Jul/Aug 2011
Extending Your MultiValue ERP with Web Services: Thinking Outside the Box
Most companies have ERP needs that are unique to their particular business. When a "standard" ERP package does not fit well with accepted industry practices or company business processes, you seem to have two choices — customize and enhance the software or change the way that you do business to match the package. The first can be difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. The second can force you into doing things in a way that actually complicates your workflow and raises expenses. It may even hurt your competitive advantages. Find out how this company stepped "outside the box" and solved one of their ERP needs with inexpensive equipment, internal developers, and open source software.
From the Inside July/August 2011
It is the time of year that I start planning for the next Spectrum conference. If you haven't seen the ad for the 2012 Spectrum, it will be Apr 2nd-5th in West Palm Beach, FL. We are having it at the same venue as the 2011 conference, so if you are a golfer, make sure you bring your clubs.
Creating Breakthrough MultiValue Applications
Breakthrough applications are solutions that dominate markets, destroying the competition by providing unique functionality. Of course, creating these breakthrough applications may require additional skills and technologies. With the MultiValue developer in mind, this article explores the characteristics and requirements to produce a breakthrough application.
Business Tech: Managing Creative Talent
When we hear the word "creative," we tend to think of musicians, authors, visual artists, and the like. Although many members of the Information Technology community consider themselves to be, and may actually have degrees in, Computer Science, Software Engineering, or Networks, we have more in common in our work needs and habits with the artists than is first apparent. Managers of these group of people are advised to understand and remember this.
Sending E-mail from Your MultiValue Programs - Part 4: Using MS Exchange and Sockets
Continuing the discussion of interfacing MultiValue programs with e-mail, this part of the series of articles discusses talking directly to an SMTP server by using sockets. Although the actual details of opening, writing to, and reading from a socket differ from platform to platform, when you have made connection, the SMTP dialogue is remarkably straightforward.
Tech Tip: Address Verification - Parsing
The address is a key piece of information in anyone's database, but it can be extremely hard to validate, and due to free form input, even harder to search.
Clif Notes: What is the Sound of One Hand Crumbling?
Unless this is only the first or second of these columns you have read, you are already aware that one of my hot buttons is getting rid of the green screens in our MultiValue applications. I have repeatedly made the point that having the most visible part of our applications using an antiquated approach to user interfaces is not just an embarrassment — it is probably a major contributing factor to why non-technical upper management kicks the MultiValue system to the curb (and the MultiValue developers along with it) and replaces it with something more "mainstream." If it looks like a dinosaur, waddles like a dinosaur, grunts like a dinosaur, well then, it must be a dinosaur.
Clif Notes
Clif Notes ITworld reference 1
Clif Notes
Clif Notes ITWorld reference 2
