Friday, December 18, 2015

ISUG-TECH 2016 Board of Directors

The latest board members are:

PresidentJoe Woodhouse
Vice President of MembershipEric Van Patten
Vice President of FinanceCynthia Gill
Vice President of Business RelationsJeff Gibson
Vice President of TechnologyBryan Enochs
North America RUG DirectorBruce Armstrong
EMEA RUG DirectorLutwin Feiten
South/Latin America RUG DirectorJean-Pierre Dareys
Asia/Pacific RUG DirectorOpen
Content DirectorJeremy Chubb
Communications DirectorJohn Avery
Partners DirectorPeter Dobler
Social Media DirectorMarcelle von Wendland
Benefits DirectorOpen
Member-At-LargeDave Fish

If you are interested in filling an open position, please contact president@isug.com.

Tuesday, December 08, 2015

Future of PowerBuilder webcast

Part 2 of the Future of #PowerBuilder webcast starts in less than one hour: http://www.appeon.com/form/form.php?mid=20

Thursday, November 19, 2015

ISUG-TECH board member nominations now open

Then nominations are open for the following 2016-2017 board positions:
  • President
  • VP Technologies
  • VP Business Relations
  • SLA Regional Director
  • AP Regional Director
  • Content Director
  • Benefits Director (2015-2016 term)

If you are interested in running for these positions or nominating someone else, please submit the nomination form at:


The time line for the elections is:
  • Open Nominations - now until November 30th
  • Nominations Comm submits slate to board - December 1st (at board meeting)
  • Elections - December 21st - 28th (if needed)
  • Announcement by December 30th

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

PowerBuilder Vision Webcast recording is now available

A recording of the PB Vision Webcast along with FAQs based on the Q&A session is now available on Appeon.com.  In order to gain access to the video and FAQs you need to fill out the form at http://www.appeon.com/PBfuture.  

Appeon is asking for that so they can notify you of future Webcasts.  Their goal is to get as many people participating and giving them feedback as possible.  Anybody who already filled out the form in the past will receive an email by Friday this week with instructions how to access the video and FAQs.

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Sign Up for the Future of PowerBuilder Webcast

If you would like to understand Appeon’s vision and future direction for PowerBuilder you should sign up for a 5-part Appeon Webcast series. There are only limited slots and they are available on a first-come basis. The first Webcast will kick-off on October 29.



For those of you who are not aware what has been transpiring over the past several months, it all kicked off in the middle of May with SAP announcing it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Appeon . After signing the MOU, Appeon went hard to work to understand what customers want out of PowerBuilder and what is technically feasible.

Appeon has put together a vision, technical architecture, and roadmap for PowerBuilder, which was the result of months of hard work. They conducted market surveys to thousands of users. They held conference calls with hundreds of customers. They had extensive discussions with the most active partners and members of the community. They analyzed real-life customer code, some having more than gigabytes of PBLs. And they created numerous proof-of-concepts in Appeon’s labs.

They will be communicating the vision, technology, and roadmap in a 5-part Webcast series. There is just too much content to communicate and digest in just a single Webcast. But more importantly, at the end of each Webcast they want to give customers the opportunity to give them feedback, which they will use to fine-tune the technical architecture and roadmap.

Setting the future of PowerBuilder is a big decision that can affect tens of thousands of companies and specifically your company. This is why they are trying to give as many customers as possible a chance to be heard. It is imperative you participate actively in this Webcast series.
Again, there are only limited slots and they are available on a first-come basis only so register for the Webcasts today!

Monday, October 05, 2015

PowerBuilder Vision and Roadmap Webcast

Appeon is planning to do a series of Webcasts to present the vision and roadmap that are planned for PowerBuilder. The first webcast will be hosted at the end of October. It will focus on explaining to the community their vision for PowerBuilder. The second webcast will be presented several weeks later. It will focus on explaining to the community the high-level roadmap planned for PowerBuilder. Early next year will be a final Webcast. This Webcast will explain to the community a detailed roadmap that is planned for PowerBuilder.

Stays connected with Appeon to get updates to the PowerBuilder roadmap via the Appeon WebsiteFacebookLinkedIn, and Twitter.


Wednesday, June 10, 2015

PowerBuilder Worldwide Survey 2015

Novalys and Appeon have partnered on the latest survey.  Provide your input on this years survey and, as always, obtain access to the results from last years.




Tuesday, June 09, 2015

New version of Definitive DataWindow

An updated version of the Definitive DataWindow is now available on Amazon as a Kindle book.  The updates make it current to PowerBuilder 12.




PowerBuilder TV Webinar: Scorever (formerly YouHoops): Designing and Delivering a Cloud-Based Mobile Scorekeeping Solution with SAP PowerBuilder and Appeon

Date: TBA
Presenter: Ronnie Po

With the arrival of Appeon Mobile, developers can now create native apps for today’s mobile devices while leveraging the unique productivity advantages of PowerBuilder. However, the task of delivering an engaging user experience on a mobile device presents unique challenges compared to the traditional client-server or web-driven desktop environment.  In this session, Ronnie Po will present a case study about the development and implementation of Scorever (formerly YouHoops), a mobile scorekeeping and scoreboard controller application for basketball games, built with PowerBuilder and deployed to the cloud using Appeon Mobile. He will discuss some of the technical challenges encountered and will reveal some tips and tricks employed to address considerations such as:

  • creating an app-like user experience
  • managing user sessions transparently
  • minimizing the distraction of inconsistent server response times


PowerBuilder TV Webinar: Mobile UI/UX with PowerBuilder

09/08/2015 9:00 AM PST (Los Angeles) / 18H00 CET ( Paris)
Presenter: Armeen Mazda

This session shares the real-life experience of a US software vendor in their quest to develop attractive and user-friendly mobile apps in PowerBuilder for their 400+ customer sites. This is a technical-focused session that illustrates how you can break the traditional client/server mold and develop apps that your users will love. You will see how to lay out the UI properly, incorporate new gestures, display large amounts of data in limited space, add new mobile-specific controls, integrate maps, make phone calls, and much more.


