Data Based Advisor articles from May 1990

Data Based Advisor archives from May 1990

Feedback. (letter to the editor)
May 1, 1990... Feedback Mac Attack I'd like to add my name to the list of people wanting a Macintosh database column, especially FoxBASE+/MAC. And thanks for bringing back George Goley. He was missed. George A. Crump Classic Configurations, Inc....

None. That's hardware. (Editor's File) (editorial)
May 1, 1990... None. That's Hardware I'm running my Clipper general ledger and the end-of-month processing seems to take forever. The users are playing gin rummy to pass the time. I've rewritten all my UDFs, reorganized the hard disk, and installed disk...

Concentric Data Systems, Inc. (R&R Report Writer for Oracle SQL) (Data Bytes) (product announcement)
May 1, 1990... Concentric Data Systems, inc. Concentric Data Systems, Inc. announced R&R Report Writer for oracle SQL. As a front end to Professional Oracle and Oracle Server, R&R lets developers and users create reports, labels, and form letters without...

Software Development Factory. (dBFind 3.22 program editor) (Data Bytes) (product announcement)
May 1, 1990... Software Development Factory Software Development Factory is now shipping dBFind version 3.22. dBFind detects syntax errors in programs, including uninitialized and unreferenced variables. It also produces a system-wide cross reference of...

Raima Corp. (db_VISTA III data base management software) (Data Bytes) (product announcement)
May 1, 1990... Raima Corp. Raima Corp. announced that its db_VISTA III database engine now supports Microsoft Window's Dynamically Linked Libraries. Contact Raima Corp., 3245 146th Place S.E., Bellevue, Wash. 98007, (206) 747-5570.

Max Software Consultants, Inc. (Skipjack library for Pascal) (Data Bytes) (product announcement)
May 1, 1990... Max Software Consultants, Inc. Max Software Consultants, Inc. announced Skipjack, a dBASE-style function library for Pascal. Skipjack turns you Turbo/Quick Pascal compiler into a dBASE language compiler to combine dBASE's ease of use with...

Blyth Software, Inc. (Omnis 5 data manager for MS-DOS) (Data Bytes) (product announcement)
May 1, 1990... Blyth Software, Inc. Blyth Software, Inc. released a DOS version of its data manager, Omnis 5. Omnis 5 takes advantage of the Windows environment and supports Dynamic Data Exchange so you can exchange data and send commands directly to other...

KnowledgePro. (Knowledge Garden, Inc.'s KnowledgePro Database Toolkit 2.0) (Data Bytes) (product announcement)
May 1, 1990... KnowledgePro KnowledgePro developers now have access to data in dBASE III PLUS and Lotus 1-2-3 formats. The KnowledgePro Database Toolkit version 2.0 lets you provide a "hypermedia" interface to dBASE data and Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets. There...

On the way to Emerald Bay. (history of Ratliff Software Production, Inc.'s data base management system) (Software Review) (Fast Takes) (evaluation)
May 1, 1990... On the Way to Emerald Bay What a difference a little time makes. Just a year ago, the future of the Emerald Bay database system looked very bleak. After a shaky start as the exclusive marketer of the product, Migent, Inc. was forced to...

Controlling the flow. (Clear Software, Inc.'s Clear+ 2.1 program development software) (Software Review) (Fast Takes) (evaluation)
May 1, 1990... Control the Flow Clear+ holds an enviable and unusual niche in the dBASE add-on market. Not only does it occupy a sheltered haven free from the competitive crossfire of the industry giants, but it's a profoundly useful product for both...

Always behind? Get Current. (IBM's personal information management) (Software Review) (Fast Takes) (evaluation)
May 1, 1990... Always Behind? Get Current Current, from IBM, is a Personal Information Manager (PIM_--a computer application that's supposed to transform your mountains of unwieldy information into manageable units of order. The program's name suggests...

Report from the trenches: LANDEX '90. (Local Area Network Dealers Association's annual meeting) (Fast Takes)
May 1, 1990... Report from the Trenches: LANDEX '90 Let me be the first to say: It's the year of the LANDA. The Local Area Network Dealers Association, which recently hosted its annual tete a tete in Irvine, Calif., consists of three types of members: LAN...

Getting paid: an inside look at credit, billing and collection procedures. (The VAR Report)
May 1, 1990... Getting Paid You market your services and products. Clients accept your fees and give you assignments. You do the work. Whaths wrong with this picture? Where's the money? A sale isn't a sale until you've received payment. This month:...

Random assets. (creating sample data tables) (includes related articles on 'not-in' queries and security measures for Paradox scripts) (The Paradox Programmer) (tutorial)
May 1, 1990... Random Assets If all goes according to schedule, this article should appear the same week as the first International Paradox Users Conference (April 29 through May 2 in Monterey, Calif.). If I were to describe the conference in a single...

