ORPUG

Trying to blog more often

2007-11-30T08:11:00.000-08:00

Update: I uploaded the code for my WebSpeed/AJAX demo to my website, http://rich.uchytil.com/progress/ws-schema.html.

I'm going to try and blog here more often, like every couple weeks or something. Things might not be directly ORPUG related, but they will be Progress related. Here are a few things.

Since many people will NOT be going to Exchange in Paris, Progress is looking to have some kind of event here in the US. No official word on if they will, when it will be or what it will be. I will keep you posted.

Progress hired someone to work on Progress.com. He is looking to bring it into the web 2.0 world. He has lots of cool ideas and when some are ready I'll let you know. He has put some photos and video out on Flickr and YouTube. Search for "progresssw".

Our last meeting went really well. I shared my experiences so far in choosing WebSpeed over other web technologies (like PHP), and AJAX. In summary, WebSpeed is less expensive with OE10 than it was with v9 and it's VERY easy since you are programming in the 4GL/ABL with just a few minor changes. If your people don't know the other web technologies, they will have to take time to learn them BEFORE they can actually produce something. With WebSpeed, they can produce something very quickly. AJAX isn't hard. I thought it was very complex and a lot of code. It's not. It uses XMLHttpRequest in Javascript. There are a lot of things you can do, but making your web page load just a part instead of refreshing the entire page is easy. I created a WebSpeed/AJAX example that displays the schema from a database. It lists all the tables alphabetically, click on a table to view the fields, indexes, etc, click on a field to see which tables have that field, click on a table to see that tables details. The AJAX part is clicking the field, it shows the tables by moving down the other fields and not refreshing the page. I realize I didn't create a way to easily go back to the list of tables, and I didn't have time to hide the tables that have that field when you click on the field again. This was more of a proof-of-concept/demo. I think I'll post the code on my website so others can play with it if they want.

I don't have a schedule for the 2009 meetings yet, but our first meeting will probably be the 2nd Thursday in March. When I get the schedule I'll let everyone know.

I want to start charging dues for two reasons.

I would like to have our meetings in other places. In the past we had them at a McMenamins. People liked that a lot because they could get some food and drink. I'd like to do something like that again, but that requires money. Most places have a minimum charge, like $200. If your group doesn't order $200, you own them the difference. If they order $200 or more you don't owe any extra.
I'm thinking of people pay to join or their companies pay, they might be a little more likely to show up. If you pay for something, you might want to get your monies worth by showing up. And for a company, their boss might say, "Isn't that ORPUG meeting today? We're paying for it so you're going, right?" I could be wrong. Other PUG's don't charge and say if they did no one would show up. How much? I'm not sure yet, but it won't be that much. First I have to figure out how to keep the books - others have said to do a LLC so I'm going to check into that.

That's about all for now. As things come up that are Progress related - like webinars, interesting posts on the PEG, etc - I'll write them here.

Later!

Next Meeting June 21st!

2007-06-20T15:50:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder our next meeting will be June 21st, 2:30pm - 5pm with the first 30 minutes being a meet and chat time, so if you can't make it until 3pm you'll be ok.

map

This will be a recap of Exchange 07. It was a great conference, lots of cool things both new and old. I'm really excited to be sharing them with you! There will be some good performance tuning tips for both the database and the programming language as well as what's new and some other cool things.

We will also be talking about the future of this Users Group. What things would you like to see? What topics? Speakers? What would you like ORPUG to do for you?

If you are having any problems or questions, bring them along and you'll get lots of help. Do you think you might be able to join us?

Please forward this email to anyone else who might be interested.

And please let me know if you plan on attending or not. I got bumped out of our large conference room and need to get a head count. Thanks!

Exchange Photos

2007-06-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

I've finally uploaded and edited all the photos I took at Exchange. Enjoy!

Exchange Days Two & Three

2007-06-13T18:23:00.000-07:00

Well, I got in really late Tuesday night (or I should say early morning) so didn't have time to write anything on Day Two. At least I'm doing better than last year and still doing days two & three while I'm here in the hotel! :)

(updated 6/19/07: I honestly was editing this in the hotel while eating dinner, then sat with a bunch of friends, got sidetracked and well, now it's Sunday and I'm finishing the update. No photos yet, they will be coming hopefully Monday. At least I got one day done on time...)

Excuse me for a moment, my dinner just arrived... mmmmm.... burger....

mmbfr ddwrg prtwd.... D'OH! Sorry, I forgot not to type with my mouth full. ;) Ok, first let me say this was an excellent Exchange! I learned a lot of good things, saw some cool stuff, and had a great time. As always, Wednesday comes way too fast and all of a sudden, Exchange is over. :( Next year they won't be holding Exchange here in the states - it will be in Paris at Disneyland! Yes, lots of people aren't happy about that, we all wonder why they did that. I'm not sure I'll be going because I don't know if my boss will want to pay for that - though they tell me the airfare isn't that bad at all. I did do a quick check and from Portland, OR, the airfare is $3000 - $4000, the flight I would want is $3700 and a direct flight from Seattle to Paris, 9 hours! Maybe I should get my passport just in case...

Ok, so Tuesday, Day Two.
Why do they keep scheduling the first session at 8am on Tuesday (and Wednesday)?! We all went out the night before, stayed out late, got 4-6 hours of sleep, and they want us to be alert and listening to the presentations??? Please, start them at 9am. Somehow I stayed awake during the first session, I was worried I was going to fall asleep and out of my chair. Whew!

DB-7, Moving On Up - Smaller Servers and Bigger Performance.
This was very interesting and compelling. Pretty much he showed that you don't need to buy a big HP/IBM/SUN/etc box, you can get a nice Linux box and get the same OR BETTER performance for a fraction of the cost. Definitely something to think about. Excellent session!

