nothing that quite fit on my diet, but to each their own. No live entertainment this year, but pool tables and pinball games were made available. A good time was had by all, but they could have used more chairs. I'd also prefer different (more healthy) food.

Monday - Techwave Registration

Pretty much same as prior years. The registration area is located to the left of the entrance to the exhibit hall and the email kiosk/wifi area/ask-the-expert section to the right of the entrance. Once again they give you a card when you register that you use when you go to a different section of the registration area to pick up your course material.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

PowerBuilder 11.5 Launch Party

The PowerBuilder 11.0 launch party last year was pretty good. A lot better (IMHO) than the special event. Well, they've having a PowerBuilder 11.5 launch party this year, so mark your calendar.


Wednesday, August 6th - 7:00 – 9:00 pm
House of Blues Restaurant, Crossroads Room

Participate in the PowerBuilder Gear Challenge. Bring your oldest piece of PowerBuilder gear and show your PowerBuilder colors. We have prizes for folks with older PowerBuilder gear. And yes, PowerSoft items are allowed! Start rummaging your office and closet for the PowerBuilder 11.5 Launch Party and the PowerBuilder Gear Challenge.

Affinity Pins are back…

If you signed up for conference sessions, you will be receiving a product affinity pin based on the sessions you chose. Pin selections are:

* Information Anywhere Suite
* ASE
* PowerBuilder
* PowerDesigner
* Sybase IQ
* Replication Server
* WorkSpace

Hope they're bigger than last years. You had to get so close to people that it was uncomfortable in order to read their pins last year.

Monday, July 14, 2008

TechWave Schedule Planner is online…

Very nice. This year the presenter information is available! You can even use it as search criteria!!

planner.JPG

And once again you can import your schedule into Microsoft Outlook. Word to the wise though, wait until just before you leave for TechWave to do that. Last year I did it early, and they changed the schedule afterward (particularly the locations). I kept showing up at the wrong locations.

TechWave Forum is back again…

Hopefully it will be more used/helpful this year. They've certainly spiffed up the interface. Looks like it's Flash based.

techwaveforum.JPG

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Witzend Search Library

Witzend Software has released an important update of the Witzend Search Library, component software that adds sophisticated search capabilities to any Win32 application or Web page. In its latest release, the Search Library can

# Search into ZIP archives
# Scan documents such as PDF, Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, etc.
# Look for up to 256 strings simultaneously
# Rank files according to search relevance
# Optionally deliver results in XML format

Saturday, June 28, 2008

The PowerBuilder Developer’s Guide to TechWave

I must say, I'm impressed by the amount of information that is coming out about TechWave before the event this year. One item in particular, the PowerBuilder Developer's Guide to TechWave. In prior years, it seems that the conference de-emphasized product specific programming. Not this year. The guide is excellent for those of us who have a single track mind when attending TechWave.

And the special event is…..

Thankfully, not the House of Blues. According to the "A to Z of TechWave 2008" document, we're going over to the Wynn for a performance of Le Reve. Cool, although I personally would have preferred Spamalot.

HTC loaner program is back!

At least according to the "A to Z of TechWave 2008" document. Last year they were loaning out SmartPhones and a PDA phone. Since I already had a Cingular 8525, which is a branded version of the HTC PDA phone, I wan't personally involved in the loaner program. They were demoing the HTC Touch in their booth in the exhibit hall, but not loaning it out.

All I can say is that if the loaner program this year includes the HTC Touch Diamond, don't stand between me and the sign up booth!

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Sybase video contest

Sybase is sponsoring a video contest with a first prize of $5000. All you need to do is produce and submit an original video by July 31, 2008 that shows how you’ve used Sybase software to create an innovative solution to real-world challenge.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Keynote Bingo

You've seen it on Dilbert. You may have heard about it with regard to MacWorld or the Apple World Wide Developer's Conference. Well, now it's your turn. Download the PocketBuilder version of Keynote Bingo and play along during the TechWave keynotes. See you there!

keynotebingo.JPG

Sunday, June 22, 2008

PBL Peeper 4.0.4

New version of PBL Peeper posted. In addition to fixes:

New Features


* Report DataWindow to Variables converts a data set definition to a series of PowerScript variable declarations. This will help create custom classes that can be used to retrieve or set entire rows of values in a single dot notation operation, improving performance and memory consumption.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

PocketBuilder 2.5.1 is available

The IDE and Runtime Update for PocketBuilder, version 2.5.1 is now available on:

http://downloads.sybase.com

This EBF is for both the IDE and device side of the product. The updates include:

* Gradient background colors for windows, user objects, and picture buttons.
* Support for Tillanosoft's common file dialog box utility (much better than the default Windows one).
* Can disable database connections during builds (this code copied from PowerBuilde 11.2)
* More Vista support
* FDCC tested for Vista, Vista64, and XP
* Three new Samples - complex ones by Ian Thain
* Usability fixes to the MOP in the various painters.

