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Happy New Year! And happy programming from your New Stuff columnist. Here's the best of the New Stuff that threatened to
cause an avalanche in my office this month.
Visual dBASE 7 Includes Web Tools
Borland's latest release, dBASE 7 Professional, shipping in English, German, and Japanese, features two-way visual design tools, object-oriented component support, a high-performance compiler, and enhanced connectivity for Microsoft® FoxPro®, Microsoft Access,
and corporate database servers. The new release also includes Web Wizards and DeltaPoint Web Tools for publishing dynamic data over the Internet. The new 32-bit Borland Database Engine includes native performance enhancements for dBASE, Paradox, Oracle, Sybase, Informix, DB2, Microsoft SQL Server™, InterBase, and ODBC data sources. Other enhancements include new data modules and object containers for managing and maintaining complex relationships between components, database tables, and objects. There's also support for ActiveX™ controls for reusing third-party and custom-made components built with Delphi, C++, or Visual Basic®. The Project Explorer was added so you can visually manage application files in a hierarchical TreeView
and custom views. Upgrades (including competitive upgrades) are available.
Borland International Inc.
100 Borland Way
Scotts Valley, CA 95066
800-233-2444, 408-431-1000
http://www.borland.com/VdBASE
3D Character Authoring
The Motion Factory has announced Motivate Intelligent Digital Actor System aimed at game, edutainment, multimedia, and online developers. It allows you to create interactive 3D content
filled with characters that have intelligence and the ability to partake in compelling storylines. Motivate's behavior programming system lets you create sophisticated character behavior and game logic. Motivated 3D characters have the intelligence to respond autonomously to arbitrary stimuli in a dynamic environment, allowing game developers to attain new levels of realism. You can direct Intelligent Digital Actors to perform high-level tasks, just as a movie director instructs actors how to perform certain roles. The system is available directly from The Motion Factory with
licensing on a per-title basis. The licensing fees include full usage
of the development tool for up to 10 developers, as well as an unlimited runtime license for
client distribution.
The Motion Factory
39300 Civic Center Drive
Suite 240
Fremont, CA 95438
510-505-5151
http://www.motion-factory.com
Streaming Media for Audio and Video
RealNetworks (formerly Progressive Networks) is shipping RealSystem 5.0, a client-server streaming media solution that includes RealPlayers, RealServers, and publishing tools. RealSystem 5.0 includes streaming animation, significant improvements in audio and video quality, and a set of commerce-oriented features such as pay-per-view and advertising insertion and rotation. New features include streaming Macromedia Flash animation synchronized with RealAudio, full-screen streaming video at 100 Kbps to 300 Kbps, near-CD-quality voice at 28.8 Kbps, tools for creating and publishing streaming media to Web servers and RealServers, and streaming audio and video optimized for new 56 Kbps dialup modems. RealPublisher provides developers with a wizard-driven interface for publishing RealAudio and RealVideo content. Content creators can also take advantage of RealSystem 5.0's free desktop server on Windows® 95.
RealNetworks Inc.
1111 3rd Avenue, Suite 2900
Seattle, WA 98101
206-674-2700
http://www.real.com
Error
Detection for Embedded Windows Apps
Rational Software Corporation has announced that Purify 5.0.1 for Windows CE, an error detection tool that fully supports component-based software development, will run on the Microsoft
Windows CE Embedded Toolkit for Visual C++® for the Windows CE platform. Purify 5.0.1 automatically
pinpoints runtime errors in all parts of a Windows CE-based application—including components with or without source
code—and also detects memory leaks. If you're developing Visual C++-based applications in Windows CE Emulation Mode on Windows NT®, the PowerCheck and WinCheck features give you greater control over debugging. PowerCheck allows developers to focus on the most important components of their applications first, while WinCheck validates the thousands of Windows API calls that are part of component-based development.
Rational Software Corporation
18880 Homestead Road
Cupertino, CA 95014
800-728-1212, 408-863-9900
http://www.rational.com
Develop Mission-Critical Sites
Interport Communications is shipping IHTML—Interactive
HTML, which is aimed at enhancing medium-sized Web sites. IHTML overcomes CGI programming limitations by extending the primitives available within the HTML document.
IHTML enables Web designers
and programmers to build interesting and useful
HTML-based client-server applications without having to write, integrate, and maintain CGI scripts written in traditional languages such as C or Perl. IHTML offers a variety of constructs including symbols
and variables, arithmetic operations, flow control, and aggregate values within the HTML syntax. All of the IHTML statements are delivered as HTML tags. In addition, IHTML provides
high-level access methods to tasks needed for creating and updating Web sites that are not available in traditional
programming languages, such as access to CGI and cookies, as well as email and PGP encryption systems.
Interport Communications
1133 Broadway
New York, NY 10010
888-260-7797, 212-989-9448
http://www.interport.net
Can Your
Apps Pass the Year 2000 Test?
