We’ve been looking at tools to allow you to write mobile apps in a single environment and deploy it to multiple devices. Today I wanted to present an overview of Icenium from Telerik. This product was suggested through email by Eric. I went to the Icenium sight and was pleasantly surprised about the polished presentation, tutorials, and the video demonstrating […]

We’ve been looking at ways to keep from writing code multiple times for different mobile platforms. Today I’m looking at a tool based on C# called Xamarin. Xamarin uses C# as the base code generation tool for all the code that is not platform specific and may be reusable. Code that is transportable could be features such as database access […]

I was talking with a colleague who writes mobile apps asking about how he writes code efficiently for the different mobile operating systems. He was saying that, “PhoneGap is the leader right now for cross mobile.” I found PhoneGap at www.phonegap.com. They say, “PhoneGap is a free and open source framework that allows you to create mobile apps using standardized […]

Write once, run anywhere was the goal of Java, and works pretty well in many scenarios. We have once again moved far away from that open concept, a key player once again being Apple. Our two most popular smart phone systems are programmed in completely separate languages making code transportability less likely. You can write your code to work on […]

Today I’m sharing some final thoughts on the Set Operations sent from Maurice who regularly to this column with practical examples from his experience. Maurice Writes: Some examples to says that achieving row exclusion using outer join / not exists is not the equivalent of EXCEPT, and considerations on performance. EXCEPT as other set operations is based on internal optimizer […]

Today I am following up on my earlier editorial on the EXCEPT operation, I did some performance comparisons as well as expanded the question to the INTERSECT operation. The INTERSECT operation is the exact opposite of EXCEPT. The query returns all unique records from the first set also found in a second set. This is the equivalent to selecting a […]

Today I want to ask questions more than provide guidance. The cost of hardware has dropped to the point that I find myself with a server having more memory than my entire database. How about a 4:1 ratio of Ram to Database Data. Now I start asking myself how to best take advantage of that additional memory? The traditional answer […]

The EXCEPT operation was added to SQL Server in 2005. The operation compares the results of two sets. The results of the first set returns a list for every DISTINCT row that does not have a matching row in the second set. This is the equivalent of executing a SELECT DISTINCT from some object, joining to a second set using […]

Did you ever wish you could un-send, or un-do? I had one of those experiences years ago that is still memorable. I was working on a data warehouse merging data from two difference systems. Their natural keys were supposed to be unique across systems; there should be no problem merging the data into one database. The problem was, I did […]

I have been reviewing reader comments on recent editorials about select software building blocks. Some were ok with using open systems frameworks, others preferred third party commercial tools, while others simply liked to use the tools shipping from the vendor of the software environment directly. The main concern was that any selection could become obsolete, lose support for future upgrades, […]