In the PocketBuilder tradition, this is a "rollup" of all previous along with new bug fixes and features.

One thing to note - this is just a ZIP file - simply unzip it. No "setup.exe" or other installers to mess with...

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

PowerBuilder 11.5 beta is live!

New features include:


  • DataWindow enhancements

    • New 3D graph styles

    • Gradient/Translucency

    • Tooltips

    • RichText Column Edit Style



  • Native driver for Oracle 11g

  • Native driver for Microsoft SQL Server 2008

  • Language interoperability enhancements

  • Compatibility with .NET Code Access Security (CAS) model

  • Support for native IIS 7 on Windows Vista

  • Support for strong named assemblies

  • Support for PNG image file format

  • Transaction object enhancements

    • DBError event

    • SQLPreview event



  • Federal Desktop Core Configuration (FDCC) Compliance



  • http://xrl.us/pb115beta

Monday, June 09, 2008

Vote for the ISUG 2008 Journal Awards

The ISUG 2008 Journal Award will be presented at TechWave in Las Vegas, Nevada. Please vote for your favorite articles in the "Data Management System Administration" and "Design & Development" categories. The two winning authors will receive an all-expenses paid trip to TechWave in Las Vegas, Nevada where they will be presented with their awards during one of the Keynote addresses. Vote at:

http://my.isug.com/p/su/rd/sid=31

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Some interesting webcasts coming up…

Enable - Runtime Explorer for PowerBuilder
Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET

Enable - Multilingual Capabilities for PowerBuilder
Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET

Novalys - Visual Expert and Visual Guard for PowerBuilder
Tuesday, July 1, 2008 at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET

I use Visual Expert and am still trying to find time to fully evaluate Runtime Explorer. I'd recommend these webcasts for PowerBuilder developers.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

More on testing web services…

Yet another utility for testing web services. This one is interesting in that it allows you (among other things) to create a mock service that mimics the web service you actually plan to call.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Novalys PowerBuilder 2008 Survey

Novalys is once again holding their annual survey of PowerBuilder users. Once you complete the survey, you'll be allowed to access the results of the survey for the last several years.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Updating my picture…

Folks complain that my picture in the PowerBuilder Developer's Journal and the PBDJ website isn't up-to-date. So I'm providing this more recent picture...

Bruce Armstrong

If you don't understand the reference you need to check out the evil mastermind ads from SourceGear. See in particular ad #10, my favorite.

Here's Morgan Ferry, my deputy at Integrated Data Services.

morgan_cartoon.jpg

He's there to take over if I ever get hit by a truck. Lately, I've noticed that he's starting to drive a truck to work and I see him in the parking lot a lot. Hmmmm.....

Anyway, all great fun. Be sure to check out the blog from SourceGear's founder, Eric Sink, although I have to hope he's wrong about the death of software development magazines...

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Check out PowerBuilder 11.5

Dave Fish has a number of entries on his blog site demonstrating the soon to be released features, including DataWindow ToolTips and New Graph Styles.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

PowerBuilder Ning Community

Sybase has been reviewing NNTP availability and is looking at alternative ways to build a user community. As a test-bed / proof-of-concept, Jason Fenter has created a community on Ning (http://powerbuilder.ning.com). While Ning certainly doesn't offer all of the features that we'd like to see Sybase eventually implement, he is trying to foster some community involvement on that site. Several of the TeamSybase members have joined already and are available to answer questions there.

Please sign up; give it a try. The hope is that it evolves into more than just a Q&A database, but it won't get there without your participation.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Video Podcasts

I've put together a few video podcasts demonstrating the use of PowerBuilder 11.x. Let me know what you think, and if there's other demos you'd like to see.

Monday, April 21, 2008

PowerBuilder 11.2

Sybase announced that AJAX development capabilities and further Microsoft .NET enhancements have been added to the latest version of Sybase PowerBuilder 11, the premier 4GL rapid application development (RAD) tool. PowerBuilder 11.2 represents another milestone in the PowerBuilder roadmap for delivering .NET interoperability and incorporates new features such as AJAX functionality for WebForms, which enables richer, more interactive data-driven application development.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

PowerBuilder and SOA Webcasts

Sybase is conduction a series of webcasts on using PowerBuilder and DataWindow technology in Service Oriented Architecture projects:

Webcast Part I: How to accelerate SOA Development with PowerBuilder
Date: Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
Time: 9 AM PT/12 PM ET

Webcast Part II: Safeguarding SOA agility with PowerBuilder
Date: Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
Time: 9 AM PT/12 PM ET

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Native gradient colors…

I just saw this posting over in Reed's PocketBuilder blog:

Sneak Peek - native gradient colors in PocketBuilder 2.5.1

I'm assuming that will mean it will appear in a PowerBuilder version near you soon as well...

