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A little bit of BorCon in big ol' Texas

If you missed the Inprise/Borland Conference in July and just happen to be in the Dallas area this weekend, you can experience a small-scale version of BorCon at the Delphi Developers of Dallas/Borland Conference on Saturday. The conference will feature a number of key speakers from this year's annual BorCon (held July 17-22 in Philadelphia), including Borland's Vice President of Developer Relations, David Intersimone, and Senior Developer Relations Manager John Kaster.

3D/BC conference topics will center around use of Borland development tools like Delphi, C++Builder, and JBuilder. The conference will be divided into a Delphi Track, which will include sessions on debugging techniques, games programming, and InternetExpress in Delphi; and a Mixed Track, with sessions on developing database applications with JBuilder and applying VC++. Each track will feature five technical sessions, including keynote presentations.

One of the highlights of the conference will be vendor Nevrona Design's demonstration of several new or enhanced products in its line of award-winning reporting technology. Nevrona will demo its new JBuilder/Java interface, which will allow development of reports using the Rave visual report designer for Java applications running on a Windows client. The vendor will also demonstrate its web-based reporting tools for Delphi and C++Builder, which provide scalable reporting for Internet applications of any size. Nevrona will announce a new product, ND-Winshoes, an official support and documentation source for the popular Open Source Winshoes Internet components. Finally, the vendor will unveil a new release  for its flexible reuse technology, now named ND-Patterns. The technology allows for flexible reuse of components and code and encapsulates many features of design patterns in a visual environment. 

Company President Jim Gunkel says that the release of these new or enhanced products marks the beginning of a new era at Nevrona Designs. "It's showing the new direction in which we're taking our products," says Gunkel. "We've hired some new talent and we're aggressively expanding our product lines with even more exciting things in the months to come."

Vista Software will also be demonstrating its newest product, Apollo 5.0. The newest version of Apollo -- the original replaceable database engine for Delphi and C++Builder -- was released on Sept. 16. Its enhancements include database engine .DLLs that have been recompiled under VC++ 6.0 and new properties and methods to simplify database application programming.

Another vendor attending the conference, Wordware Publishing, will be previewing two soon-to-be-published books on Delphi. Alan Moore's "The Tomes of Delphi: Win32 Multimedia API" and John Ayres' "Delphi Graphics and Game Programming Exposed" will be released in the first quarter of 2000.  Ayres, the primary graphics programmer for Beckett Interactive, will be one of the keynote speakers at 3D/BC.

Everyone who registers for the conference will receive the same free product offerings and giveaways as were given out at BorCon this year, including a free copy of Delphi Professional, JBuilder Professional , or C++Builder Professional. 150 people have signed up for the conference so far; 3D expects total attendance of about 200. Nine vendors are scheduled to attend. To register, go to the 3D/BC web site at http://www.3-d.org or contact Mike Leftwich, president of the Dallas chapter of Delphi users, at info@3-d.org.

Enter the Open Source World...

JRPC just released the final beta version of WinLinux 2000 for evaluation and testing. The first Linux for Windows, WinLinux 2000 is a fully Open Source system that installs directly to your Windows PC like any other application. It comes with a handful of applications, development tools, games, Internet applications, and other features. Visit http://www.winlinux.net/ to download the final beta.

SuperNova releases Component Developer 7.0

SuperNova this week announced the release of its new EAI tool, Component Developer 7.0. The latest release features new and enhanced capabilities to address the integration requirements of companies with  SAP R/3, legacy applications, and e-commerce applications. The tool is used for the rapid development of integration components -- such as adapters and connecters --  which link a wide range of platforms, operating systems, databases, middleware, and applications through the enterprise.

After an extensive beta-test period and significant user input, SuperNova made several major enhancements to its latest release of Component Developer.  Included are an extended Java Infrastructure, a Wizard-based, customizable adapter for SAP R/3, and an enhanced Microsoft (D)COM adapter.

"Component Developer 7.0 is all about our vision of Rapid Application Integration," said Wilfred Harbers, SuperNova's Tools Product Manager.  "When it comes to scalability, interoperability, and ease-of-use, our customers know they can depend on our leading-edge technology and excellent support," he said.

Component Developer 7.0 has been generally available and shipping since late August.  New adapters for SSL, IBM MQSeries, and CICS will be available by the end of this year.  Visit www.EAIsolutions.com for product order information.