INT-6, Clean Up Your Application - Modernizing Character Code for SOAP, SaaS and Beyond.
This was about moving your old character application to modern stuff things like SOA, SaaS, Web Services, etc. To do this a couple things you have to do: use AppServer and separate your business logic from your user interface. We were told it's not THAT hard, but it's not exactly easy and you won't do it overnight. Do it little by little, it could take many, many months. Another very good session.

INNOV-5, The New User Interface for OpenEdge.
Last year they showed us this and said, "IF this were a real product..." asking us what we thought, if they should continue, etc. Everyone said they SHOULD do this and couldn't wait for it. So this year they showed it again and now it IS a real product! Currently it is scheduled for 10.2, but that could change. What they are trying to figure out right now is what is the minimum they need to be able to release this?

This was really cool! This is based on .NET and you can use almost any .NET control with this - basically if it works in MS Visual Studio with their .NET, it should work just fine with OpenEdge. This is NOT a replacement for the existing OpenEdge GUI. That one will still exist, this is just another option. Many people have said they LOVE the ease of use of OpenEdge, but the look is old and their users/customers want the updated XP look - and now Vista, which this will do. Shelley showed how she recreated Outlook using this new UI. At first we were wondering why she was showing us her email, but then she showed us how easy it was to create that. We also saw a very cool calendar application. This session had a TON of applause, it was very, very cool! With use Eclipse, this looked a lot like programming in Visual Studio, so if you're familiar with that then this will be easy. AND it's a piece of cake to connect up your app to the Progress database. This will be awesome!

DB-11, Moving to OpenEdge.
If you're not on OE 10 yet this session was about showing you the various ways to get there. The simple option is this:

Backup your database.
Run proutil -C conv910 - this will take approx. 5 minutes.
Re-compile your code.

It's really that simple. There are many other things you can do to take advantage of OE 10, such as using areas, records per block for each area, setting some server/client parameters, etc. The main reason most people haven't moved to OE 10 (at least that I've heard about) is the licensing, which is now a lot better, talk with your sales rep. There are a TON of advantages to be using OE 10, performance, better debugging options, in 10.1B there are now VST's for seeing which tables a user/session is hitting, and so many others. AND if you are using SQL connections at all (connecting from MS SQL Server for example), you will see a very big performance increase because they have done some HUGE enhancements to the SQL engine. US Airways Vacations upgraded and were told they'd see a 25% increase in performance. They didn't get 25%, they got 80%! This was a very good session because it showed while there are a lot of new things you can do in OE 10, you don't have to do them all when you upgrade, you can do them later and start getting the advantages now.

Innov-7, Building a Richer User Interface for the Browser.
This was another AJAXish session. There were several last year and several this year. It again showed how easy it is to create rich user interfaces in your browser. There are many who feel the browser is the future desktop. I know for us we probably will not be going with a client GUI application, but we are looking at adding a web interface to at least parts of our application. This was a good technical overview. I knew a lot of it but learned some good things for helping me learn how this technology works and understanding how others are doing it. A friend who was there and didn't know anything about AJAX learned a lot and said this was an excellent session.

WEDNESDAY

INT-10, Understanding the AppServer Inside & Out.
I really don't know a lot about the appserver and this was a very good session, helped me understand how it works and I feel more ready to use it.

DB-17, More Performance Please - Finding and Resolving Performance Issues.
This was really good. One thing I especially liked was how he said to listen to the user/customer, really listen, not just pretend to listen. He really understands how to do customer service which a lot of people don't. One thing he said was to listen to what everyone is saying - users, programmers, dba's - then CONFIRM everything before you start working on a fix. Excellent advice. Then he gave a lot of technical things you can do to improve performance, tools for examining how programs are working, how your database is working, where bottlenecks are. A very good session.

DB-18, Advanced Performance Statistics.
Adam Backman did this and his sessions are always excellent. This one was more advanced, telling how to fine tune everything and get that little bit out of your application/database. Lots of great advice and tips on how to use the Profiler. I can't wait to look at this stuff when I get back!

DEV-21, Optimizing your ABL for Performance - by Gus.
A big tip here was to pick the right things to optimize. Many times people will chase one thing spending a lot of time on one thing and not really gain a lot from it. Run baseline tests BEFORE you start making changes. It is important to know the performance of everything before you start making changes so you can find out how much of a change you made. Another good tip was just because you can doesn't mean you should. XML is very cool, but takes a lot of memory. Don't use it unless you really need to. Lots of other useful things such as why to use NO-UNDO on variables (no writes to the lbi which improves performance), use CASE instead of IF THEN, and doing all ASSIGN's after a record create in one statement instead of many assign's. One reason is each ASSIGN is a database write so there's a performance hit. Two last cool tips were to use shared procedure library's as they save memory, and to use the MIN-SIZE option when compiling your code as it creates smaller .r code. As with all of Gus's sessions, this was excellent.

Innov-10, Getting Started with AJAX.
This session focused more on the tools that are available such as Yahoo Pips, OpenLaszlo and the Google Web Toolkit (GWT). Yahoo Pipes look very cool and easy to use. OpenLaszlo also looks cool creating a very nice visual interface, I'm going to have to look at this one. GWT uses Java. I never looked at this one because I don't know Java. But I was wrong. This is a visual tool and you don't need to know Java, although it does help if you want to modify the Java that was generated. This was a good session, though Ken ran out of time and had to quickly run through the last part of his presentation not going over some of the things he wanted. This happened last year when he gave a similar presentation. I do wish someone would help him learn to either manage his time better or have less he is trying to go through. For me, the GWT stuff wasn't that interesting and I would have liked more on the other two.

That's it for the sessions I went to. I enjoyed all of them except one, which is a pretty good ratio. In the past I've attended several that weren't that good.

