The Bookshelf     Here are some new books to guide you through the maze of application development.     Visual C++ Windows Shell Programming, by Dino Esposito (Wrox Press), was written by a Microsoft Internet Developer contributing editor. Dino tells you how to push the Windows® shell to perform complex actions and customize it using C++/ATL programs. This book tells you how to use the tools available, and when each tool is appropriate. There's coverage of the Windows API, the Windows Scripting Host, and shell and namespace extensions that use ATL and the shell's COM object model. It's appropriate for programmers who are familiar with COM/ATL programming using Visual C++®. Check out the table of contents at: http://www.wrox.com/Store/Details.asp?Code=1843.     MCSE Readiness Review Exam, by the gang at Microsoft (Microsoft Press), will help you answer that musical question: if you took Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) exam 70-058 today, would you pass? With the Readiness Review MCP exam simulation on CD-ROM, you'll find out! MCP exam 70-058 measures your ability to implement, administer, and troubleshoot local and wide area networks that incorporate Microsoft Windows and the Microsoft BackOffice® family. This electronic assessment tool delivers randomly generated, 60-question practice exams covering real MCP objectives. You can test and retest with different question sets each time—and with automated scoring, you get immediate Pass/Fail feedback. Read all about it at: http://mspress.microsoft.com/prod/books/2413.htm. Optimize with Small-Scale Solver DLL     Frontline Systems Inc. is shipping version 3.0 of its Small-Scale Solver DLL products, with an array of new features including the first standard Windows-based library for nonlinear constrained optimization. The Solver DLL products bring to user-written applications the optimization engines that form the core of the Solver for Microsoft Excel, the Quattro Pro Optimizer, and the Lotus 1-2-3 Solver, all of which were developed by Frontline Systems. Applications can use the Solver DLLs to automatically find the best way to allocate scarce resources—to maximize profits or minimize costs while operating within constraints on their use. The Solver DLL is easy to use in all languages—from traditional programming languages and RAD languages to database and scripting languages—that are capable of calling Windows DLLs. The nonlinear Solver engine in the Solver DLL uses the Generalized Reduced Gradient algorithm, implemented in the GRG2 code, which has earned a reputation for robustness on difficult nonlinear optimization problems over many years of use in tens of millions of copies of Microsoft Excel. An evaluation version of the new Solver DLL is available for download from the Frontline Systems Web site. Frontline Systems Inc. P.O. Box 4288 Incline Village, NV 89450 775-831-0300 http://www.frontsys.com Be There or BeCubed     BeCubed Software Inc. recently announced the release of a new version of Basic Constituents (Control Development Kit). Basic Constituents allows programmers using either Visual Basic® 5.0 or 6.0 or Visual Basic 5.0 Control Creation Edition (CCE) to directly access the base functionality of the Windows controls at the API level. Using Basic Constituents, programmers can get finer control over the custom controls they build. Basic Constituents comes with 25 controls, sample code, and a control creation wizard. The distribution CD also includes the Visual Basic 5.0 CCE and documentation. The company announced that they have released OLETools 6.5, which is a diverse collection of over 50 OCXs designed for use with any visual programming tool that supports ActiveX® controls. This new version is Y2K-compliant and includes several new controls, as well as many enhancements. Users also have the option to purchase the new annual subscription service which includes either enhancements to existing controls or a new control per quarter, quarterly updates on a master CD, a quarterly BeCubed newsletter, a quarterly knowledge base, access to betas, and more. BeCubed Software Inc. 170 South Church Street Canton, GA 30114 1-888-232-8233 http://www.becubed.com Manage Electronic Relationships     Pivotal Software Inc. recently announced the availability of Pivotal eRelationship, an integrated e-commerce relationship management (eCRM) solution. Pivotal eRelationship supports Microsoft SQL Server™ 7.0 and IIS and will support Microsoft Site Server Commerce Edition in a future version. Consisting of two integrated Web applications, Pivotal eRelationship lets companies build Internet Relationship Hubs for conducting online marketing, sales, and customer service with enterprise Web customers, sales and service partners, and prospects. The first application, Pivotal eRelationship PartnerHub, provides a company's sales and service partners personalized access to selling, marketing, and customer information that allows them to collaborate over the Internet. The second application, Pivotal eRelationship CustomerHub, enables companies to extend Web sites with interactive capabilities for one-to-one marketing and customer self-service. The suite allows storage of customer data in a shared database repository accessible to employees, customers, and business partners from Web sites, desktops, notebook computers, and devices using Windows CE. Pivotal Software Inc. 10210 NE Points Drive Building 3 - 4th Floor Kirkland, WA 98033 425-455-4230 http://www.pivotal.com Join the Party: Component Vendors Consortium     The Component Vendors Consortium (CVC) is a recently formed nonprofit organization whose purpose is to advance and promote the use of third-party software components and tools by developers, such as those featured every month in this column. The CVC focuses on promoting the strategic advantages of using commercial components and tools. Initiatives of the consortium include developing and maintaining a communications channel with development environment vendors, reaching a broad audience of professional developers, and developing quality standards for component software. A key objective of the new group is to develop an objective testing, measuring, and branding process to identify vendors and components that meet rigorous quality and support standards. In addition, the CVC standard will establish minimum requirements for technical support and product documentation. Component Vendors Consortium http://www.components.org Put a Conference on Your Site     SneakerLabs Inc. recently announced the introduction of iMeet Version 2.0, which uses a shared Web browser interface to make conferencing as easy as surfing the Web. Included in the launch of iMeet Version 2.0 is iMeet Now!, which allows the user to initiate a Web conference instantly with a single click. Once you join an iMeet conference, your browser is automatically transformed into a shared Web browser, allowing you to communicate with other people in your conference and literally be "on the same page." Though iMeet is intended for use in conjunction with a telephone conference call, it includes iMeet microChat, which lets participants communicate with each other using text. iMeet also includes full-featured chat for more text intensive conferencing. The program runs on any platform with a Java-enabled browser and does not require participants to download or install any additional software. iMeet Version 2.0 is available immediately as a service on the iMeet Web site and as a software product that can be purchased from SneakerLabs Inc. SneakerLabs Inc. 5001 Baum Boulevard, Suite 745 Pittsburgh, PA 15213 888-397-5227, 412-687-4611 http://www.sneakerlabs.com Capture and Verify International Data     Cardiff Software Inc. recently announced TELEform Version 6.1, the latest release of its data capture and verification solution. The new version adds extensive support for European Community markets, with localized versions for France and Germany, plus extensive character support for forms completed in most European languages. In addition to an English language version, TELEform 6.1 automatically provides support for scanning and processing characters found in many European languages, including Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish. In TELEform 6.1, Cardiff's Tri-CR technology has been enhanced with optimized OCR and ICR (Intelligent Character Recognition) engines. The new Selective Key-From-Image (SKFI) entry feature allows data operators to collect free-form information such as signatures and comments. For large-volume requirements, TELEform Elite-Enterprise Edition offers centralized networked system controls, integrated with Microsoft Management Console, with real-time administration and reporting, batch and load monitoring, and graphical system analysis. Cardiff Software Inc. 1782 La Costa Meadows Drive San Marcos, CA 92069 760-752-5200 http://www.cardiffsw.com

Does your company provide development tools for interactive applications? We'd love to hear the news! Email us at newstuff@microsoft.com.

From the May 1999 issue of Microsoft Internet Developer.