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Wednesday, June 26, 2013

PBTV - July 2013

** Hot News **

Upcoming webinars on PowerBuilderTV


Tuesday, July 9, 2013
at 8:00 AM PDT (Los Angeles) - 17h00 CET (Paris)

Latest NEWS from the POWERBUILDER World
Like many in the PowerBuilder world, you're probably eager for some news! Join us for an exciting and informative webcast from the PowerBuilder sphere: a panel of presenters from the community will be discussing the future of PowerBuilder and possible evolutions for your applications. A number of topics will be covered including PB15, PB & HANA, Upcoming PB Events, New PB add-ons and more!

Register

Tuesday, July 16, 2013
at 9:00 AM PDT (Los Angeles) - 18h00 CET (Paris)
Make your application multilingual in one hour
In this webinar, Gian Luca De Bonis will show an application that is not only running in PowerBuilder and with Appeon, but also he will show you in detail how he made this application multilingual. By the end of the hour, you will see how to upgrade a monolingual application into multilingual application running both in PB and Appeon!
Presenter: Gian Luca De Bonis
Register

Tuesday, July 23, 2013
at 9:00 AM PDT (Los Angeles) - 18h00 CET (Paris)
PowerBuilder and HANA; Rich Client RAD for Big Data
HANA is a crucial element in SAP's growth march. HANA's potential for real-time big data based business support, places it at the center of an increasing number of SAP ERP and other applications. PowerBuilder's RAD capabilities make it the ideal tool for building new or extending existing rich client applications on top the HANA platform. Some industry insiders have suggested that PowerBuilder's continued viability as development platform depends on its ability to contribute to the HANA platform. In this presentation, SAP Mentor Yakov Werde will succinctly introduce HANA technology, and show you have you can configure an inexpensive HANA development environment, connect PowerBuilder to it and begin exploring how HANA technology and skills can enrich your professional career and potentially improve your applications
Presenter: Yakov Werde
Register

AUGUST "sneak peak"  ...
 
Deploy Legacy PocketBuilder
Apps onto Modern Mobile Devices


Tuesday, August 6, 2013
A SaaS System Written in PB/Appeon


Tuesday, August 27, 2013
ShowCase : PowerBuilder App going Mobile (SPANISH)
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Introduction to Appeon Mobile 1.5


TBA 


Regards ... Chris

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Homage





** End of an Era **

PowerBuilder Homage


   Sadly, I have just learned that SAP have displaced some of the best PowerBuilder engineering resources that I have personally known since PB creator David Litwack introduced me to the initial team at PowerSoft. The following people have made a huge contribution to the PowerBuilder product over the past decade and should be recognized (IMHO) for their significant efforts in enhancing PowerBuilder. I should also mention that recent departures signal the end of any North American engineering resources now working on PowerBuilder.


Reed Shilts   The first person in my honour list goes to Reed Shilts, a recent departure from SAP engineering in Concord Massachusetts with a plethora of achievements in the PowerBuilder arena. I like to refer to Reed as Mr IDE as you can thank him for many of the productivity gains for the developer within the IDE such as AutoScript. Reed decided one day that PB classic needed such a feature and worked on prototype over a weekend to get the basic feature working. Of course today, we take auto-scripting for granted in PB Classic but it was the sole brainchild and initiative of this guy which brought the feature into play!
I was first introduced to Reed as the leader engineer on PocketBuilder which was PowerBuilder's first venture into the mobility world on the Windows CE / Pocket-PC operating system. This product was a huge success and went on to win many awards. Reed also was pivotal in developing the CORBA and COMM support in PowerBuilder, then on to the new PB.Net IDE which taps into the Visual Studio Shell. In all these things, Reed often took the lead in designing, developing and architecting these best-in-class features.


