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SPC Boston Attendees Found the Conference “Extremely Valuable”
Customers who attended SPC 2009 Boston (May 19-21) are telling us they were “amazed,” “surprised,” and “excited” to learn about what they can do with Synergy/DE. Attendees especially appreciated the focus this year on what you can do right now to enhance your Synergy/DE applications and improve your productivity. Hal Chernoff from WellPartner, Inc., elaborated: “This year's conference in particular was extremely valuable. The focus on what is available NOW was most useful. While it was exciting last year to see what was coming, actually touching and using the technologies that we can employ right now is what I need.”
Popular sessions included the hands on Code Phantom exercises, which educated customers about objects in a fun and interactive way, and the conference application (ChronoTrack) demos, which illustrated the latest Synergy/DE features in action. Sessions covering upcoming releases of Synergy/DE, including Synergy/DE for .NET, also proved popular. And, as always, the customer demo was a big hit. Attendees enjoyed hearing and seeing how United Natural Foods (NASDAQ: UNFI), the largest publicly traded wholesale distributor to the natural and organic foods industry, is using the latest Synergy/DE features to solve business problems in a distributed computing environment.
What advice did Boston SPC attendees have for Synergex customers deciding whether to attend the SPC in London June 9-11? Erik Read of Jack Henry said, “If you want your application to sizzle with all of the latest UI enhancements by Microsoft, DevExpress, Infragistics, etc., you have to go to the conference! It was about what is available now. It was information I could bring back and say, ‘this is what we can do now.’ ” Consultant Mike Rampino seconded, “You must attend the conference to stay on the cutting edge.” And Michelle Benoit of Harland Financial Solutions agreed: “This was one of the best SPCs I have attended. I gathered a lot of useful information and have much to bring back to the office for future development.”
To find out what other Boston attendees thought of the conference and to view pictures from the Boston SPC, visit the SPC Web site.
Bigbah Smann, Manny Jurr, Jodah Veloper, and Mark Etting just returned from the Boston SPC –visit the SPC site to find out how they're putting what they learned to good use!
Register today for SPC London at spc.synergex.com.
Please note: If you have not yet made your hotel accommodations for the London SPC, please contact us as soon as possible.
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London Attendees, Sign Up for OpenVMS Roundtable Hosted by HP
SPC sponsor Hewlett-Packard will host an OpenVMS roundtable during lunch on the first day of the London SPC (June 9), with an OpenVMS specialist on hand to answer any questions you might have. This roundtable has been very popular at the SPCs, providing developers the opportunity to learn more about this platform and its future and to network with other Synergy/DE developers who develop on OpenVMS.
If you are interested in participating, please send an email to liz.marmins@synergex.com.
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What is ChronoTrack?
And how will it help you enhance your Synergy/DE applications?
“The ChronoTrack demo was great for stimulating ideas for our applications as well as showing how to integrate with Synergy business logic.”
Tim Apicelli, United Natural Foods, Inc., SPC Boston attendee
“I liked the real-world examples in the ChronoTrack application.”
Todd Rolfes, Automated Systems, SPC Boston attendee
“I enjoyed the ChronoTrack application demonstration and the customer application demos as examples of what can actually be done using Synergy/DE.”
David Bogdansky, Suarez Corporation, SPC Boston attendee
Those of you who didn’t attend the SPC in Boston may be wondering, “What is this ChronoTrack we keep hearing about?” ChronoTrack is a sample project/time management application developed and used by Synergex’s Professional Services Group. It utilizes every significant feature of today’s Synergy/DE and is used throughout the SPC to illustrate the latest technologies available to Synergy/DE developers. And perhaps the best part is that all SPC attendees receive the ChronoTrack source code, enabling them to get started implementing these new features right away.
Attend SPC London and see for yourself what all the ChronoTrack hype is about! |
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Leading Chemical Manufacturer Upgrades to Synergy/DE 9 and HP OpenVMS Integrity, Experiences 75% Increase in Performance
Founded in 1928, GFS Chemicals, Inc., manufactures over 4000 items for chemists. All of their in-house applications are based on Synergy/DE and run on HP OpenVMS.
Recently, GFS decided to upgrade their eight-year-old Alpha server, due to some performance issues, and at the same time upgrade their Synergy/DE version from 8.3.1 to 9.1 in order to take advantage of new features in Synergy/DE 9. GFS engaged HP technical support and Synergex Professional Services Group to assist with the migration.
The transition went very smoothly, according to Cathy Song, Director of Information Systems at GFS. “The most important thing was the planning,” states Song. “Knowing what to expect is the key to success.”
The new solution exceeded GFS’s expectations. “The increased productivity is worth every penny we invested,” raves Song. “People used to wait more than 10 minutes for reports. Now they only take a minute. Most of our programs are now running without wait time!”
When asked whether other Synergy/DE customers on Alpha should move to the HP Integrity servers, Cathy’s answer is a resounding “yes.” “If they have performance issues like we did, it is a must! I wish we had done it sooner,” she remarked.