Catalytic reactions. (Revelation Expert) (technical) (tutorial)
May 1, 1990... Catalytic Reactions As I've frequently mentioned in the past, two unique aspects of Advanced Revelation (AREV) are its recursive design and the user-modifiable logic of its tools. These features are available to application developers and...

Become a QBE crackerjack. (query by example) (R:BASE Lab) (technical) (tutorial)
May 1, 1990... Become a QBE Crackerjack R:BASE version 3.0 has a lot of improvements, including support for ANSI Level 2 SQL, transaction processing, query by example (QBE), an improved interface, better forms and reports, and powerful additions to the...

Maintaining your values, part 1. (Hands-on SQL) (structured query language) (includes related article on maintaining data integrity) (technical) (tutorial)
May 1, 1990... Maintaining Your Values, Part 1 This month I cover SQL data-modification statements (the ones you use to update your table information). In standard SQL there are just three statements: INSERT, DELETE, and UPDATE. I'll look t one a month...

On the menu. (creating menus for applications) (dBASE IV Primer) (technical) (tutorial)
May 1, 1990... On the Menu It's unfortunate that so much time and energy is spent on creating menus. We now have so many different ways to slice and dice menus, I've lost count. I think we should blame Lotus Development Corp. for this. They're the most...

Special events, part 2. (event driven programming) (The Fox Files) (technical) (tutorial)
May 1, 1990... Special Events, Part 2 In this article I continue with last month's discussion of event-driven programming with FoxPro. The following command is an example of the syntax that allows you to cause a program to execute at the press of a key:...

Pedal to the metal: the guide to selecting high performance hardware for your database application. (One of eight articles on hardware selection) (buyers guide)
May 1, 1990... Pedal to the Metal Consider the following: 1) You just found that dream application you've been looking for all these years and have no equipment; 2) You just got promoted to the MIS department, a department of one, and your boss wants you...

Hardware primer. (understanding hardware components) (One of eight articles on hardware selection)
May 1, 1990... Hardware Primer The engine of a PC machine is a device called the processor, central processing unit, or CPU. Most IBM-compatible PCs use one of six processors: the 8088, 8086, 80286, 80386, 80386SX, and 80486 (or i486). Each differs by how...

Network performance in the NIC of time. (network interface card and other network architecture) (One of eight articles on hardware selection)
May 1, 1990... Network Performance: In the NIC of Time Improving network performance is an inexact science--the true number of variables involved would choke many compilers. Chaos theory often seems to rule network responsiveness, but there are ways to design...

Dream machine: Compaq's SystemPro. (file server) (Hardware Review) (One of eight articles on hardware selection) (evaluation)
May 1, 1990... Dream Machine: Compaq's SystemPro You're probably plenty informed about database servers. You've read in these pages how the "client-server" architecture is an efficient method for sharing information across multiple platforms. It does this by...

Get maximum memory from your 386. (using the Intel 80386 microprocessor's extended memory) (One of eight articles on hardware selection) (tutorial)
May 1, 1990... Get Maximum Memory from Your 386 Conceived when 64K was an enormous amount of memory, the Intel 808x processor family and DOS imposed a ceiling of 640K on program memory. In hindsight, that limit was one of the worst decisions in the history of...

Hard disk secrets. (increasing hard disk speed through MS-DOS) (One of eight articles on hardware selection)
May 1, 1990... Hard Disk Secrets Still waiting for your database to complete a sort or finish generating that report? You should know that with an average database application, the hard disk speed can account for more than 50 percent of your application's...

Speed of light: laser disks. (improved storage) (One of eight articles on hardware selection)
May 1, 1990... Speed Of Light: Laser Disks This issue is devoted to getting the best performance out of your computers, disks, and peripherals. Computers have been doubling in performance about every two years due to advances in microprocessors. Disks...

Squeezing more out of your old system. (retooling instead of buying a new computer) (One of eight articles on hardware selection )
May 1, 1990... Squeezing More Out of Your Old System There's an auto shop out there with a parts inventory program comfortably residing on the 30M hard drive of a 6MHz PC/AT. Or a mail order customer list that fits in 10M on an XT. They still work fine,...

The perfect API. (evaluating application programming interfaces) (DB Connections)
May 1, 1990... THE PERFECT API Last month I looked at four general types of application programming interfaces (APIs) to database servers. These include: function-call, precompiler, native SQL, and command-mapping interfaces. This month I'll go into more...

EZ_Print. (Pogoda Systems Corp.'s program development software for printer support) (The Whole Catalog of Clipper Libraries, part 3)
May 1, 1990... EZ_PRINT Pogoda Systems Corp. P.O. Box 2055 Boulder, Colorado 80306 (303) 442-1180 Typically, programmers create applications with specific printers or plain, vanilla ASCII character output in mind. With EZ_PRINT, you can automate the...