David Avera  The next person I would like to acknowledge is David Avera who I like to call Mr DataWindow. David took over many of the lead design and re-engineering roles of the DW object compiler from its originator (and my friend Kim Sheffield). David started out by adding the Stored Procedure and Remote DW update capabilities into PowerBuilder. He then went on to design and code the DW.Net product which was a plug-in for Visual Studio. He then followed that up with the now famous "Web Service DataWindow" feature - a feature that I use all the time (even with my new favourite product Appeon). His latest contributions to PowerBuilder include the WPF DataWindow used inside of PB.Net and its corresponding .Net related painter. David is no longer working on PB and has been reassigned to work on the SAP Afaria product.

All in all, both David and Reed have significantly contributed to the continued prowess of the PowerBuilder product over the past decade and deserve - IMHO - accolades for their outstanding work! I think that David Litwack and Kim Sheffield (the founding fathers of PB) would join me in saying that we (the PB community) appreciate your efforts on our behalf. Your exit from the PowerBuilder product scene is certainly going to be a loss for the entire PB ecosystem!

Gentlemen ... we (the real PB developers) salute you!

Regards ... Chris

Friday, June 7, 2013

ISUG-TECH's New Membership Benefit - Appeon Mobile!

** Hot News **


New Member Benefit - Appeon Mobile!


   The International SAP Technical User Group is pleased to announce the immediate availability of their latest benefit for their Core and Gold Members - Appeon Mobile for PowerBuilder! The new mobility feature extends the existing Appeon membership benefit offering of Appeon Web with Appeon Mobile. The pair of products just released is also known as Appeon 2013. The new Appeon Mobile benefit is now available on ISUG-TECH's 'My Benefits' page.

    This new version of the Appeon software also includes the update to Appeon Web version 6.6. Appeon Web 6.6 includes new features like: new DBMS support for ASE (native driver), HANNA, mySQL; new cloud support in RackSpace & Amazon; enhanced QTP Automated Testing;  SAP NetWeaver support; updated UI for AEM IE 10 & Windows 8 Native Support; and more!

   The newly-released Appeon Mobile 1.0 is only the beginning ... later this year the benefit will upgrade you to Appeon for PowerBuilder 2013 R2, which will include Appeon Mobile 2.0.  This will become automatically available once Appeon releases the new version. The targeted new features for Appeon Mobile 2.0 will include: a local DBMS on the device and support for Android tablets and Smartphones!

    This is a truly awesome benefit for our Core and Gold members. If you are not an ISUG-TECH Core or Gold member or have a lower level of membership and would like to access this new benefit, you must upgrade your membership first.  Corporate and Chartered members should contact support for more information.

 Regards ... Chris

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Appeon Mobile - Top Beta Testers

** Hot News **

Congratulations to Appeon Mobile Top 14 Beta Testers!


   Appeon would like to thank all their Beta testers who actively participating in testing the new Appeon Mobile product by helping us develop and launch this fantastic new product. Appeon was extremely pleased with your valuable contribution, your passion and your expertise. The Appeon Mobile software is simpler and more intuitive to use, more efficient and builds on its award-winning levels of protection against the latest threats. Thanks to you, we’ve delivered a product with class-leading performance and usability to help users to mobilize your PowerBuilder apps instantly.

Besides earning free products or other prizes, it’s a rewarding experience: you got to learn about new technologies, connect with people who share the same interests as you, contribute to the quality of a product and can become an expert in your community. For almost 5 months, Appeon thoroughly analyzed the product and have kept a daily journal with all observations, comments and suggestions from our customers. The feedback was integrated into the new builds and we could be able to see progress with every new beta release. We hope that this initial test will lead to a lasting active connection with you and we look forward to receiving your further feedback. Together, we will create the best mobility product for the PB community!

