The Premier Development and Runtime Environment for Business Application Software
July 18th, 2008 Al Kalter
For many years, I was on the outside, looking in. Like several others in the APPX community, my first exposure to our products came more than 25 years ago, and I spent many years working as a reseller and providing software solutions to the customers of Speed II and APPX. But in 1999, my position and my perspective changed, when I came to work for APPX Software, Inc., and while I’m not directly involved in the R&D aspect of the business, I have found it interesting to view that process from inside the castle walls, and to gain an understanding of just what it takes to put out a major software release.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Al | 1 Comment »
July 14th, 2008 Al Kalter
When I was about 15, I was hooked on TV. Not uncommon, I know, but I could tell you exactly which shows were on at what time on each day of the week. I’ll grant you that those were the days of three networks and a total of about seven available stations, so this was no gigantic mental accomplishment. But still, life revolved around the TV schedule, until a year or two later, when I broke away, and pledged that I would never be a slave to TV again. For the most part, I’ve upheld that pledge ever since.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Al | No Comments »
July 9th, 2008 Al Kalter
Would my credibility suffer in admitting that I read the “Miss Manners” column when it appears every other day in our newspaper? Did I have any credibility to start with? It’s not exactly like reading the “Dear Abby” stuff, where I think one takes comfort in realizing that there are people who are making worse decisions and asking stupider questions than, in most cases, we would. Miss Manners expertly injects a bit of humor and a twinge of sarcasm while addressing etiquette-related issues that often seem trivial at best. Sometimes, though I find myself disagreeing with her response (in a civilized manner, of course). Let me provide an example.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Al | No Comments »
July 7th, 2008 Al Kalter
John McEnroe called it the best match he’s ever seen. Sports anchors everywhere today are leading with, or at least giving lots of airtime to, the Wimbledon final between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. They’re calling it a classic, and, in fact, ESPN Classic is re-airing it today as an oxymoronic Instant Classic. Even as a non-fan of tennis, I found myself transfixed by this competition, as the momentum seemed to go back and forth, each player giving his best, yet still capable of making many unforced errors (a tennis term that is rather blunt, though accurate). I shared the sentiment of the Centre Court crowd, hoping that it would continue on, and recognizing that not only Nadal, but all who watched were indeed winners.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Al | No Comments »
July 1st, 2008 Al Kalter
I’ve started wondering why the phrase “Home Sweet Home” is so strongly reflected in sports. The actual physical benefits and rules advantages would appear to be minimal at best. And yet, home teams are usually favored, they win more than they lose, and betting lines include an uptick for the home team. Why should this be the case? What kind of boost does the home team really get, and couldn’t it be bottled somehow for the visitors? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Al | No Comments »
June 30th, 2008 Pete Brower
I found a few items last week in the new file encryption feature I was testing that concerned me. I was able to corrupt my data files in a certain way. So, we are going to delay the limited beta release for a few days so that I can make sure my fixes are solid. I don’t think anyone wants to load a beta that has the potential to corrupt data. The problems I found were fairly straight forward as were the fixes. I just really like to error on the side of safety. Being a short week I would expect our new date to be a week from today. Monday July 7th.
Posted in Pete, Research & Development | No Comments »
June 25th, 2008 Al Kalter
It was probably about 15-20 years ago that I was asked to arrange a speaker for my weekly Rotary meeting, and I invited in a representative of a new company to demonstrate a new technology - the cellular telephone. We were all impressed, and several of us got to try out the device that afternoon. Making calls just because we could do so now seems to be limited to those few minutes after landing when the flight attendant tells us that it’s OK to reconnect to our electronic world. But only the most prescient among our Rotary group back then could have foreseen the way cell phones would become dominant in our lives.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Al | No Comments »
June 25th, 2008 Pete Brower
The 4.3 beta release is still moving forward and I think we will have a Linux limited beta ready by the 30th. We will follow that with other platforms as we port the code and compile. That may take several weeks before we have all the platforms available for beta testing. We also need to complete an upgrade conversion utility. A lot of the file structures in System Admin have changed and we must write the conversion tool to get those files restructured.
Limited Beta? I’ve had some questions about what that means. Well, that means you need to contact us about your interest in testing and we will work out what you are willing to test and get you a copy of the software when it is available. It will not be available for general download at this point. With the System Admin file changes we don’t think it’s a good idea to have everyone downloading it and creating problems with their current production installs. Obviously you DO NOT want to run this beta (or any beta) in production. That being said, if you are willing and have time to run this beta isolated from your production environment please contact us.
Posted in Pete, Research & Development | No Comments »
June 18th, 2008 Al Kalter
I don’t demand a lot from a hotel room. Having done a bit of traveling over the years, I’ve established my list of requirements to a few basics - a comfortable bed, a desk to work at, a high speed internet connection (of course), and a TV with a decent selection of channels and a working remote, with, ideally, a sleep button. Eventually, I did have all of those things at the “Historic Mayfair Hotel” in Los Angeles last week. But it still qualifies as one of the worst hotel experiences I’ve ever had.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Al | 1 Comment »
June 6th, 2008 Al Kalter
Earlier this spring, I bought my daughter an iPod. Apparently, she had been the only person under 25 not to already own one, but that was mostly by her own request. She was happy with her CD player, and kept saying she didn’t want an iPod. Until recently. Buying one for her provided me the opportunity to see how these omnipresent things work, and to ponder the impact they’ve had on our world.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Al | No Comments »