IBM
Smarter Business Solutions Through Dynamic Infrastructure
 Small and medium businesses (SMBs) that have previously considered virtualization in the cloud but decided that it is too expensive or simply not viable should think again. Virtualization and cloud computing enables SMBs to green their operations and build IT infrastructures that are a...Sep. 14, 2009 11:15 AM EDT Reads: 1,979 |
 Optimizing website performance is a challenging task. Websites are composed of many moving parts – both on the client and on the server – and optimizing performance requires a multi-faceted approach that addresses potential problems in all moving parts. Performance bottlenecks are caus...Aug. 27, 2009 12:00 PM EDT Reads: 6,696 Replies: 1 |
 This article describes the integration between the SCM AllFusion Harvest Version Control Interface (VCI) and Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 for version control. It will show how to make the necessary connections using the interface, demonstrate check-outs and check-ins, how to delete fil...Jul. 17, 2009 01:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,511 Replies: 1 |
 With the arrival of .NET 3.5, WPF and the RTM of Silverlight 2, .NET developers have more choices than ever for designing, developing and deploying compelling applications with rich user interfaces. However, there are other mainstream alternatives that don’t fall into the .NET camp. Wh...Jul. 15, 2009 04:00 AM EDT Reads: 3,756 Replies: 1 |
 In the previous articles in this series, we looked at FDCC changes (part 1) and GUI enhancements (part 2) in PowerBuilder 11.5. In this article, we’ll be looking at the enhancements that were added to PowerBuilder 11.5 that are specifically related to .NET targets. The one thing we won...Jul. 3, 2009 10:00 PM EDT Reads: 2,410 |
 There’s been a lot of discussion among the .NET folks recently about the magnitude of the changes that are being introduced in the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) in .NET 4.0. See, for example, “Windows Workflow Changes Direction” by Kathleen Dollard. It’s just another anecdote that b...Jul. 2, 2009 12:45 PM EDT Reads: 1,437 Replies: 1 |
 Cloud computing platforms, such as Microsoft Azure, offer compelling advantages for building new scalable .NET applications. But can the Cloud be used for developing existing .NET applications? In this article, I’ll explain how we’ve made the leap to Cloud-based development for our int...Jun. 17, 2009 02:45 PM EDT Reads: 2,409 |
 The level of functionality on the Web is changing and the bar is rising on what is considered a true rich Internet application (RIA). This fact and the emergence of the Web as an interconnected platform is once again changing the landscape and moving us into the next phase of the Web, ...Jun. 9, 2009 09:45 PM EDT Reads: 8,424 Replies: 2 |
 This article seems like it should be the fourth in a series of articles. The first two were on non-visual components in August 2006 and July of 2007. The last one was in August of 2007. In that one, we looked at using the Interop Forms Toolkit to provide a COM wrapper for Visual .NET c...Apr. 30, 2009 06:30 PM EDT Reads: 1,518 |
 Enabling interoperability is one of the greatest benefits of using web services. In the business world, applications work on different platforms with different operating systems running applications whose programming languages vary wildly. For applications to interact with each other t...Apr. 30, 2009 05:45 PM EDT Reads: 1,991 |
 Some walls are necessary. We use brick-and-mortar walls to support buildings and firewalls to protect our computers from attack. But not all walls are good. Consider the Berlin Wall, a wall of segregation. It divided a country and its citizens, but has subsequently been brought down by...Apr. 29, 2009 03:45 PM EDT Reads: 1,694 |
 People always like the shiny and new, regardless of whether it’s gadgets, clothes, cars, or technology. It’s exciting to get something new; we feel good about ourselves, like we’re a part of an elite group, ahead of the curve, “in the know.” Yet “buyer’s remorse” is also a well-known p...Apr. 16, 2009 01:30 PM EDT Reads: 1,671 |
 In a former life, I was a web developer. Back in the late '90s, I vividly remember being told by more than one of my computer science professors that in 10 years, everything would run in a web browser. Even the operating system (it was claimed at the time) would be browser based. On st...Apr. 14, 2009 11:00 PM EDT Reads: 3,396 Replies: 1 |