Integrated Development Library (IDL). (Integrated Development Corp.'s multi-purpose library) (The Whole Catalog of Clipper Libraries, part 3)
May 1, 1990... Integrated Development Library (IDL) Integrated Development Corp. 15 Culver Street, Suite 35 Plaistow, New Hampshire 03865 (603) 382-1313, (800) 333-3429, BBS (603) 382-1017 The Integrated Development Library (IDL) is a multi-purpose library...

ProClip (Genesis Development Corp.'s general function program library) (The Whole Catalog of Clipper Libraries, part 3)
May 1, 1990... ProClip Market Service Associates (ProClip is licensed from Genesis Development Corp.) P.O. Box 986 Coeur d'Alene, Idaho 83814 Sales (208) 765-9439 Support (303) 750-3241 CompuServe: 71410,2051 This general function library, written in...

Professional Interface Library. (Source Data Corp.'s environment library) (The Whole Catalog of Clipper Libraries, part 3)
May 1, 1990... Professional Interface Library Source Data Corp. 10195 Main Street, Suite J Fairfax, Virginia 22031 (703) 359-0980, BBS (703) 359-0993, fax (703) 359-6590 Like the others in this month's batch of products, this library sets up and controls...

SilverComm. (SilverWare, Inc.'s communications library) (The Whole Catalog of Clipper Libraries, part 3)
May 1, 1990... SilverComm SilverWare, Inc. 3010 LBJ Freeway, Suite 740 Dallas, Texas 75234 (214) 247-0131 fax (214) 406-9999 BBS (214) 247-2177 The SilverComm Library is an asynchronous communications library for transumitting and receiving data. It...

User groups. (directory)
May 1, 1990... User Groups Alabama MOBILE CLIPPER USER GROUP Gregory Hall 1676 Beltline Hwy. S. Mobile, AL 36693 (205) 666-5151 MONTGOMERY PC USERS GROUP James Morrow 3505 McGehee Road Montgomery, AL 36111 (205) 288-0040 NORTH ALABAMA DATABASE...

FoxPro classes offered in Bay area. (Dataline)
May 1, 1990... FoxPro classes offered in Bay area SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- FoxPro classes seem tobe popping up like Rambo films during the Reagan years. The latest offerings come from Micromega Systems, Inc., a dBASE language consulting firm. Current courses...

Eastern Europe taps into U.S. database technology. (Raima Corp. and Oracle Corp. projects) (Dataline)
May 1, 1990... Eastern Europe taps into U.S. database technology BELLEVUE, WA -- Raima Corp., maker of the C database library, db_VISTA III, recently began bundling its software with PCs headed to the Soviet Union. A contract with Baltic Amadeus, a...

Word processed advisor? (sales down for data base systems, up for word processors) (Dataline)
May 1, 1990... Word Processed Advisor? WASHINGTON, D.C. -- 1989 database-related sales shrunk compared to the previous year, according to a recent Software Publishers Association report. Result of a 152-company survey by Arthur Andersen & Co. show that word...

Not on newsstands anywhere. (recommended publication Silicon Valley dBASE Language Group's Silicon Valley Datatype) (Dataline)
May 1, 1990... Not on newsstands anywhere SAN JOSE, CA -- If you haven't already seen a copy, Dataline thinks you should consider a subscription to Silicon Valley Datatype, put out by the Silicon Valley dBASE Language Group. Free to members of the user group...

Nantucket hosts conference. (Clipper developer conference in Palm Desert, CA) (Dataline)
May 1, 1990... Nantucket hosts conferences LOS ANGELES, CA -- If you're aching to get your fingers on Clipper 5.0, chances are your first opportunity will strike during Nantucket's june developer conference. It will take place at the Marriot Desert Springs in...

Serial of champion. (Champion Business Systems' dealer convention) (Dataline)
May 1, 1990... Serial of Champion DENVER, CO -- Now here's another gathering we're going to do our darndest to attend. Champion Business systems (you know, the accounting package people) will host a national dealer convention in Vail, CO June 27-29. For $395...

Mastering memory. (Vericomp Publishing's Memory Master 1.1) (Dataline)
May 1, 1990... Mastering memory SAN DIEGO, CA -- Vericomp Publishing just got a boost overseas, when it signed an agreement with Ashton-Tate Europe to distribute EDOS with dBASE IV. EDOS increases conventional memory from 640K to 736K in computers with EGA or...

Paradox classes taken on the road. (Gil Roeder's seminar series) (Dataline)
May 1, 1990... Paradox classes taken on the road BURLINGTON, MA -- In Case you don't get to attend the first Paradox developers conference hosted by Borlnd International at the end of April in Monterey, you may be interested in another lesser-known seminar...

One programmer's toolbox. (finding tools for dBase language programmers) (Notes from the Underground) (column)
May 1, 1990... One Programmer's Toolbox Programming in dBASE makes me part of a very large community of programmers. If I can think of a dBASE question, I can get an answer to it almost immediately on CompuServe or the Data Based Advisor Readers Exchange...