Considering moving to Integrity? Contact Synergex for more information. |
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Support Tech Tip
What is DTK_NEWGRID, and does it affect %GRID_CREATE?
Since Synergy/DE 9.1.5a, the Synergy/DE distribution has included two versions of the 32-bit ActiveX list control. The DTK_NEWGRID environment variable determines which is used.
Why two versions? With Synergy/DE 9.1.5a, we added 64-bit ActiveX list support. To implement this, we used a newer version of the FarPoint Spread control (Spread 8.0.0.4), and we introduced some minor behavioral changes and a new property. (See the UI Toolkit release notes, REL_DTK.TXT, for more information.) We also retrofitted this control for 32-bit, creating a new 32-bit ActiveX control to match the 64-bit control.
So for Synergy/DE 9.1.5 patches (9.1.5a, 91.5b, etc.), there are two versions of the ActiveX list control for 32-bit Synergy/DE: the old list control (the only version available before Synergy/DE 9.1.5a) and the new control that's based on the 64-bit ActiveX list control. DTK_NEWGRID determines which is used. If DTK_NEWGRID is not set (the default), UI Toolkit uses the old control. If DTK_NEWGRID is set to any value, UI Toolkit uses the new control. However, note that with our next major release, Synergy/DE 9.3.1, the new ActiveX list control will become the standard for 32-bit ActiveX lists, so you will no longer need to set DTK_NEWGRID to use it.
As for %GRID_CREATE, although it's also based on the FarPoint Spread control, it is in no other way related to the ActiveX list controls, so DTK_NEWGRID settings and the changes mentioned above do not affect it.
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Quiz
Synergy/DE pros, see if you can answer this question!
In the following program, what happens on Windows platforms if the user clicks on the window WINDOW1 while the program is executing “do_something_lengthy”?
main
.include "DBLDIR:windows.def"
.include "WND:tools.def"
record
wndid ,int
proc
u_start
xcall w_proc(WP_CREATE, wndid, "WINDOW1", 10, 40)
xcall u_logwnd(wndid)
xcall u_wndevents(D_ASSIGN,
& %u_wndevents(D_CREATE,, D_EVENT_LEFT_CLICK, "myclick"),
& wndid)
xcall u_window(D_PLACE, wndid, 1, 1)
xcall u_update
xcall u_window(D_DELETE, wndid)
xcall do_something_lengthy ; but doesn’t update the screen
xcall u_finish
end
function myclick, ^val, reentrant
a_resv1 ,a
a_resv2 ,a
^val(a_wndid) ,i
record
name ,a15
proc
xcall w_info(WI_NAME, a_wndid, name)
xcall e_sect("You clicked " + name, D_INFO, D_LEFT)
xcall u_update
freturn TRUE
end
a. The status bar is updated with “You clicked WINDOW1.”
b. A fatal runtime error occurs because the window has already been deleted.
c. The user can’t click on WINDOW1 because it has already been deleted.
d. Nothing happens, because Synergy/DE knows that the window has been deleted.
Click here for the answer and explanation. |
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Platform News
Read a selection of recent articles
All platforms:
Hands-on: Google Chrome 2
May 22
Windows
Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista
May 26
Army Deploying Vista on Hundreds of Thousands of Computers
May 22
Microsoft Sets July Kill Date for Office 2000
May 21
Report: Microsoft to Reveal Window 7 Prices in June
May 21
Microsoft Confirms Serious IIS bug, Downplays Threat
May 19
Microsoft ODBC Drivers Can Return Unexpected Results When Using Parameter Markers after Any Function in a T-SQL Statement
May 12
OpenVMS
OpenVMS Solutions on Itanium Needed for 2009 Innovation Awards
May 20
Unix
Linux: Modify xorg.conf for Better Performance
May 23
Linux’s Position in Cloud Computing Efforts
May 11
10 Free Linux Ebooks for Beginners
May 10
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Synergex Events and Education
SPC 2009 London
June 9-11
Learn more and register
On-Demand Seminars (view at your desk)
MDU Enhancements in Synergy/DE 9
6 minutes
From UI Toolkit to .NET: Updating a Legacy Application (A Customer's Perspective)
75 minutes
Synergy/DE 9.1 Highlights
70 minutes
UI Toolkit Composite Windows
30 minutes
Synergy Objects Parts 1
65 minutes
Synergy Objects Parts 2
25 minutes
Synergy Objects Parts 3
30 minutes
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Trademarks: Synergex, Synergy, Synergy Development Environment, Synergy/DE, Jodah Veloper, Manny Jurr, Mark Etting, Bigbah Smann, and all other Synergy/DE product names are trademarks of Synergex. All other product and company names in this newsletter are trademarks of their respective holders.
Copyright © 2009 Synergex International Corporation. All rights reserved.
Synergy-e-News 20090604 |
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