The Tuesday night event was going out in the middle of nowhere to some Country/Western thing. It had an Alamo looking front to it, a ceiling, a back, and the sides were completely open. They had a country band, western games such as tomahawk throw, quick draw against someone else, a kinda bucking bronco thing that was a saddle on a barrel (or something like that) hooked up with some big bungie cords so they could bounce you around, and line dancing. They also had a HUGE telescope. That was very cool. They quickly ran out of Corona, but someone did a beer run and we had more. Whew! The food was VERY good! The band was good. I didn't do any of the games - no way was I going on that bucking bronco thing after all that food. In order to keep it cool in the building thing, they had these water misters along the sides. These did a great job but really messed up the photos at night. There was a very fine mist in the air that you didn't really notice, but when using a flash, the flash saw them all. :( The last thing we did was a rodeo. Ok, sorry, but this was lame. They did calf roping where the first rider got the calf around the neck and the other would rope the hide legs. Every time they did this the 2nd roper missed the legs. The barrel riders looked like they were learning how to do it, one horse did NOT want to turn at all. The only good thing was the bronco and bull riding. But even there a lot of the guys fell off quickly, not too many rode for long. Add to a lame rodeo a bunch of people who've been drinking and you had a lot of silly comments from the crowd (and many from me). I'm not a big rodeo fan, but I've been to a few that were a LOT better than this. It would have been better if they just didn't do the rodeo, the rest of the event was fun.

Overall it this was the best Exchange I've been to yet. A lot of stuff that was relevant to what I'm doing at work and things I'm interested in. And as always it's great to see friends, put faces to the names I've seen on the PEG, and meet new people. The hotel was fantastic, great rooms, very friendly people. And unlike Vegas, the session rooms were freakishly cold. It was a little cool (some more than others) but not bad at all. I didn't go outside much so didn't experience the heat - wasn't much of a reason to go out and I was usually busy from the time I got up until I went to bed with either sessions or visiting with friends. Though there was one fun time after the Tuesday event involving the swimming pool, but what happens at Exchange stays at Exchange. ;)

Exchange Day One

2007-06-12T00:19:00.000-07:00

Monday is done and it was a great day! The general session (the welcome session) was really good, I saw some very cool demo's. Apama is really an amazing product, but you need to have a LOT of data (like stock prices) to use it.

First session, RFID & Voice. Not at all what I expected. This was more of a sales pitch. The demo didn't work well and it wasn't until the last 15-20 minutes that the guy finally got into integrating the voice product with OpenEdge - and the very end with using RFID. A major let down.

2nd session DB2, OpenEdge Replication. This was excellent! I learned a lot about how it works, the things it can do, and about OE Replication Plus. You are replicating the database to a disaster recovery database and with Plus you can run reports against that database. However, this is in READ ONLY mode. Also, if you purchase Replication, you don't need any further licenses for the target database.

Lunch wasn't bad, a nice salad, good chicken thing, and tasty desert.

3rd session INNOV3, Mashup Basics. This was an excellent 50,000 foot view of what Mashups are and what you can do with them. They used the AutoEdge demo to show how to add a Google map to the product. Well done.

4th session DB6, Performance Tuning Made Easy. Adam Backman always puts on an excellent session. TONS of great things here, too many to mention. I have a lot to share next week at our meeting on the 21st and they are things that work for people on v9 as well as oe10.

The Expo. Really small this year, not a lot going on. Spent most of the time visiting with people and a little bit actually talking to some of the booths.

Dinner was excellent at The Keg, then meeting our sales rep with other west coast customers of his, and now to bed. Long day but very productive.

Oh, and Sunday was the workshops. The OE Architect workshop was an excellent 50,000 foot view of what you can do with Architect, I learned a lot and enjoyed it a lot. Hopefully next time they'll add some more that focus on one piece more.

The OO Programming workshop wasn't that good. Too much working in groups where all of us were confused, not enough hands on, and while I did learn some, I'm still in a big fog about why to use OO in Progress.

Lastly, next years Exchange won't be here in the US, it will be in Paris!!!! A LOT of mixed reactions to this, most people I chatted with who are from the US said they won't be going next year. I'm not sure if my company will send me or not. Lots of rumors why they did this (save money, etc), but nothing concrete.

So day one is now done and it was an excellent day. Lots more to see Tuesday, I can't wait. Talk with you tomorrow!

Exchange 2007

2007-06-08T09:06:00.000-07:00

It's time again for Exchange. Once again I am attending, really looking forward to it. I will try really hard to post daily recaps here for those who are unable to attend, as well as photos.

Our next meeting is an Exchange recap. June 21st, 2:30pm - 5pmish, here at my company, Hampton Affiliates (details to follow). There looks to be some very cool things this year. And there are plenty of things for those of you who aren't on OE10 yet. Progress understands while they want everyone running OE10, a lot of people aren't there yet for one reason or another, so there will be plenty of helpful information for non-OE10 people.

At this meeting I also want to talk about the future of this group, what we want to do, things we want to do, etc. I'm here to make this whatever you want, I just need some input. Thanks and talk with you soon!

2006-08-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

I have added a new section under the calendar on the right for Upcoming Progress Webinars. I will try to keep this updated with what is coming.

Progress Road Show Coming in October!!

2006-08-21T15:24:00.000-07:00

Remember the mini-Tech Peak Progress had a few years back? They are bringing back something similar and it promises to be an awesome event! It will be October 24th in downtown Portland at the Westin Benson hotel, starting at 8:30am and ending with a 12:30pm lunch. You should be getting a flyer in the mail about this soon.

We don't get much here in Oregon, but I've lobbied heavily for this and they have agreed to bring it here. I'm excited and I think everyone will enjoy it a lot! Below are the details, I look forward to this and seeing all of you there. :)

The Progress Innovation Road Show
Fall ‘06

Bridging the Gap with Innovation

Today’s Progress is not the company you think you know. Offering a bol der, broa der and more diverse portfolio as a result of strategic investments in leading technologies, Progress continues on its path to innovation—bridging the gap between the business demands and technology requirements. As Progress and the user community continue to evolve as a result of innovation, one thing remains constant: it’s all about building, running and managing the world’s best business applications.