 The excitement around virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is being tempered by the concern that VDI can’t be cost-justified if it doesn’t completely transform traditional desktop management – and by the belief that the only way to achieve this is with stateless desktops. The bad news ...Apr. 14, 2009 06:00 PM EDT Reads: 2,643 |
 This book is a great introductory and tutorial book for XNA programming. It’s clearly written, assumes no significant prior knowledge, and will have even beginners creating basic games by the end of the book. Chapter 1 gives a crash course in .NET and programming in C#. It’s a nice lea...Mar. 18, 2009 03:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,215 |
 With the release of ASP.NET 2.0, Microsoft introduced Web developers to the "provider" model that addresses common application infrastructure needs using a system of pluggable modules adhering to common interfaces. ASP.NET shipped with modules to cover Membership (authentication), Role...Feb. 10, 2009 04:40 PM EST Reads: 2,715 Replies: 1 |
 Mid-size and enterprise companies are using Web 2.0 collaboration systems to build solutions that service several different parts of the organization. In many cases, line-of-business users from many departments are interested in using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 as a...Feb. 10, 2009 03:45 PM EST Reads: 1,271 |
 Finding a beginning is always a little subjective in computer books. This is because so many things depend on so many other things. Often, the best we can do is put a stake in the ground and start from that point. Anonymous types are our stake. Anonymous types use the keyword var. Var ...Feb. 6, 2009 04:00 PM EST Reads: 2,285 |
 One day, I received an e-mail from a customer complaining that there was 100% CPU occupancy on our program, EDC (Engineering Data Collection) service, while handling certain XPath queries. I decided to do some tests on the program and some other alternative solutions. I set two goals f...Jan. 2, 2009 07:15 AM EST Reads: 2,893 |
 Today's fast-paced business environment has put pressure on organizations to develop and maintain applications at an unsurpassed rate to drive increased employee productivity, company revenue, and customer satisfaction. The ultimate goal is to improve operational efficiencies while low...Dec. 30, 2008 07:00 AM EST Reads: 2,716 |
 A few years ago I had the opportunity to sit down with a designer possessed of a rare talent. We were both part of the same team and he was creating some UI elements that I was to wire up. As I sat there (in awe) watching him work I realized that much of his considerable skill was root...Dec. 30, 2008 04:00 AM EST Reads: 4,731 |
 WOA, or web-oriented architecture, has proven itself as a viable approach to building large-scale, worldwide web services. This article introduces the principles behind WOA, how it is applied, and why it should be used even inside the enterprise. Before diving into the meat of this art...Dec. 13, 2008 07:00 AM EST Reads: 6,518 |
 Last year I wrote an article in PBDJ describing an ASP.NET project that was done with DataWindow.NET in the browser ("Prognos," Volume 14, Issue 4) and PowerBuilder Web Services in the back end. The front end consisted of an intro page, two data entry pages, and one page with the resul...Nov. 26, 2008 11:10 AM EST Reads: 3,621 |
 With PowerBuilder 11 Sybase gave developers what we have long hoped for – the possibility of taking an application created in a client/server architecture and turning it into a Web application, almost without having to move the code; and it's better if you don't use a server applicatio...Oct. 25, 2008 09:30 AM EDT Reads: 5,570 Replies: 2 |
 Although the .NET Framework simplifies the challenge of developing distributed Web applications, it increases the complexity of deploying, and then managing, those applications. The adoption of Web 2.0 techniques and SOA Web Services only amplify this complexity, making performance ass...Oct. 13, 2008 10:00 AM EDT Reads: 2,377 |
 The Windows Presentation Foundation community is growing because WPF facilitates the development of better graphical user interfaces and graphical applications. But WPF's tri-dimensional resources are not developed compared to DirectX’s capabilities and existing hardware potential. Thi...Oct. 13, 2008 07:30 AM EDT Reads: 2,349 |