Sure, you're programming madly to solve the year 2000 problems in your company's applications. But have you planned (and budgeted) time and money for testing? Strategia Millenium Testing Services proposes two phases of testing: prerenovation testing for verification of recoding strategy, and postrenovation testing for accumulating completed results after compliance has been achieved. The two-phase testing process is designed to assure that errors or changes in functionality are not introduced into the system during the code conversion process. Strategia Millenium Testing offers year 2000 testing,
as well as other millenium
services such as impact analysis, magnitude assessment and application renovation, platform migration, contingency planning, recovery backup, and remote file backup.
Strategia Millenium Testing Services
PO Box 37144
Louisville, KY 40233
800-325-3977, 502-426-3434
http://www.strategiacorp.com
Control Internet
Bottlenecks
Ukiah Software Inc. has introduced a Windows NT-based product that allows network managers and ISPs to control Internet traffic and eliminate bandwidth bottlenecks
that can choke Internet access points. Ukiah's NetRoad TrafficWARE employs flow control and queuing techniques to deliver end-to-end bandwidth management for TCP/IP networks. The management of TrafficWARE is integrated with Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)-compliant directory services, and will be integrated with future LDAP-based services such as Microsoft Active Directory. TrafficWARE's NetRoad engine includes two key modules that provide dynamic classification and measurement of network traffic while enforcing the control policies and minimizing queuing and packet dropping. Policies can be applied to entities defined in a directory service, such as users and groups, as well as to IP applications, IP addresses, DNS host names, URLs, and even file types. These rules can control both inbound and outbound network traffic. For ISPs and Web hosting services, TrafficWARE differentiates the levels of service provided to different users and Web pages, allowing a tiered pricing schedule tied to levels of service.
Ukiah Software Inc.
2155 South Bascom Avenue
Suite 210
Campbell, CA 95008
408-369-2890
http://www.ukiahsoft.com
Enhanced ActiveX Tools
SkunkWerx has released ClassWerx, a Developer Studio™ custom ActiveX AppWizard designed to meet the needs of professional MFC ActiveX control developers. ClassWerx includes all basic and advanced ActiveX features, stock and custom properties, and various helper function options. In addition, ClassWerx automatically generates ToolTips, code to register and unregister component categories, HTML code for testing, and files required to build a CAB file for your control. SkunkWerx also provides a suite of ActiveX controls designed to enhance the user interface. ClassX contains 15 controls, including custom thermometers and progress bars, rocker, directional, and sliding switches, analog and digital clocks, scrolling text, and LED marquees. ClassX comes with a detailed help file, pregenerated MFC C++ wrapper classes, and many sample applications with source code.
SkunkWerx
800-380-3162
(after 12/9/97)
http://www.skunkwerx.com
Integrating Finance and Internet Commerce
Navision Software is now shipping WebShop, which interfaces with Microsoft Commerce Server, Internet Information Server, Microsoft Wallet, and SQL Server. It gives businesses the power to
dynamically control, change, and update Web sites for Internet commerce using the graphical user interface found in Navision Financials. With WebShop, businesses can change the price of a product, create new product lines, or push out emails for
cross-selling opportunities, all within Navision Financials. The integration of WebShop and Navision Financials lets
companies capitalize on electronic commerce without changing the way they do business. Navision Financials is designed for companies that need a mid-range or high-end solution with a full range of customizable, ODBC-compliant accounting modules.
Navision Software US
500 Pinnacle Court
Suite 510
Norcross, GA 30071
800-552-8478
http://www.navision-us.com
Publish Your App in Europe
Groupe Mirande has launched EuroPress, a new press service aimed at small US-based developers who want to raise the profile of their products in
Europe. For a fixed monthly fee, Group Mirande will act as a local point of contact for the European
press, circulating press releases, promotional material, and
general information in local languages. Groupe Mirande
plans to focus their efforts on creating awareness for
products and attracting a greater number of potential customers to
a Web site. Group Mirande has been
working with larger publishers since 1995. They offer
additional services such as acting as a local representative in Europe, providing local telephone, fax,
and Internet services, and building and managing a Europe-wide sales and distribution channel.
Groupe Mirande
Contact: Paul Lambert
+33 5 62 64 10 33,
fax +33 5 62 64 10 34
plambert@easynet.fr
HTML Authoring Assistance
ExperTelligence has released WebberActive 4.0, an HTML editing tool. WebberActive provides support for authoring with Dynamic HTML, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) HTML 4.0 standard, Document Object Model, Cascading Style Sheets, and Channel Definition Format.
WebberActive also provides useful Tag and Script Assistants. The WebberActive Script Assistant complies with the current W3C Document Object Model efforts and fully supports Microsoft's implementation of the Document Object Model in Internet Explorer 4.0. The Script Assistant includes synchronization with the channel structure view and an autoscripting assistant. The Tag Assistant makes it easy to add in tags and attributes, including styles. An intuitive Style Sheet Assistant helps to create the consistency demanded by a professional Web site. WebberActive 4.0 is immediately available for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0, and can be purchased directly from the ExperTelligence Web site, by calling their toll-free number, or through email.
ExperTelligence
203 Chapala Street
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
800-888-8670, 805-962-2558
sales@expertelligence.com
http://www.expertelligence.com
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