Now we are taking our latest innovations on the road across North America. Join Progress and your local Progress User Group to network and explore the many ways the Progress portfolio of products and services can address your new business challenges.

Who Should Attend?

All business and technical professionals seeking to learn more about:

How the Complete Progress Portfolio can Grow your Business
How Progress Resources can Support your Growth
The People Behind the Products and Vision
The Benefits of the Progress User Community

Whether you are new to Progress and the Progress User Community, or have years of Progress experience, you can benefit from this session.

Where to Attend:

9/19 Atlanta, GA Southeastern PUG
9/21 Bedford, MA New England PUG
9/26 Chicago, IL Chicago PUG
9/28 Minneapolis, MN Minneapolis PUG
10/10 Toronto, ON Toronto PUG
10/17 Brookfield, WI Wisconsin PUG
10/18 E. Lansing, MI Western Michigan & Michigan PUGs
10/24 Portland, OR Oregon PUG

The Agenda

Registration and Refreshments
Welcome
Innovation in Action
David E.Olson
Progress Director of Enterprise Solutions and Lead Evangelist
Join David for a quick tour of Progress technologies in action via a live demonstration featuring Progress OpenEdge, Sonic ESB, EasyAsk, Apama, Actional and DataXtend. David will show you how the latest Progress technologies can work together to integrate the supply chain, monitor business in real time, understand key performance metrics, provide ad hoc query and reporting capabilities for business executives, and monitor the IT infrastructure.
Biography
David is the Director of Enterprise Solutions for Progress’ OpenEdge Division, and has responsibility for the technical adoption of Progress solutions. Mr. Olson is currently involved with application architectures for the OpenEdge Architect, Tools for Business Logic and .NET interfaces. Since joining Progress in 1994, Mr. Olson has been actively involved in product management and technical marketing of the company’s application development products. He has held management, technical, and marketing positions in Progress’ ActiveX, Java, and Sonic business units
Customer Testimonial
Bridging the Resource Gap
Discover how Progress can help you with your innovation and growth. Learn more about Progress resources and tools, OpenEdge principals, Technical Support, Education, PSDN, Sales contacts, etc.
Wrap Up
Exploring Innovation Forum
Whether your interest lies in business, technology, or joining a local Progress User Group, you will find a kindred spirit and a forum in which to network.

Register Today!

For location information and to register, please visit http://www.progress.com/innovation
or call us at 1-800-477-6473 ext. 4700

Upcoming Progress Related Events

2006-08-21T11:49:00.000-07:00

There are always Webinars going on with Progress and their other companies (Sonic, RealTime, etc). Now that we have an ORPUG Google Calendar, I'm going to try to keep that updated with these events as I find out about them. If you look down the right side of this blog you'll see a little Google calendar. Click on any one of the events listed and you'll see what webinars are coming up. Here's a quick list:

Wed, Aug. 23rd. Stylus Studio webinar. 5am and 11am (both times PST).
Thu, Aug. 31st. SOA webinar.
Wed, Sep. 13th. OE10 Database Improvements webinar

If you hear of something I haven't listed, please let me know and I'll make sure others know about it.

Also, Oct 22-26 is the Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications (OOPSLA) Conference which will be held here in Portland. At that conference Ken Rugg, vice president of products for Progress Software’s DataXtend®
and ObjectStore® product lines, will join a panel discussing "Objects
and Databases: State of the Union in 2006."

Next Pub Gathering

2006-08-07T19:35:00.000-07:00

Update 8/21/06: We will be meeting at Chili's at the 217-I5 interchange [map]. Hope to see you there!

Thursday August 24th, 4:30pm - ???. I'm leaning towards Chili's, though not sure which one. There's one at 217 & I-5, but the one I frequent is off Sunset at Bethany (just west of Murray and 217). Thursday's they have pints of microbrew for $2.50 (happy hour). They also have great food, lots of good happy hour food for $3.00.

How does this sound to everyone? Please email me and let me know if you plan on being there - and even if you don't, I need to know both ways so I can plan events that work best for everyone.

In October, Progress is planning another event like the Tech Peak they had several years ago, they are calling it a Road Show. They will be working closely with ORPUG to plan this event. From the agenda I've seen, it looks really good! I have told them while new stuff is always cool, a lot of people are still on v9, v8 and a few earlier versions - our members want to know things that can benefit them regardless of versions. I have also told them one of the main reasons for NOT upgrading to v10 is the licensing issues. Once they get an agenda finalized, they will mail out info to everyone, and I'll post it here on the blog.

Hope everyone is doing well and look forward to seeing you on August 24th!

Rich Uchytil

July 27th Get-Together Location

2006-07-25T18:34:00.000-07:00

I've picked the Barley Mill Pub as our place to get-together.

1629 S.E. Hawthorne
Portland, OR 97214
Map

4:30pm - ???

We've been here before and it's a very cool place. Lots of stuff to chat about, and some neat things coming up. If you have any questions, please let me know. Hope to see you there!

Rich Uchytil

Progress in CIO Magazine!

2006-07-25T07:04:00.000-07:00

Progress is mentioned in the current CIO magazine. The article is about Bonhams auction house using Progress for the database and development as well as other open source solutions. From the article:

"He opted for software and development tools from vendor Progress for two reasons: They were less expensive than Oracle at the high end of the market, and more scalable and reliable than Microsoft at the low end. He also liked the software because it provided a single programming language for three separate activities—coding the database, programming the business logic and writing the programs that deliver content to the Web. "That means less [for developers] to learn, fewer errors and less time spent debugging code," says Whitehead. "

Exchange 2006 Presentations Available

2006-07-12T11:49:00.000-07:00

The powerpoint and PDF presentations from Exchange 2006 are now available on PSDN. Sorry, no audio, just the presentations.

Date change for July Get-Together

2006-06-28T13:51:00.000-07:00

I had to change the date for the July Get-Together to the 27th. That's still a Thursday, and still 4:30pm - ???.

I'm still trying to think of a good location. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Thanks!

