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Far from cookie-cutter apps!

VisualCE Enterprise Edition 6.1

By: Daniel Matejka | Date: 23-Oct-01 | Comments

INTRODUCTION

   
    A few years ago, I was a pretty good Paradox for Windows Developer.  In fact, I had an article published in Paradox Informant Magazine in December of 1995 on a series of applications I wrote to help Quality Assurance Managers with their ISO 9000 implementations.  It was called Quality System Administration (QSA), and had Corrective Action, Corrective Action Escalation, Calibration and Internal Auditing modules in it.  It was pretty cool. 

       After I got done with that, I put in a POS System for a pawnshop in Round Lake Beach, IL, and a Movie Rental POS system for a small mom and pop-shop video store in Grayslake, IL.  I also wrote a Music Catalog and Performance application for a church I attended.  It helped them keep track of all of the songs that were on the church band play list, and allowed the music minister to create a weekly play list for the Sunday Service. 

       All of these were done under Paradox for Windows 5.x.  I had the Runtime for it, and was a programming fool.  After 1997, I started a job at a medical device manufacturer, and the RDBMS consulting fell to the wayside.  I haven’t really slung a line of ObjectPAL in over 5 years.

       For kicks, I had Sherman set the WayBack Machine for a quick jaunt to the past and began skipping tra-la through my Paradox files and came across an application that really saved my butt a couple of times when I was looking for a new job. 

       In 1996, I found myself out of work and my wife pregnant with our second child.  I needed to find a job in a hurry.  I needed to get serious, and began flooding the Chicagoland area with résumé’s and responded to gazillions of job adds in the paper.  I shot résumé’s to headhunters, and passed them out to friends and neighbors.  If I shook your hand, you came away with a resume.  It was getting out of hand. 

       Knowing what I knew about Paradox for Windows, I decided to write an application that would help me keep track of all of the résumé’s and stuff.  It took me a while, but the result was called Jobs: The Job Search Manager.  It’s a cool little contact manager, specifically oriented around finding a job. 

       With it you can manage employment opportunities, networking contacts, job sources, and keep track of all your activities around all of those.  You can print cover letters, cold call letters; and address and return address labels.  It will even print a list of all of the people you contacted, interviewed with, etc. in IL. DoEmp compliant format for unemployment insurance benefits.  Hey, I DID have a little bit of time on my hands…

       During my trip through the past, I decided that this app would make a great Pocket PC application.  All I needed was a Development Environment and a second degree in Computer Science.  I don’t program in any other language other than ObjectPAL.  I never meant to learn programming.  It just kinda happened while creating QSA, because I was using it as I wrote it.

       This is where VisualCE Professional comes in, kids.  With it, you can create form based applications for your Pocket PC.  It comes in a number of different configurations, Lite, Personal, Professional and Enterprise editions, each supporting incremental, and enhanced features over the lesser version.  You don’t need to program at all to use ANY of the editions, even Professional and Enterprise editions, with the possible exception of utilizing the more advanced features of mEnable.  However, to take advantage of the more advanced features in the Professional and Enterprise editions, you WILL need to have a firm understanding of Relational Databases, Data Normalization Rules, and form based applications.  If you aren’t that gifted, don’t worry.  You won’t get left out in the cold, its just  going to take you longer to get to the good stuff.  However, getting there for the RDBMS Newbie could take a while.  It all depends on you.

       So come on, kids… Come follow me along my journey to create PocketJobs 1.0.  You’ll be able to gage for yourself if VisualCE can help you solve some of your application needs along the way.

WHAT'S HOT

   
    VisualCE version 6.0 was released days before I started this review.  In the three or so weeks since then, VisualCE has been updated to version 6.1.  This point release was done to facilitate two features. 

  •    New Enterprise Installation System
    While it’s really nothing to write home about, in my mind this is a cool deal.  Until version 6.1, Syware distributed VisualCE Enterprise Edition as 3 separate files.   As you’ll note in the Setup section, below, this was a problem for me.  The installation system has all of the Enterprise components bundled together into a single install app that launches the installer for each individual component.     

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