Here are the top 14 Beta testers - Congratulations to:
  
RankNameScorePrize
1Chris Pollach255iPad 4
2Heino Hellmers140Nexus 7
3Luca Ferrante114Nexus 7
4Michael Searer49Nexus 7
5Ronnie Po32Developer Edition of Appeon for PowerBuilder 2013
6Maria Fernandes31Developer Edition of Appeon for PowerBuilder 2013
7Mark Luckasavage27Developer Edition of Appeon for PowerBuilder 2013
8Ahmed Abul27Developer Edition of Appeon for PowerBuilder 2013
9Dave Hentrich24Developer Edition of Appeon for PowerBuilder 2013
10Filiberto Sosa20Developer Edition of Appeon for PowerBuilder 2013
11Xu Feng 17Developer Edition of Appeon for PowerBuilder 2013
12Song Sang Chul13Developer Edition of Appeon for PowerBuilder 2013
13Ryan Story12Developer Edition of Appeon for PowerBuilder 2013
14David Smith12Developer Edition of Appeon for PowerBuilder 2013

           

Thank you for shaping Appeon Mobile  ... Appeon Mobile Team!

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

SQL Anywhere - Version 16 Released!

** Hot News **

Just released ....

 SQL Anywhere Version 16 - New Features

Summary



New or Enhanced FunctionalityTechnical Benefits
Improved query optimizationOut-of-the-box performance
Advanced data synchronization with SAP HANAOut-of-the-box performance
Support for SAP HANAOut-of-the-box performance
Roles and privilegeSecurity
Raw encryptionSecurity
Disk sandboxingSecurity
Certificates stored in databaseSecurity
Dual-control passwordsSecurity
LDAP authenticationSecurity
Database mirroring24/7 reliable operations
Improved error handling24/7 reliable operations
Online schema updates24/7 reliable operations
Event tracing24/7 reliable operations
OData supportDeveloper productivity
Row and array supportDeveloper productivity


Query Optimization

SAP Sybase SQL Anywhere Optimizer improves performance by dynamically analyzing queries and the surrounding machine state, such as CPU speed, available RAM, and more. The optimizer uses this information to generate an execution plan that minimizes runtime. In this newest version, the optimizer can evaluate a much broader set of access plans during query optimization. The optimizer also has the ability to take better advantage of system resources to improve parallelism, which further increases performance for complex reporting and analysis queries.
 

Advanced Data Synchronization

The synchronization process has increased scalability and performance with synchronization performance improvements to the communications protocol and to the threading model used for synchronization. The new profiler and updated synchronization modeler make it easier than ever to manage the full synchronization lifecycle, from design, to testing, and to deployment.
 

Support for SAP HANA

In addition to being able to synchronize data from remote SAP Sybase SQL Anywhere and UltraLite databases to a HANA consolidated database, the SAP Sybase SQL Anywhere remote data access feature now allows developers to run ad hoc SQL or create proxy tables against a HANA database from a SAP Sybase SQL Anywhere connection using the new HANAODBC remote data access server class. You can also connect directly to HANA database from DBISQL.

Roles and Privileges

A complete set of system privileges and roles increase security by following the principles of least privilege and separation of duties. A system privilege has been created for every privileged operation that can be performed in the system. When a user is assigned the role database backups, for example, that person has permission to do backups, and nothing else. A user could also be given permission to manage users and login policies.
 

Raw Encryption

SAP Sybase SQL Anywhere 16 encrypts and decrypts data using standard encryption algorithms, ensuring that data is not compromised when it is imported into and exported out of the database. The ENCRYPT function can encrypt data inside the database server and then it can be output into a raw format so that it can be decrypted outside of the database (with the key). Also, the DECRYPT function can decrypt data encrypted outside of the database server.
 

Disk Sandboxing

Disk sandboxing limits vulnerabilities by locking down the server and limiting read-write file operations executed from the database server to the directory on the underlying file system where the main database file is located. When disk sandboxing is enabled, relative path names are treated as relative to the directory where the main database file is located. When disk sandboxing is not enabled, relative path names are relative to the working directory of the database server.
 