 At the end of my previous article (DNDJ, Vol. 6, issue 4), I explained the theory behind the two major technologies to be used in timing the market. On the one hand, we are dealing with distributed computing – a process whereby large computationally intensive tasks can be broken up and...Sep. 16, 2008 12:48 PM EDT Reads: 2,237 |
 In the recent past, it was common for Windows applications to be manually compiled and built directly on a developer's desktop computer. This caused many problems. For example, the developer may have had a different version of a component used in the application, or you couldn't build ...Aug. 15, 2008 07:00 PM EDT Reads: 6,087 |
 In Part 1 we started to develop a small racing game using XNA Game Studio Express 2.0. We learned about the game loop and how it's implemented by the XNA (by using the Update and Draw methods) framework. We also created our first track on the screen and four cars started moving on the ...Jun. 13, 2008 12:30 PM EDT Reads: 3,527 |
 Call me a purist but I like to make my code as object-oriented and well structured as possible. I like to tweak the design and to work toward the overall quality of the code. My refactoring olfactory sense is quick to react to any offending odor in the code and it's becoming more sensi...Jun. 6, 2008 04:30 PM EDT Reads: 3,126 |
 I've always been puzzled by the ability of some traders to consistently make money. A cynic would say that anyone who is able to profit in all adverse economic environments (recessions, depressions, etc.) is most likely able to do so because they are getting information that is not gen...May. 30, 2008 12:30 PM EDT Reads: 3,949 |
 The computer desktop today is what the television was to people in the 1980s. It's the single most important channel for consumer entertainment and information. The computer desktop - as was the case with newspapers before there was radio and radio before there was television - has bec...Apr. 27, 2008 10:30 AM EDT Reads: 13,497 Replies: 3 |
 The programming language dictates how developers can describe data structures, interfaces, and algorithms. The libraries provide an extensive array of advanced services to the program such as data access, communications, and graphical user interface. The language and libraries are call...Apr. 17, 2008 12:15 PM EDT Reads: 13,519 Replies: 3 |
 The mouse was the original idea of Doug Engelbart who was the head of the Augmentation Research Center (ARC) at Stanford Research Institute. Engelbart's philosophy is best embodied, in my opinion, in the design of another device that he invented, the five-finger keyboard - with keys li...Apr. 10, 2008 09:15 AM EDT Reads: 26,843 Replies: 6 |
 In this article we're going to take a database and create our own mini version of an 'Amazon-like' item lookup. That is to say, any .NET or .NET-compatible client will be able to look up items in our database via the Web by simply providing a UPC. This article will show you how. To com...Apr. 4, 2008 11:00 AM EDT Reads: 5,259 |
 Maybe some of you remember a time when we created a sprite on a piece of graph paper and afterwards hacked zeroes and ones in so we could see something eventually move on a TV screen. I have to admit that those days have been gone for a long time and a lot of things have happened in IT...Mar. 27, 2008 05:00 PM EDT Reads: 6,499 Replies: 4 |
 db4o, an open source object database system with broad industry applicability, belongs to a popular database management systems that has close to 2 million downloads to date. Here we'll illustrate the features and application areas of such a database and compare db4o against relational...Feb. 16, 2008 12:15 PM EST Reads: 9,418 |
 Like many world-changing technologies before it, SharePoint has caught IS organizations off-guard. Early adopters within the business established SharePoint environments on their own. These users assumed they could manage these environments independently without IS's knowledge or perha...Feb. 7, 2008 03:00 PM EST Reads: 4,461 |
Roughly two years ago, when I was writing an article on 'New Features for Device Developers in Visual Studio 2005' that was published in the August 2005 issues of this magazine, our program management team was already busy shaping the next release of the product, which is soon to be re... Dec. 25, 2007 07:30 PM EST Reads: 24,606 |
 The Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) provides the foundation for building applications and high-fidelity experiences in Windows Vista, blending together application UI, documents, and media content. WPF contains two data sources for XML and objects. To enhance productivi...Dec. 23, 2007 04:00 PM EST Reads: 7,109 |