Rich

6/22 Meeting Minutes

2006-06-23T06:49:00.000-07:00

It was suggested that I publish our meeting minutes which I thought was a great idea. So here's what went on.

We had a good turnout. Went around the room introducing ourselves and discovered one person who is new to Progress has a real mess on his hands. We spent a good portion of the meeting listening to his problems and offering suggestions, as well as sympathy - we could all feel his pain.

Several people are still running character clients instead of gui, and no one was on OE10. Three people have old v6-style code that includes editing blocks.

I talked about Exchange and provided a handout (pdf) with links to various Exchange information on PSDN, information about the new products, some quick tips on DB Performance from Adam Backman and Gus's presentations, and highlights from Tom Bascom's Highly Parallel Dump and Load presentation. Exchange 06 was very good with a lot of great information. We talked a little about how the big buzz is still about SOA and web services.

The other hot topic (at least hot for me because of our companies desires) was AJAX. There were two sessions at Exchange showing what you can do with AJAX, and I included Tom Bascom's ProJAX in the handout as another great example of what you can do. If you've used Google's Gmail, Google Maps, or Flickr, you've used an application using the AJAX concepts. Basically it's a way to refresh the web page without reloading the entire page. With this you can create web app's that are more feature rich and closer to the experience users expect from applications on their desktop. Progress will continue investigating this.

Overall I thought it was a very good meeting. Later this year and next year Progress is going to put together some Road Show's like the Tech Peak's they had in the past. They are trying to set these up to work with Users Groups, so we'd have a morning show, lunch, then a Users Group meeting in the afternoon. I'll send out all the details when I have them.

Thanks to everyone who showed up, especially Dan Foreman and Mark Bloomberg!

Next meeting will be Thursday September 21st, 3pm - 5pm, place TBD. On Thursday July 20th we'll have another little get-together at a local pub, 4:3opm - ???, place TBD.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. Remember, this is YOUR Users Group. I am here to make it run how you would like and get you what you'd like to see. If there is a topic you would like see covered, let me know. If there is someone you would like to see as a guest speaker, let me know. Later!

Exchange 2007

2006-06-18T20:04:00.000-07:00

2007 will be June 10 - 13 in Phoenix AZ, at the JW Marriot. Looking at the website this looks like a really nice hotel. I'm still wondering if going from Vegas to Phoenix in June is like going from the frying pan to the fire. It WILL be HOTTT!!! But it'll be a great conference and from what I can tell about the hotel, 1) it is non-smoking (WOOHOO!!) and 2) wireless is available almost everywhere in the hotel. I wonder what the Tuesday night event will be. Maybe everyone sitting in the pool to try to bring our body temp down? :)

D'OH!

2006-06-18T19:40:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I didn't do exactly as I planned and didn't post comments and photos from each day. It was very busy and a fantastic time, and I'm just now getting back to a normal schedule.

I PROMISE to post photos this week and PROMISE to post a recap as well. This Thursday I will give an in depth recap of the conference, which was my best so far. I think next year will be amazing and you should try now to convince your management to let you go!

Please come Thursday, it'll be very informative and you'll enjoy it a lot! Hope to see you then!

Exchange Day 3

2006-06-07T10:24:00.000-07:00

Well, I was going to try to blog at the end of each day, however by the time I got back to my hotel room, I was just too tired. The first two days were great, lots of fantastic stuff, and today looks very good too. Most people are leaving today but I'm staying the night, so I'll be able to give a wrap-up tonight - WATCH THIS SPACE! ;)

I also hope to get my photos posted tonight. Time to run to a session called "Inside the OpenEdge UI Research Lab". This should be very cool!

Exchange - Tuesday Morning

2006-06-06T08:48:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't written sooner, busy busy busy here at Exchange. First, I want to say they FINALLY have a good beer selection! Well, ok, ONE good beer - Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale. But that's WAY better than it has been in the past, so good job to whoever made sure we had that!

Lots of neat stuff, went to the first AJAX session which was very interesting, I can't wait for the 2nd session. Today I've got two database tuning sessions to go to, then tonight they have some event for us. I'll try to blog more and post my photos tonight.

Next ORPUG Meeting - 6/22

2006-06-01T09:29:00.000-07:00

Next ORPUG Meeting:

Thursday, June 22nd (had to change the date due to conflicts with the location)
3pm - 5pm
Hampton Affiliates
9600 SW Barnes Rd, Suite 200
Portland, OR 97229
503-203-6557
map (all mapping software doesn't show our address correctly)

This will be a post-Exchange recap for those who couldn't make it. Some highlights:

Why is Progress interested in AJAX as a user interface?
A new UI for OpenEdge?
Database performance tuning, always a favorite at Exchange.
Mark Bloomberg from Progress will be joining us.
And lots more!

There is a lot of great stuff at Exchange this year and this meeting will be a great way to find out about it if you couldn't go. If you have any questions, please contact Richard Uchytil. I look forward to seeing you there!

I will also be adding comments and photos to our ORPUG blog each day.

Next Get-Together

2006-05-10T14:00:00.000-07:00

Our next fun get-together will be:

Thursday, 5/18
McMenamins Cornelius Pass Roadhouse in Imbrie Hall
4:30pm - ???

This building is very cool inside. I know it's a bit of a drive for people on the east side, but it's well worth it! And for those at FEI and Epson, we're in your backyard. ;)

Hope to see you there!

Upcoming Meeting 4/20

2006-04-18T09:47:00.000-07:00

The next meeting will be Thursday, 4/20, 3:30pm - 5pm at North Pacific Group, Inc. Topics are still being finalized and an email will be sent out early next week with details. North Pacific Group is located near Washington Square by Red Lobster and Gustav's. Please RSVP so they know how many people to expect.

North Pacific Group, Inc.
10200 SW Greenburg Rd. 4th Floor.
Portland, OR 97223
503-231-1166

Look forward to seeing you there!

Fun Get Together last night!

