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"TrueDB Grid makes an difficult job possible," says Michael Hennessy, President of Networks Inc.
With the myriad of grid controls available (including the one that comes with Microsoft Visual Studio), Michael and his group of ten developers continue to use TrueDB Grid after investigating other controls. Even when project development switched to using Visual Studio .Net a few years ago, TrueDB Grid for .Net still outperforms the competition and provided them with the features they need.

One of the main reasons Michael uses TrueDB Grid is because he knows that ComponentOne will be around for the long haul. This means that his development group will not need to recode their projects every six months, something that can kill projects and loose the company valuable revenue. His mind is further eased because TrueDB Grid continues to be the top rated grid in magazines like the Visual Studio Magazine. TrueDB Grid makes it very easy to create highly transactional data driven applications, which is key for most of his customers as opposed to presentation driven.

Michael’s team has never had a major problem with the TrueGrid control. Other features they enjoy are:

• Monthly updates
• Works great with Microsoft products
• Great data entry features
• It works right the first time and is reliable

TrueGrid is also easy to work with on the presentation side. It does not take a lot of programming to make the grid look they want it to.

Because TrueGrid is powerful and is in most of the projects at Networkers Inc., they have created a couple of custom applications that drastically cut down development time. The first is called Delta Designer and allows developers to segregate user interface data structures, which makes it much easier to develop, deploy and maintain applications. The second is called Delta Designer© User Authentication and Access that complements Delta Designer. This application makes it easy for an administrator to control what type of rights a user has to any data grid in an application. Applying these rights during runtime was a simple matter using TrueGrid. Michael estimates that with these programs that extensively use TrueGrid for .NET, his team can create applications four to five times faster!

When it comes down to it, the main thing that matters is customer satisfaction. The Networkers Inc. customers are satisfied with their applications and TrueGrid. When Michael is asked why he doesn’t use other grids, he replies, “…any other grid will increase their programming time”.

ComponentOne

Whitepaper written by: David McCarter

 

12/2/2003: Altiris, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATRS), a leader in systems management solutions that reduce the total cost of owning information technology, today announced that it has acquired privately held Wise Solutions in a combined cash and stock transaction valued at approximately $43 million.

Wise Solutions is the leading provider of enterprise application management solutions and is best known for its expertise in application packaging, including conflict analysis and resolution. Wise Solutions has licensed its Wise Package Studio products to a wide range of customers and partners such as Dell, HP, Wal-Mart, Universal Studios and GlaxoSmithKline.

The strategic acquisition of Wise significantly enhances Altiris® IT lifecycle management offerings with the addition of Wise branded products, and provides Altiris with technology that will enhance existing client and server management offerings, specifically in software delivery and patch management. The acquisition is expected to be immediately accretive and is expected to provide operational efficiencies over time.

"Through this strategic acquisition, Altiris adds world class software packaging and delivery capabilities to our portfolio of IT lifecycle management offerings," commented Greg Butterfield, President and CEO of Altiris. "Through our existing partnership with Wise, we have already been successful in winning new customer relationships and are now positioned to further leverage our channel partner relationships. As a result of this acquisition, we expect to further integrate the technologies and expand our branded offerings."

Rockwell Automation, a leading industrial automation company with annual sales of approximately $4 billion, uses Altiris and Wise Solution technologies to automate desktop and laptop management for more than 12,000 employees.

Jim Harings, Rockwell Automation global administration analyst, said, "We use Altiris and Wise Solutions to help reduce the cost of software configuration management. These complementary technologies help us automate and standardize application management and software distribution. A natively integrated solution will help us further create a more stable software environment and ultimately increase end-user productivity while reducing help desk costs."

Fred Broussard, senior research analyst for IDC's PC and Device Management Software, said, "When there are thousands of machines within an IT department's responsibility, repackaging is an important part of the overall software distribution process. A software distribution solution that can take advantage of repackaging capabilities to speed software delivery to the desktops is going to strengthen Altiris' product line."

Under the terms of the agreement, Altiris agreed to pay approximately $31.5 million in cash and issue 348,797 shares of Altiris common stock for all capital stock of Wise Solutions. A portion of the consideration has been placed in escrow to satisfy certain indemnification obligations of the Wise Solutions shareholders.

 

But it does not have to be hard, time consuming or complicated. I was at a contract site the other day and they still used the DOS version of PKZip. What's the solution? Get a copy of WinZip. WinZip is, hands down, the fastest and easiest program to use if you need to zip and unzip files in Windows! I've tried and used many programs of this type and this is "the" only one that I use.

What makes it so fast is that WinZip has PKZip built into it! Which means no shelling to DOS to zip and unzip files. WinZip will also work with ARJ, ARC and LZH files through external programs and has TAR, gzip and UNIX compression built right in!

Unzipping files is easy. Just double click on the zip file in File Manager and WinZip will invoke and read/display the contents of the file. From there you can use the icon bar to extract any or all files or view a file (such as a text file). One useful feature is if you double click on any file displayed, WinZip will instantly unzip the file and invoke it. For example, double clicking on a WRI file will start Write and load the file. Double clicking on a EXE file will start it.

Another feature is Check Out. Using this will create a Program Manager group containing one icon for each file in the archive. Double click on the icon in the Program Manager group to run the file or to view the file with the program associated with the file. WinZip will optionally delete the Program Manager group and related files when you close the archive or close WinZip. Files can also be scanned for viruses when they are unzipped by Check Out.

Zipping files is just as easy. To create a zip file or add files to it, either drop files onto WinZip from File Manager or click on the "New" or "Add" button. Any PKZip function can be used when zipping files. Such as maximum compression, use of EMS memory, recursive sub directories and save extra directory information.

WinZip can also create zipped files that span disks, but this features are not supported internally. To use this features, an external copy of PKZIP.EXE is required.

WinZip is highly configurable to your liking. This program is very well written and I have yet to find a bug in it or have it lock-up on me. The only feature I wish it had is unzipping multiple files at a time.

WinZip Is Developed By

Nico Mak Computing, Inc.
P.O. Box 919,
Bristol, CT 06011-0919

Registration Fee: (current version is 8.1 and still is) $29

Evaluation copies are available from www.winzip.com

 

More news to follow as it becomes available.

3/25/03 Update:
It was confirmed to me today by an Wrox Press author that not only are they filing for bankruptcy but they are in liquidation.