(Kevin Forsythe) In V4R4, IBM added an SQL scripting tool to the standard features included within iSeries Navigator and has continued enhancing it in subsequent releases. Because standard features of iSeries Navigator are available to customers at no charge, this new feature marks a new era in SQL
Other News
Microsoft’s Indigo takes on Java
(Martin LaMonica) Microsoft wants Windows to play well with others. To do that, it’s recoating the future in Indigo. (R)
Migrating From VB6 to VB.NET
(Huw Collingbourne) In theory, Microsoft’s Visual Basic .NET should provide an easy path for experienced VB programmers to migrate to the .NET Framework. However, not all VB programmers have been enthusiastic about making the move. VB.NET is so different from Visual Basic 6.0 that even an experience
Creating XML Mappings in Excel 2003
(Frank Rice) Walk through common XML tasks in Microsoft Office Excel 2003 to learn more about the new XML functionality in Office 2003 Editions. Learn how to add custom schemas, work with XML maps in Excel, and create a series of mappings based on various schemas.
Data Replication Prototype Using ADO
(Aliaksei Sanko) Here is a version of a data replication prototyping attempt made almost eight years ago. Some parts of it might still be of interest. Initially, it used a proprietary library built on top of ODBC, but it can be easily modified to use any database interfacing layer. A demo applicatio
Model XML to Please Humans and Computers Alike
(Eric McMullen) “Heuristics” is a word to inspire fear and loathing among the non-technical. But actually, it’s one of the friendliest design-related concepts out there. This article suggests five heuristics for ensuring the human readability of your XML documents. These aren’t iron-clad rules o
Nonclustered Indexes
Nonclustered indexes have the same B-tree structure as clustered indexes, with two significant differences: –The data rows are not sorted and stored in order based on their nonclustered keys. –The leaf layer of a nonclustered index does not consist of the data pages.
Shrinking Data Files
(Kalen Delaney) One topic I see discussed frequently in public discussion forums is how to most effectively shrink a database, why it doesn’t always shrink as much as you think it should, and how much overhead is involved. Most of the questions deal with the shrinking of the transaction log, probabl
The Microsoft Distributed Transaction Service crashes when DTS is used to transfer data between SQL Server and Oracle Database
The Microsoft Distributed Transaction Service (MSDTC) may crash when Data Transformation Services (DTS) is used to transfer data between Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle Database.
IBM and SAP Stack Up DB2
(Renee Boucher Ferguson) The stack wars involving Oracle Corp., SAP AG, Microsoft Corp. and IBM are heating up as each develops new products to unify applications and provide a more comprehensive software infrastructure.