Database Mirroring

Database mirroring helps maintain system reliability and improve performance in heavy read applications. If the server fails or the system must be taken offline for maintenance, a live, mirrored version will come online to maintain availability. Administrators can now change the mirror system configuration and add or remove nodes without taking the system offline. Events can now run on the mirror server and copy nodes in mirroring and read-only scale-out systems.
 

Improved Error Handling

The database server is more robust when dealing with fatal errors. When a database specific assertion occurs, for example, the database server can now take only that database offline, leaving the server up and available for any other databases still running on it. Similarly, on the client side, if a client receives an out-of-memory error while executing a database operation, rather than terminate the application, the database client now returns the error to the application and gives the application the opportunity to handle it.
 

Online Schema Updates

The database server now supports the creation of new indices on tables without requiring exclusive access to the table for the entire duration of the create index statement. Users can continue to access the table while the index is being created.  

Event Tracing

Application developers can use event tracing in production systems with minimal performance impact to more easily debug and troubleshoot application issues. Event tracing records information about system-defined and user-defined trace events to an event tracing target. A trace session is made up of trace events (specific points in the database server software or your SQL application) that collect information that is logged to a target, such as a file). Event trace files can be merged, filtered, or translated to readable forms such as text or XML.
 

OData Support

SAP Sybase SQL Anywhere has added web services support. The OData Server allows web clients to communicate with an SAP Sybase SQL Anywhere database server using the OData protocol. Web clients can send OData requests to a configurable OData Producer hosted in an HTTP server, which converts OData concepts into relational database operations.
 

Row and Array Support

SAP Sybase SQL Anywhere simplifies programming and makes it easier to access data with new support for ROW and ARRAY data types. A ROW constructor and an ARRAY constructor support composite data types that can be used as variables, procedure parameters, and function return types. SQL functions and procedures accept ROW and ARRAY data types as IN, OUT, or INOUT arguments.

For more information on SA 16 - click here!: 

Regards ... Chris


Tuesday, May 21, 2013

PBTV - May 2013

Upcoming webinars on PowerBuilderTV
May, 2013
.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
at 8:00 AM PST (Los Angeles) - 17h00 CET (Paris)

Test Automation for PowerBuilder Applications
This presentation will provide details and demonstration of comprehensive test support for the DataWindow and other PB objects. It will also feature the step-based approach to building manual and automated tests to maximize reuse and minimize test maintenance. Automated testing support for PowerBuilder applications has been in demand and Zeenyx Software is happy to announce that support for versions 11.x and 12.x is now available in AscentialTest.
Presenter: Brian Le Suer
Register


Appeon Mobile
Appeon has announced the GA of Appeon Mobile! We've had a number of Appeon Mobile webinars building up to this announcement, and in case you have missed any of them you can check them out below in our archives:
How to Develop Mobile Apps with Appeon Mobile
Installing Appeon Mobile in less than 3 minutes
Appify Your UI: Designing a Mobile User Experience With PowerBuilder


Check out the archive of past webinars

Regards ... Chris

Thursday, May 2, 2013

PB Survey 2013

** Hot News **

PowerBuilder Worldwide Survey 2013


The fusion of Sybase and SAP, and the upcoming release of PB15 are currently raising a number of questions about PowerBuilder.


With this survey you'll learn more about:


The architecture of current & future PB Apps (Client/Server, Web, Mobile...)
The use of PowerBuilder versions: Who’s still using PB9? Who has moved to PB12.5?
The most awaited developments in PB


Have Your Say
Tell us about your PowerBuilder usage and expectations, and help guide the future of PowerBuilder.


Submit your answer and access the previous results!

Thank you for supporting the PB Community!  

Regards ... Chris

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Appeon 2013 European Lauch Tour

** Hot News **

Appeon Mobile European Launch Tour


   Appeon will be formerly launching their first release of Appeon Mobile product (also known as Appeon 2013) in May 2013. As other new versions of Appeon Mobile are released further into 2013 Appeon will be hosting other events throughout North America and Asia.for this revolutionary product.  The European segment will be the first part of the worldwide tour as this is where SAP's headquarters are located. The European tour will see three seminars, one each in Waldorf Germany (SAP headquarters), Paris France and  Bologna Italy. Prepare to be a Web & Mobile PowerBuilder Rock-star by joining Appeon at one of these locations! 

