Deanne M. Chance

Why do a physical inventory? A physical inventory count is necessary to reconcile the quantity on hand stored in a database versus what is really on the shelf. In a retail environment, this process is typically done once a year. In a perfect world, these values would always be in sync. The value would be decremented when items are sold and incremented when items are received. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Consider shrinkage, shoplifting, and, my personal favorite, software bugs. Through a case study, this article will show how easy it is to architect a wireless real-time PocketBuilder application to replace a hardware-based data collection device used for physical inventory updates to an enterprise database. Specifically, a Symbol PPT8800 Pocket PC will be c... (more)

Personalizing Your PowerBuilder Applications Using SMS and Voice Messaging

Text messaging is cool. Voice messaging is even cooler. Wouldn't it be great to be able to add that functionality to your PowerBuilder apps as well? For example, when an event occurs within your application, let your users receive real-time notification via SMS or voice messaging to their cell phones! This article will focus on writing Web services to do just that using the Strike Iron S... (more)

Integrate Real-Time GPS Data Into Your PowerBuilder Applications

We begin this article by asking the question: Why would you want to integrate real-time GPS data into your PowerBuilder applications anyway? After all, it's not likely you are going to connect a GPS receiver to your desktop computer and ask yourself where you are currently located. (At least I hope not!) More likely, you will be utilizing some sort of field service application where you... (more)

PowerBuilder 10.5 .NET Web Services Engine Has Arrived

Two things have my interest these days: the arrival of PB 10.5 and TechWave 2006! (Yes, that's right, I'm already planning ahead.) So, I thought I'd take this opportunity to roll a little application using MS MapPoint to illustrate what's new in PowerBuilder 10.5 Web services as well as help me plot my way from Chicago to Las Vegas for this year's conference! (see Figure 1). Sybase's intr... (more)

Tablet PC Programming

We begin this article by answering a few questions. Namely, what is VoIP? What is Skype? And why would you want to integrate these capabilities into your PowerBuilder applications? We will begin with the latter. Imagine that you are a field service worker armed with a tablet PC with a wireless broadband connection and you want to call your next client from your appointment list. You could... (more)