Key opinion-formers in the field of infrastructure and pioneers of virtualization technologies of all types have already begun submitting speaking proposals to Virtualization Conference & Expo 2008 East, being held in New York City, 23-24 June, 2008. Topics covered will range from Server Virtualization, Application Virtualization, Desktop Virtualization, Network Virtualization, I/O Virtualization and Storage Virtualization, to Virtual Machine Automation, Physical to Virtual (P2V) Migration, Management Applications, Tools and Utilities, and Virtualization Scripts and Procedures.

In my first OrcaScript article 'Using OrcaScript to Automate Your Build Process With or Without Source Control' (PBDJ, Vol. 14, issue 6), I focused on automating the build process using OrcaScript. The entire article was based on the assumption that we might be using a separate build machine. Because of this, I avoided using or connecting to the workspace to get the source control connection parameters or to look at the source control status of each object. This time, I'll make things a little bit easier by using the workspace and focusing on writing short scripts and a reusable script that prompts for a target name.

Microsoft recently released the Interop Forms Toolkit 2.0 in order to allow 'developers to incorporate VB.NET Forms and Controls into their VB6 applications' (www.mi crosoft.com/downloads/det ails.aspx? FamilyID=934d e3c5-dc85-4065-9327-96801 e57b81d&DisplayLang=en).

Recently, I needed to have FTP support embedded in a PowerBuilder application that I was writing for my day job. Since PowerBuilder lacks the ability to natively manipulate sockets (a big negative, Sybase), a third-party solution had to be found or I was going to be tempting the wrath of the Windows API, something I wasn't looking forward to doing.

First the good news: PowerBuilder is a great tool; in fact you can't accidentally do much wrong. This strength is based on a number of reasons. The following is list of why I think PowerBuilder is so great, but you might like to add one or two more items to it:

There's a reason why software developers like Microsoft update the look of their applications every two years. It shows the consumer that something has changed and therefore they need to upgrade, at least that's my opinion.

PowerBuilder and PocketBuilder have powerful features for supporting identity or autoincrement datatypes. To activate these features, the PowerBuilder or PocketBuilder integrated development environment (IDE) must be aware of the identity attribute associated with the underlying database column. Typically, this is obtained using a SQLColAttributes() request with a request type of SQL_COLUMN_AUTO_I NCREMENT.

Using toolbars in an application, and the way PowerBuilder lets you control behavior, is dependent on a few functions and your basic menu design. And, remember, for a developer, every enhancement to a user interface benefits the customer, and heightens his satisfaction.

The award-winning series, The Pragmatic Starter Kit, has a new addition: Pragmatic Version Control Using Subversion, by Mike Mason, a senior developer with the transnational IT professional services firm ThoughtWorks.

Ahh, the holidays - time for warmth, family, a spirit of charity (or greed, depending on your wont), and days off. Many of us spend our holidays vacationing, shopping, worshipping, and trying to rekindle childhood memories or feelings.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could use DataWindows, DataStores, and DataWindowChild objects in the same way? This article shows you how.

There is (still) a growing market for Java development tools. This is a good thing, but also a big problem, since I don't have a plug-in for every IDE for my secret love: Sybase EAServer. It's not fun to build a .jar, .war, or .ear in the IDE, then fire up the Jaguar Manager and do the boring 'import by hand' thing. What is the solution?

There have been volumes of books, studies, and essays regarding coding standards and including comments within software code. This article outlines a few common- sense rules on why documentation is required and, strategically important, also shows how to implement comments and documentation effectively within your software code product.

You may think you're using your data warehouse to its fullest extent. After all, you've amassed a great deal of data about customers or inventory that you can look up at will. But if you're not using the proper business intelligence (BI) tools, your data warehouse is no better than a hunk of coal. BI tools such as data mining can turn the coal into a diamond that can propel your business to the top.

Have you ever used a grid DataWindow to maintain a table in which columns use DropDownDataWindows for selection, but one column's choices are dependent on another? It's a pretty common scenario, but one that's not so simple to code.

In developing various report systems, I found it necessary to recall the ad hoc query tool (based on a concept by Sean Rhody discussed in SYS-CON Publications' Secrets of the PowerBuilder Masters 5.0). For those of you who haven't read about it I'll take a minute to describe it briefly.