PowerBuilder TV Webinar: Off the Grid: Migrating Sometimes Connected PowerBuilder Apps with Appeon

7/15/2015 @ 9:00 AM PST (Los Angeles) / 18H00 CET ( Paris)
Presenter: Ryan Story

Ryan Story will explore the process of developing, configuring, and deploying a legacy PowerBuilder app with Appeon Mobile that uses Mobilink/Ultralite technology to provide a consistent offline user experience.  In addition, he will discuss other techniques to make applications match current mobile app design practices and provide the user a seamless experience.


PowerBuilder TV Webcast: Appeon in 2015 & Beyond

6/18/2015 @ 9:00 AM PST (Los Angeles) / 18H00 CET ( Paris)
Presenter: Armeen Mazda

This session will outline the major capabilities of Appeon for PowerBuilder 2015, including demos of the biggest new features. See PowerBuilder functionality and UI faithfully replicated across multiple browsers. You will also see PowerBuilder extended with mobile-specific functionality, such as QR code scanning, mobile payment, and signature capture. Learn what Appeon plans to release in Q4, and about technology currently under R&D at Appeon’s labs that could make it to market in 2016 and beyond.



Monday, May 25, 2015

"The PowerBuilder Toolkit"? Your guess is as good as mine....

Found what appears to be a training resource for PowerBuilder today.

http://store.theartofservice.com/the-powerbuilder-toolkit/

What they show on the cover though is an image of a "Power Builder Bee * R Rev Racing Rev Limiter", a device used in high performance cars to cut the ignition during racing when the engine RPM hits the red line.

Perhaps the cover is some sort of joke.  I found a "Guide to Password Use in WebSphere Application Toolkit" on the same site that uses a cover from Doctor Who magazine as the image.

http://store.theartofservice.com/the-a-guide-to-password-use-in-websphere-application-server-toolkit/

Anybody familiar with the product?

Sunday, May 24, 2015

My list of preferred new PowerBuilder features


Now that Appeon is handing development and distribution of PowerBuilder, they're requesting input from the customer base on the new features we would like to see.  If you haven't provided that input, you should do so soon at http://www.appeon.com/future

That said, here's my list.  I didn't actually submit them all to Appeon, as I didn't think about some of them until after I did my original submission.  But this gives me a chance to explain the rationale behind why I think they're important and solicit feedback on them.


Friday, May 22, 2015

NCPBUG User Group Conference 2015 Report

This is the second year that the North Carolina PowerBuilder User Group has held a large user conference.  I wasn't able to make the event last year, so I can't compare how well this year went compared to last year's.


ISUG Tech Conference 2015 Report

ISUG-TECH held their second annual user conference in Atlanta again.


Friday, May 08, 2015

Moving Forward with SAP PowerBuilder

Dirk Boessmann, Senior Vice President for Mobile Development of SAP, spoke at the North Carolina PowerBuilder User Group Meeting on May 8th, 2015 in a talk entitled "Moving Forward with SAP PowerBuilder".  He was already in the US for the Sapphire Conference (May 5th to 7th) and actually had to miss the special event at that conference (a JLo concert) in order to make the user group meeting.


Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Upcoming PowerBuilder Conferences

I'll be presenting at two PowerBuilder conferences in early 2015.  The sessions I'll be presenting at both are:
  • Using Visual Studio.Net Visual Controls in PowerBuilder Classic
  • Using Visual Studio.Net Non-Visual Assemblies in PowerBuilder Classic
  • Using PowerBuilder Non-Visual Assemblies in Visual Studio.Net
  • Using PowerBuilder.Net Visual Controls in Visual Studio.Net
At the Charlotte I'll also be covering New Features in PowerBuilder 12.6.

Both conferences also feature presentations by John Strano and training workshops by Yakov Werde.

Dave Fish will be presenting at Atlanta.

Dirk Boessmann, Senior Vice President of Mobile Development at SAP, will be at Charlotte to discuss SAPs future plans for PowerBuilder

The Charlotte conference is exclusively PowerBuilder.  The Atlanta conference is more like the old TechWaves in that it covers PowerBuilder, but it also covers a number of products including PowerDesigner, ASE, IQ, Rep Server, SQL Anywhere, HANA, SAP Mobile Platform and SAP Fiori.

March 30th to April 1st
Atlanta, Georgia
ISUG-TECH 2015 

The conference covers a variety of SAP products, including PowerBuilder.
  • Over 10 PowerBuilder sessions and workshops
  • One 4 hour Pre-Conference PowerBuilder training session (Mar 29th).
  • Early Registration open now at $1099 (Full Registration is $1499).

May 6th to 8th, 2015
Charlotte, North Carolina
North Carolina PowerBuilder User Group Conference
  • Over 25 PB sessions and workshops: Design, mobility, testing, reporting, tips and techniques
  • Two days of Pre-Conference Intermediate Training Sessions (May 4 & 5)
  • Early Registration open now at $295 (Full Registration is $495)

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Summary of the 01/29/15 Latest News from the PowerBuilder World webcast

A recording of the webcast can be found here.

SAP

The first guest speaker was Dirk Boessmann, Senior Vice President of Mobile Development at SAP.   He had a question/answer session with the host, Christophe Dufourmantelle.  Dirk had spoken to the German PowerBuilder User Group in October of 2014 during which time he had a "theoretical discussion" of what options a company like SAP might have in deciding a future for a product like PowerBuilder.