2006-03-17T07:35:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone who showed up last night, that was fun! We missed the rest of you, but will see you at our next regular meeting in April.

Rich

Get-Together 3/16 at Bridgeport Brewpub

2006-03-14T11:57:00.000-08:00

Bridgeport Brewing has finally finished their 14+ month remodel! Let's meet there this coming Thursday, 3/16, from 4:30pm - ????. I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun and it sounds like a fantastic remodel! Again, this is NOT a replacement for the regular meetings (next one will be in April), rather a get together for us to chat about Progress, cars, the weather, users, music, tv, whatever we want, just a fun time after work.

Map to Bridgeport:
http://tinyurl.com/louk9

Hope to see you there - and THIS time everyone IS healthy and I WILL - repeat WILL - be there!!!!!!

2/16/06 Gathering

2006-02-15T07:59:00.000-08:00

Our next get-together is this Thursday from 4:30pm - ??? at Gustav's by Washington Square [ map ]. This is not a regular meeting, rather a chance for us to get together informally, have some beer (or other drink), food, and chat about anything, including Progress. If you have any questions, please let me know. Hope to see you there!

Next ORPUG Event

2006-01-27T14:32:00.000-08:00

We will have quarterly meetings, and each month inbetween I plan on having little get-togethers. These get-togethers aren't meetings or replacements for meetings. We do talk about Progress some, but also talk about anything else - the weather, sports, cars, dogs, music, users, teal sheep, anything you want.

So the next gathering will be Feb 16th from 4pm - ???. I'm not sure where yet, but am thinking about Gustav's over by Washington Square. Any other recommendations?

Anyhow, put it on your calendar and I'll send out reminders as the date gets closer. Thanks to everyone for making our last meeting really good!

2006 PUG Presidents Meeting

2006-01-11T08:14:00.000-08:00

What a great meeting! SO much better than last year. Honestly, last year I left feeling it was a waste of time as I did not really learn anything that would help me build up ORPUG. TOTALLY different this year! I've got lots of great ideas to share with everyone. Here's a few highlights (have to save some things so you'll come to the meeting). Click the photo to see more pictures form the meeting.

Benefits of Being a PUG Member

One group had some extra money at the end of the year (and we aren't really profit making organizations), so they bought all of their members a Progress book.
Discounts on training and other events sponsored by the PUG.
Networking with peers, learning how others do things and finding people who might be able to help when you have a problem - or helping others with their problems.

Progress Stability

As it has been for the past many years, Progress continues to be strong financially.

Pricing/Licensing
update 1/19/06: I think I have used the word "pricing" below when I should have used "licensing". Oops! Sorry!

Sonic pricing licensing has changed for the better. If you're interested, check with your sales rep or var.
OE10 pricing licensing is getting a major fix, no timeframe for when it'll be done. Part of the fix is what to do with those who have already purchased OE10.

10.1A

64-bit r-code. Right now there's a 2 billion record limit per area in Progress 9 & 10. 64-bit (which will be coming in 10.1B) will move this limit higher so for most people it's not an issue anymore. FYI, they have NO customers who are close to the 2 billion record limit. AND it is possible to set up your database in a way such that you could hit the 2 billion limit with 100 million records (using the wrong records per block settings for example).
Should be out now or in a few days.

PSDN

Progress wants to make PSDN THE place to go to get tech info, like whitepapers, how-to's, sample code, etc. NOT to be confused with the PEG which offers more real-world experience, more instant help, a very large range of opinions (which is sometimes good), etc. Both are complimentary.
I suggested they also put all of the webinars and events for each Progress company (OpenEdge, RealTime, Sonic, etc) on PSDN so you don't have to go to 8 websites to get this stuff.
You will be able to comment on stuff, like if you feel a whitepaper is wrong or was extremely helpful, you can leave a comment that others can see.

Directions Forums

More info at the meeting, but basically a group of Progress and non-Progress employees working together on future directions of various pieces of Progress, like DBA, RFID, etc. I should be getting more info before our meeting and can share it then.

PUG Stuff
Here are some things that have worked for other groups that I want to try.

Calling/emailing members many times (but not like every day) reminding of the upcoming meeting. Yes it's annoying to get the email again for the 10th time, but you're less likely to forget about the meeting. The groups that habe done this haven't had people complain, actually the opposite where they've said thanks for reminding them.
Having a vendor sponsor a meeting. This means they can give a short (15 minute or less) sales pitch, but they have paid for the room and everything - plus usually their travel expenses - so the PUG doesn't have to come up with the money.
Charge dues. Having money allows us to do many things, mainly being able to find a meeting place pretty much anywhere. Other groups also buy something they raffle off at meetings (to paid members only). Some have enough money they are able to help some go to Exchange. It is also felt if you are paying for this - or your company is - you are more likely to attend.
Some groups only allow people a one-time free attendance to see if they want to join, then they must pay or they can't participate. If we get 60+ people attending all the time, I'll do this, but not right now.
Guest Speakers. Lots of great ideas for finding guest speakers, including all of us Presidents sharing information on our guest speakers. I think from this discussion I will have a much better time of finding speakers and topics for us.

One last thing. We (meaning us here in Oregon) have complained for YEARS that we don't know who are Progress Rep is. The person in charge of Rep's (Diane Albano) will be more than happy to let everyone know. So if you don't know and want to know or want to verify, send me an email and I'll find out for you.

Again, this was a fantastic meeting and I got a lot of great stuff from it. I'll have more to share at our meeting January 19th. Let me know if you have any questions, comments, or whatever. See you then!

PSDN Webinar - Auditing

2005-12-28T11:50:00.000-08:00

Auditing is new in 10.1 and this webinar covers this feature. Even though we probably won't be on 10.1 anytime soon (hopefully in 2006), I still find these very interesting and worthwhile to attend so I know what to expect - and can use this information as yet another reason to upgrade.

