(Rod Stephens) The first thing a user sees of an application is its splash screen. As the adage says, “You only get one chance to make a first impression,” so it’s important that your splash screen represent your application appropriately. Though the user only gets one first impression of your appli
Other News
XAML in a Nutshell
(Lori A. MacVittie) Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) is a .NET technology. It’s a markup language that can be used to help create desktop applications, web pages, and printable documents. This article, the first of three parts, introduces you to the syntax.
Storing Time Information In Oracle
(Alistair Lattimore) I recently had a requirement to store a time within Oracle, not a timestamp or a date – just the time. As it turns out, storing just the time information in Oracle isn’t something you can do without a little bit of work.
Oracle RAC Primer
(Chris Page) If you are using Oracle databases, and you aren’t already working with Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC) databases, it’s likely only a matter of time before you are. Oracle RAC databases can be used as a platform to provide scalability and high availability for Oracle databases, and
An XSD to .NET language code class generator that adds real punch to Microsoft’s XSD Tool
(Willem Fourie) In document-centric environments where data is persisted as XML documents, the need often arises to provide business logic at various stages during the processing of these documents. One way to do this is to use the System.Xml.XmlDocument class to ‘front’ the XML document and provide
Working with Themes and Templates
(Lawrence Linnemeyer and Bradley Brown) Most experienced programmers understand the advantages of separating the look and feel of an application from the application’s logic. Oracle uses HTML DB to accomplish this. This article introduces you to the themes and templates that HTML DB provides.
Is my DB2 optimizer a tad drunk?
(David) Today I have noticed a strange phenomena in one of our DB2 databases. When doing a low zero-selectivity query (that is, query without a WHERE clause), the DB2 optimizer preferred to use an index scan rather than do a table scan.
Creating Custom Configuration Sections in Web.config Using .NET 2.0’s Configuration API
(Scott Mitchell) Most ASP.NET applications include a number of configuration settings, such as connection strings, mail server settings, system-wide default settings, and so forth. While these settings could be hard-coded in the source code, it’s usually a wiser idea to place them in a configuration
Control SQL cursor scoping within SQL procedures, triggers, and functions
(Scott L. Forstie and Sue Romano) A new i5/OS SQL set option for use with DB2 enables better control of SQL cursor scoping. Learn about the new CLOSQLCSR option, why it is important, and how to use it. Also discover pointers to SQL procedures, triggers, and functions (PTFs) that you can use to run t
Creating VB.NET Public Methods That Accept Optional Arguments
(Bill Hatfield) When you create a public method that will be frequently used by a variety of different clients in many different contexts, it is best to provide as much flexibility in the ways your method can be called as possible. Specifically, some clients may wish to call your method using only a