Jan/Feb 2011
Clif Notes: I Resolve To Not Write Any New Year's Resolution Column...Next Year
I think I set a new efficiency record this New Year. I have never been into New Year's resolutions very much. With 365 days in a year, I don't understand waiting for a particular one in order to make a decision to accomplish something in the next 364. But, it seems to be a cultural tradition, not unlike the ritual of eating certain foods on New Year's Day in a magical attempt to woo Lady Luck or the Goddess Ifni to smile upon us. Nevertheless, this year I decided to participate.
From The Inside Jan/Feb 2011
New Year, New Features, New Resources, New Formats… We have a lot of new things and changes happening this year; one is the magazine. One of the big pushes this year is to make the magazine more digital friendly. As a start, you'll see QR Codes on each article. 1
Tech Tip: Formatting Queries Without A Dictionary Descriptor in UniVerse
Log onto any MultiValue application that has been in existence for three years, find a commonly used file, say CUST, and list it's dictionary. What do you see? Definitions for LNAME, LAST.NAME, L.NAME, LST.NAME, LNAME40, etc. Upon closer examination you discover that field (attribute) is also defined as X, XX, PGM030.LNAME.RPT, and on and on. Log on to an application that has been in use for 30 years and you could find several hundred dictionary entries for a file with only 20 fields.
Business Tech: Money
Money may or may not make the world go around, but it certainly is a pretty good lubricant. When the supply of it starts to dwindle, such as during a tough economy, the wheels of business start to squeak. Although a company's IT department usually cannot directly generate more money to help oil the gears, it can do something almost as good - generate information about money. Where does it come from, where does it go, and how can we do more with less of it?
E-Commerce Made E-Z
Selling goods on the Internet can be a valuable extension to a business or a complete business in and of itself. Getting orders and shipping product is important. But it doesn't do much good unless you get paid. One way of doing that is by using the PayPal API.
Sending E-mail From Your MultiValue Programs - Part 1
Many legacy MultiValue applications were written long before the invention of e-mail and the Internet. In that e-mail is now an integral part of everyday business, it is surprising how many of these systems have never been updated to use it in even its simplest form. Part one of this series of articles will show you how to get started in rectifying that situation.
Clear Message Initiative
In the early days of Data Processing, the only way you had of telling the operator what kind of error had occurred was to put an error number into a particular register and halt the machine. That error code would then be displayed on the front panel lights. The development of interactive systems brought alphanumeric displays and error codes followed by a terse description. But even in the user-friendly world of MultiValue, many programmers have not gotten beyond [3] Verb?