Auditing - Who Did what, When, Where and How?
Thursday, January 19, 2006
10am - 11am PST

During this session we'll provide an overview of the auditing framework and you'll see how it offers an uninterrupted audit trail of an application client's access to its operations and data. Explore sample use cases from simple application logging to non-repudiation of the audit data to satisfy international government regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, CFR Part 11, HIPAA, and more. OpenEdge Auditing Services for the database are implemented as a database administration utility - no changes to the database are required. Adding auditing to an application is as simple as adding a few functions that handle all the tactical details. If you are interested in the technical details and want to get a head start on planning for an executing OpenEdge Auditing, please attend this web seminar.

What's New in 10.1A

2005-12-15T09:47:00.000-08:00

Finished a webinar this morning about What's New in 10.1A. Lots of cool things. They recorded the webinar, but it's not available yet, should be there in a day or so. Here are a few highlights:

Adding & activating indexes via the 4GL
XML schema validation
Auditing of Create, Delete & Update - not done via triggers, built into Progress now
Application level auditing (they said there will be a webinar in Jan on auditing)
Start and stop auditing via the Progress Explorer
Online schema changes - Add an index (inactive)
Webspeed - Blob support

With auditing, they said to be careful - it can create a LOT of data fast. A single area can hold 2 billion records, so you need to come up with strategies for archiving your auditing data. Also, audit records can NOT be edited. This will make the Sarbanes (and other) people happy. As we all know, the new IDE is based on Eclipse. Someone asked if the new IDE would work on unix. They said while Eclipse will work on unix, they don't know if the Progress plug-in will, and they are going to look into it.

They also gave some numbers in the performance area:

Progress v8 -> OpenEdge 10 -- 43% increase
Progress v9 -> OpenEdge 10 -- 10% increase
OLTP load: out-of-box 5% increase, with Type II Storage Areas, 24% increase
Progress v9 -> OpenEdge SQL: Insert w/Index 35%; Update w/Index 26%; Scan select 56%!

One cool thing about the SQL increase is if you have any products that use SQL you will get this increase. This includes reporting tools like Cyberquery.

Lots of cool things! I just hope our var will be supporting it soon.

OpenEdge Architect - Eclipse

2005-12-06T08:41:00.000-08:00

Progress recently had a webinar about their new IDE. They are calling it OpenEdge Architect, and as we all know, it is based on Eclipse. Some very cool features! Makes me want to go to OE10 JUST for this! Checkout the recorded webinar here. The zip file contains a WebEx Player that needs to be installed to view the 17MB IDE.wrf file. Of course you could also choose to stream it if you want, but it's 60 minutes and I prefer to download these so I can watch them anytime I want. Check it out!

Cascade Microtech Job Opening

2005-12-01T07:37:00.000-08:00

I got this from Linda Bobzien at Cascade Microtech.

CASCADE MICROTECH, INC.
POSITION: (QAD) Business Systems Analyst IV
JOB CLASSIFICATION: Full Time, Regular
SALARY RANGE: 63,200 - $99,200

Key Responsibilities/Essential Functions:
Primary responsibilities include systems analysis, development and maintenance of company wide ERP (QAD MfgPro) software. With minimal
guidance: develop, document, implement and maintain code for this enterprise application. Create new functionality and ad hoc reporting as required using Progress and other tools. Creates user and technical documentation of new and existing functionality and demonstrate features through user training sessions. Support Business Managers and key users by assisting in the development of business processes.
Develop documentation and train users on new and existing functionality. Keep application current by driving upgrades and retiring unused code.

Evaluate and recommend new and enhanced infrastructure related to ERP systems including software, 3rd party tools, development methodologies, etc, ensuring infrastructure components meet reliability, adaptability, scalability, portability, supportability, visibility and integration requirements.

Required Knowledge & Skills:
* Must be hands-on, detailed oriented and have the ability to quickly adapt to changes and new ideas.
* Must have excellent communication skills with the ability to communicate effectively and clearly, in writing and/or orally, both in one-on-one and group presentation situations.
* Able to interact and communicate with all levels of staff and project management in both the business and the technical areas, with the ability to keep discussions at the appropriate level of abstraction.
* Possess excellent analytical, problem solving, organizational, interpersonal, and motivational skills, with the ability to move cleanly from theoretical to implementation thinking.

* QAD MfgPro and Progress required (expert level).
* MRPII/ERP; Manufacturing, Distribution and Accounting experience required (expert level) Relational database design and programming for business applications required (expert level).
* Sarbanes-Oxley compliance desired.
* MS ASP.Net desired.
* SDLC and Project management experience desired.

* Graduation from an accredited four-year college or university with a degree in Computer Science or other related field(s) or equivalent.

To apply contact Linda Bobzien (IS Manager) lindaB@cmicro.com or send resume to:
Job # 05-68850
Cascade Microtech, Inc.
2430 NW 206th Ave.
Beaverton, OR 97006
fax: 601-1010
Email: hr@cmicro.com

Visit our website at http://www.cascademicrotech.com

What’s Coming in Progress OpenEdge 10.1A

2005-11-30T11:43:00.000-08:00

From PSDN:

What’s Coming in Progress OpenEdge 10.1A

Progress OpenEdge 10.1A is the next in a series of releases aimed at making it easier to develop, deploy, integrate and manage OpenEdge business applications. Simply put, the new capabilities added in 10.1A help OpenEdge customers meet client needs in an increasingly competitive market. OpenEdge 10.1a includes a new integrated development environment. The new IDE is compatible with the 4GL and the OpenEdge database, and will work with most existing applications. The new IDE is based on the industry standard Eclipse platform, with a “plug-in” strategy that is common in the industry. It will significantly upgrade the look, feel, and behavior of our development environment.

Progress is committed to providing an IDE which makes it easy to organize the development of an OpenEdge application and manage it through the entire application development lifecycle. The IDE will re-enforce the best practices and guidelines embodied by the OpenEdge Reference Architecture. Additionally, business logic tools will be provided that will simplify the process of building business applications using the 4GL. Addressing architecture throughout the development process will deliver tremendous productivity increases and ensure that the end product is not only rapidly constructed, but well constructed as well.