Sign up to attend the events near you ...

Waldorf, Germany
Time: May 7, 2013 at 9:30 – 18:00 CET
Location: Walldorf WDF1, Room Biel, Hasso-Plattner-Ring 7, Walldorf, Germany.

Paris, France
Time: May 14, 2013 at 13:00 – 17:00 CET
Location TBA, Paris, France
Bologna, Italy
Time: May 20, 2013 at 10:00 – 17:30 CET
Location: Excelsior Hotel, Viale Pietramellara, 51, 40121 Bologna, Italy
  • Get the high-level details of how Appeon Mobile works
  • Find out the latest information of PowerBuilder, SAP HANA and road-map of PowerBuilder and Appeon Mobile.
  • Discover how to develop and deploy a mobile application with PowerBuilder.
  • Learn how to prepare your application for deployment as a native mobile app and run it on an iPad and/or iPhone.

  For more information on these sessions, detailed agenda and how to register ... please visit the Appeon Europen Tour web page!

Regards ... Chris

Thursday, April 18, 2013

PB 12.5.2 - Major Toolbar Problem

** Hot News **

PowerBuilder 12.5.2 Release

Major Problem

Hi Everyone;

   I would not rush to install PB 12.5.2 (build 5006). 

   As soon as you do - all your custom toolbar settings are killed and you can not get the mappings back! This includes both the InfoMaker and PowerBuilder IDE's

For example, when you add a new icon (built-in or custom) - the InfoMaker or PowerBuilder 12.5.2 main power-bar will shrink to just the EXIT door. Try as you may, the toolbar can not be customized any further! It will show the new toolbar setting properly in the customization dialog's preview area - but, never render on the IDE properly when you exit the toolbar customization dialog.

  Selecting the "Reset" option in the toolbar customization dialog does reset the preview area properly - but again,  when you exit the customization dialog main power-bar is still all messed up.

  The only way out of this predicament is to enter the toolbar customization dialog and then select the "Clear" button, then select OK. This wipes out the Power-Bar on the IDE as it then disappears. However, if you close the IM or PB IDE and then restart it - the default Power-Bar comes back! Of course, as soon as you star any toolbar modification again, you are thrust back into the same dilemma (a catch-22 situation).

=> I do not think though that this negative toolbar behaviour will bode well with IM / PB developers or trial users!  

** ERRATA - MS-Windows XP **

PB 12.5.2 will not install what-so-ever on MS-Windows XP SP03 and will always error out as follows ...


Note: tested the above now on 4 PC's (W7 32 & 64 bit + 2 x XP PC's)

Regards ... Chris

Saturday, April 13, 2013

ICT Award 2013

** Hot News **

Appeon Mobile wins prestigious award!


    Appeon Mobile has won the Hong Kong Information and Communication Technology Award for 2013. The Hong Kong ICT Awards were established in 2006 under a collaborative effort amongst the industry, the academia and the Government.  It recognizes, promote and commend the excellent achievements to which Hong Kong ICT professionals and organizations contribute. The Awards also encourage local practitioners to develop innovative and creative ICT solutions, which will uplift the image of Hong Kong ICT sectors, both locally and internationally.

“This Hong Kong company has the technical know-how on the conversion processes of PowerBuilder codes and a good connection with other related US development companies for obtaining latest technical and marketing information. To have a solution for obtaining business from over 200,000 PowerBuilder installations in US, the company collaborates with another technical company in Shenzhen for conducting the research and development works. The platform really demonstrates the fast speed and the smooth conversion from legacy systems to mobile and web interfaces. “

 
Well done Appeon!
Regards ... Chris