Monday, March 24, 2008

PowerBuilder 11.2 Web Seminar

PowerBuilder 11.2 will be available shortly and Sybase is holding a Web seminar with John Strano to highlight the key features of this release. During this Web seminar, John will show you the new capabilities found in PowerBuilder 11.2 that bring increased performance to your mission-critical applications, including using AJAX and .NET development to EAServer. In addition, John will show you a range of as well as database, UI, and usability enhancements.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008
9:00 AM PT / 12:00 PM EST

The PowerBuilder 11.2 webcast will cover:

* Certificate Store Support for Smart Client-published Applications
* Usability and UI Enhancements
* Database Connectivity Enhancements
* Enabling the DEBUG Condition for ORCA and OrcaScript
* Application Pools for Web Forms in IIS7
* EAServer Support for .NET-deployed PowerBuilder Clients
* AJAX Functionality for WebForm-Deployed Applications

Register for the seminar

Sunday, March 23, 2008

TechWave Call for Papers deadline extended

Due to popular demand Sybase is extending the TechWave Call for Papers one extra week to Monday, March 31. Don't miss this last chance to earn a free conference pass. If you've solved a unique business challenge utilizing Sybase products, they'd like to hear about it and would love for you to share your story with your peers. Completing the form only takes about 15 minutes. Applications must be submitted no later than Monday, March 31. For more information on the conference and how to develop an application to present please visit www.sybase.com/techwave. Specific questions can be directed to sybase.techwave@sybase.com.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

CodeArmor adds support for PowerBuilder

V.i. Labs announced version 2.2 of CodeArmor, a tool that provides granular encryption, decryption, anti-debugging, anti-tampering, and secure run-time execution monitoring for applications in order to prevent piracy, tampering, misuse or theft.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

TechWave 2008 Call for Papers is now open

The call for papers for TechWave 2008 is now open. Initial applicatons must be submitted by March 18th. Final presentations have to be submitted by June 25th. TechWave 2008 is August 4th through 8th.

If your paper is accepted, you can attend TechWave for "free". I know that included the pass to TechWave itself. I don't know if Sybase covers travel or hotel costs.

GetFileOpenName revisted…

A while back I indicated that there was an undocumented feature of GetFileOpenName that allowed multiple file types per option. The good news is that Sybase updated the documentation to include it. The bad news is that in the process they removed the documentation on how to specify multiple options.

To get both, try this:

GetFileOpenName ( "Open File", pathname, filename, "TXT", "Graphic Files (*.bmp;*.gif;*.jpg;*.jpeg),*.bmp;*.gif;*.jpg;*.jpeg,All Types(*.*),*.*" )

You'll see two options in the dropdown, and the first has multiple file types. Note semicolons between the filetypes and commas between the sets of options (as well as between the description and the actual filter value).

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

How to provide a strong name to a PowerBuilder generated .Net assembly

1. Generate a private key using the strong name tool:

sn.exe -k TeamSybasePrivateKeyFile.snk


2. Use the IL disassembler tool in the .Net SDK to convert the PowerBuilder generated assembly back to IL:

ILDASM.exe TeamSybase.dll /out:TeamSybaseSigned.il

3. Use the IL assembler tool in the .Net runtime to recompile the IL into a signed assembly:

ILASM.exe TeamSybaseSigned.il /dll /key=TeamSybasePrivateKeyFile.snk


4. You can use the strong name tool to verify that the strong name was correctly applied:

sn -v TeamSybaseSigned.dll

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Good news on the automated testing front…

HP announced at the HP Software Universe2007 conference in Barcelona that QuickTest Pro (QTP) is being enhanced to provide support for PowerBuilder, including PB 11.0

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Additional PB11 Tour dates added for California

Following on from their successful multi-city tour in 2007, ISUG is pleased to announce additional dates for the PowerBuilder 11 Tour!

* Feb 26th: San Jose, CA – Embassy Suites, Santa Clara
* Feb 27th: Los Angeles, CA – Embassy Suites North, LAX
* Feb 28th: San Diego, CA – Windmill Banquet & Catering, Carlsbad

For more information, see http://www.isug.com/common/PowerBuilder11Tour.html

Saturday, January 12, 2008

PowerToTheBuilder.com

Brad Wery announced his new website: www.PowerToTheBuilder.com. The site offers a variety of GUI components to help you change the look of the software you create with PowerBuilder. Adding any of the following to your PowerBuilder application will give it an instant and much needed facelift:

- Outlook ShortcutBar
- XP ListBar
- Button ListBar
- Gradient Header
- Tab Control
- Toolbar Strip
- Custom Static Text

Thursday, January 03, 2008

PB Code Analyzer 4.4

Ecocion, Inc (the new name of Ascension Labs) released version 4.4 of PB Code Analyzer. The new version provides support for PowerBuilder 11.1, updates the help file and provides other enhancements.

http://www.ecocion.com/Products/PBCA/PBCodeAnalyzer.html