Auditing is another important capability added in 10.1A. Auditing provides customers with an uninterrupted trail of access to operations and data. This capability helps companies meet the regulatory compliance mandates of such legislation as Sarbanes Oxley and Basel II among others.

Other important 10.1A benefits include higher productivity through installation and configuration enhancements, RDBMS performance and high availability enhancements, simplified installation for the SonicMQ and Sonic ESB Adapters, simplified deployment of OpenEdge Management, fail-back support for OpenEdge Replication, and Linux 64-bit platform support. Important language enhancements are also being introduced including those in ProDataSets, XML support, and object-oriented extensions. Such enhancements make it possible for people to have a language that is as powerful and easy to use in developing new distributed, service-oriented applications, as the original language did for host-based applications.

The product is currently in beta and early returns indicate that OpenEdge 10.1A meets the goal of simplifying the job of developing, deploying, integrating and managing OpenEdge business applications.

Job Opening at Nike

2005-11-29T08:56:00.000-08:00

I received an email from Terry Shannahan yesterday. He is moving to another job, so Nike is looking for someone to fill his shoes.

The job will be supporting the one remaining Progress application for about a year. It is character and on Unix (Sun). If the person also knows IBM mainframe COBOL, that would be a plus as they could help support another system. I don't know what will happen to this person after the Progress app is gone.

If you want more information, you can contact Terry directly:
Terry G. Shannahan
Office: 503.532.7644
Cell: 503.423.7596
tshannahan@hotmail.com

Webspeed Licensing

2005-11-16T09:33:00.000-08:00

Many of you may have read on the PEG about Webspeed licensing being seriously messed up. From what I could find out, if you are currently on a concurrent user license, you will still be able to use that model for Webspeed. New customers can have the problem - where basically Progress wants named users for every possible user that could hit your webspeed app. Even though you could get 500,000 different people hitting your app but only 100 at a time, they still want you to buy 500,000 licenses.

Yes, it's messed up. I plan on asking more about this when I'm back there in January and will let you know what I find.

Welcome to the Oregon Progress Users Group!

2005-11-11T13:09:00.000-08:00

Thought I might try this for a Users Group website. Might work, might not. :)

What's up with the group?
Well, not much. Things are moving much slower than I thought they would. A few years ago at a mini-TechPeak with about 40 people in attendance, pretty much everyone raised their hands high when asked if they wanted to restart the users group. We've had 4 official meetings this year and at most we had 6 people attend. Maybe I'm not doing my job as President well enough.

In January 2006 I will be heading back to Bedford for a PUG Presidents meeting at Progress. Hopefully I'll learn some good ideas for getting our group going better.

As for meetings, I was trying to do one meeting every quarter, but that hasn't seemed to work well. I think one problem is where we are meeting, which has been my office. I really believe people would like to meet somewhere, a nice restaurant, pub, etc, where they can have some food and drink (beer, wine, soda, etc). The problem with that is we have no money to reserve anywhere. Just having a meeting in the middle of the restaurant wouldn't work well. I know some groups only have one formal meeting a year, right after Exchange. Maybe we need to go to that instead?

Some groups also charge dues and some don't. I would like to mainly so we can afford to meet places. We would have corporate memberships of like $200/year, and individual memberships of like $25/year. For the corporate memberships, anyone at the company could attend. We would never say if you aren't a paid member you can't attend. What being a paid member gets you is the ability to take part in raffles, discounts on training and Exchange, things like that. For example, if we had a lot of people who wanted to take a certain class, we could probably get Progress to come out here for free and give it. Members would get a discount on the class, non-members pay full price. Other groups have said this works well for them.

I have also been having little gatherings each month in between our formal meetings just as a way for people to talk about Progress, computers, users, cars, the weather, whatever. These were not anything formal. However, I think people were seeing these as a "meeting", and thus not showing up to the real meeting. SO, from now on, I will still be doing this, but they will simply be me wanting to go to a nice pub, have some food, beer, and anyone is welcome to join me. We will probably talk about Progress since that's our common bond, but we'll also talk about all kinds of other things. We won't really be talking about the users group at all, though it might come up.

I'll be going to Exchange again in 2006. We will have a formal meeting after Exchange for me (and anyone else who went) to share what went on, what new things are coming, what were the big topics, etc.

If you have any questions, comments, thoughts, suggestions, etc, about the users group, please let me know! I'm here not as a dictator but a facilitator, to make this users group work the way YOU want it to work. Whatever you would like, I am more than happy to do everything I can to make it happen.

Later!

Rich

ORPUG

Trying to blog more often

Next Meeting June 21st!

Exchange Photos

Exchange Days Two & Three

Exchange Day One

Exchange 2007

Progress Road Show Coming in October!!

The Progress Innovation Road ShowFall ‘06

Bridging the Gap with Innovation

Who Should Attend?

Where to Attend:

The Agenda

Register Today!

Upcoming Progress Related Events

Next Pub Gathering

July 27th Get-Together Location

Progress in CIO Magazine!

Exchange 2006 Presentations Available

Date change for July Get-Together

6/22 Meeting Minutes

Exchange 2007

D'OH!

Exchange Day 3

Exchange - Tuesday Morning

Next ORPUG Meeting - 6/22

Next Get-Together

Upcoming Meeting 4/20

Fun Get Together last night!

Get-Together 3/16 at Bridgeport Brewpub

2/16/06 Gathering

Next ORPUG Event

2006 PUG Presidents Meeting

PSDN Webinar - Auditing

What's New in 10.1A

OpenEdge Architect - Eclipse

Cascade Microtech Job Opening

What’s Coming in Progress OpenEdge 10.1A

Job Opening at Nike

Webspeed Licensing

Welcome to the Oregon Progress Users Group!

The Progress Innovation Road Show
Fall ‘06