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Breck Carter
Last modified: August 20, 2000
mail to: bcarter@bcarter.com

Techwave 2000 Diary: Breck In Orlando

The conference is over but this diary isn't finished yet... there's more material, coming soon!

Techwave 2000 Links
Sunday, July 30, 2000
Monday, July 31 - Day One
Tuesday, August 1 - Day Two
Wednesday, August 2 - Day Three
Thursday, August 3 - Day Four
Followup

Techwave 2000 Links
  • The PowerPoint slide shows are available at techwave2000.sybase.com/presentations/.
    The User ID is sybase and the password is techw@ve2000.

  • The upgrade to SQL Anywhere Studio 7.0.1 Build 918 is now available...
    somewhere...

    SQL Anywhere Studio Version 7.0.1

    ...somewhere in my.sybase.com.

    Here's one path that works (today, anyway)...

    1. Log in to my.sybase.com with your user id and password, or sign up for a free account,

    2. Click on "Support" in the top menu bar (NOT "Downloads", that gets you a "trial" copy),

    3. Under "Support Services" click on "EBFs/Updates",

    4. Under "Product Families" click on "SQL Anywhere Studio", then

    5. Under "Platform - Windows" click on "Adaptive Server Anywhere - Windows 32-bit Maintenance Release".

      This should get you to a display that looks like this... 

        This release contains the following files:
File         Date     Size (Bytes) Description
readme.txt 06/30/2000        4940  Maintenance Patch Information
win32.zip  08/01/2000    75114504  Windows 32-bit - Maintenance Patch
  • Here's one way to get technical documents about SQL Anywhere Studio:

    1. Go to my.sybase.com,

    2. Click on "Support",

    3. Choose "SQL Anywhere Studio" in the "Technical Support by Product" list, and

    4. Click on "More Technical Documents...".

  • Here's another way: www.sybase.com/summary/techdocs/

  • Try this link for the Mobile and Wireless Developer home page: www.sybase.com/developer/mobile/

  • The "Handheld and Wireless Solution Samples" can be found here: www.sybase.com/detail/1,3151,1009321,00.html


Sunday, July 30, 2000

 For a few minutes today I had complete control of an 18-wheeler painted in the Sybase colors and carrying a zillion dollars worth of equipment. That's because I'd told Brad Fiske (the driver) to turn down the wrong driveway at the Dolphin hotel, and now I had to climb out of the cab and stand out in the street and stop traffic while Brad backed The Big Rig up.

But I'm not supposed to talk about The Big Rig, yet, so I won't. Let's just say there's a Marketing Coming Of Age happening Monday, and its name is iAnywhere Solutions.

Speaking of which, the golf tournament was halted after 17 holes by warning sirens telling us of the presence of lightning within 5 miles. Otherwise, the tournament went off without a hitch, with the UltraLite database-equipped wireless Palm devices (Symbol SPT1740's) keeping the LeaderBoard up to date. And it was a reasonably honest affair with only one team claiming two consecutive holes-in-one to take the lead away from David Fishburn, the Official Sybase Ringer, with his 7-under-par performance.

Monday, July 31, 2000 - Day One

 $chen nathan raj nathan wore his new beanie when he introduced team sybase get beanie gif ia soln ipo san diego next year john olsen I think I heard John Chen (Sybase chairman, president and CEO) say that iAnywhere Solutions was going IPO, spinning off as a separate company. It's gotta be true, it's a good thing, because those guys at iAnywhere Solutions (the SQL Anywhere folks, formerly the Mobile and Embedded Computer Division, formerly Watcom) do things the way they should be done.

And they deserve their independence.

But I'm not sure what I heard, because it's not mentioned in the Techwave press release covering this morning's keynote speeches.

Also not mentioned in the press release is the fact that Dr. Raj Nathan (Senior Vice President and General Manager, Sybase Internet Applications Division) is an honorary member of Team Sybase, and he wore his official Team Sybase beanie up on stage. But he did, and he said all sorts of nice things about Team Sybase, and we got to stand up and wave while everyone applauded.

The BIG news, though, was the rollout of the iAnywhere Solutions "RIG"... This full-sized transport truck is outfitted with the latest in Sybase mobile and wireless technology to create a "demo station on wheels."

iAnywhere Solutions RIG

Tuesday morning I get to ride in the cab again, maybe Brad will let me drive (or at least blow the horn :)

Tuesday, August 1, 2000 - Day Two

 Gosh, I got to meet Terry Stepien (President of iAnywhere Solutions) tonight! It feels like 1993 all over again...instead of Windows 3 and PowerBuilder 2, we've got Palm and RIM and UltraLite and MobiLink and SQL Anywhere 7.

And a brand new company that hasn't gone public yet, but will.

And a vast number of computer people who just don't "get it" yet, but will.

Meeting Terry Stepien felt a lot like meeting Mitchell Kertzman (former CEO of Powersoft)... those who remember Mitchell know exactly what I'm talking about.

Suddenly it's all fun again!

Wednesday, August 2, 2000 - Day Three

 Dave Neudoerffer (VP Software Engineering, iAnywhere Solutions) has been with the company through four name changes and two product name changes... from WATCOM to iAnywhere/ASA.
( There is NO truth to the rumor that a 5th company name change is in the works, to "WirelessAccessTechnology.com" :)
Dave talked about the new features available now, in SQL Anywhere Studio 7.0.1, and coming in "Vail" (version 8).

Here's just some of the stuff which may be coming in Vail...

  • A zillion performance improvements in the ASA query engine and optimizer
    • too many to list here, now, but stay tuned!
  • Performance improvements in the physical database file storage
  • GLOBAL AUTOINCREMENT for UltraLite
  • Allow SQL changes in UltraLite without recreating the database
  • Different synchronization schedules for high and low priority data
  • Common scripting language for different MobiLink backend DBMSs
  • Builtin support for timestamp-based MobiLink synchronization
  • SQL Remote hooks, including user definable error handling
  • SQL Remote error log sent to central server even if data replication fails
  • ... and more... I haven't even mentioned the Wireless Server

Quote Of The Day...

"DB2 has almost NO features."
- David Fishburn, Principal Technical Support Consultant, iAnywhere Solutions, speaking about the challenge of writing MobiLink synchronization scripts in the DB2 dialect of SQL

Thursday, August 3, 2000 - Day Four

Quote Of The Day...

"This is what we call an UPSERT."
- David Fishburn again, talking about what happens if a MobiLink remote device acknowledges receipt of an INSERT downloaded from the consolidated, but the consolidated never receives the acknowledgment. The INSERTed row will be downloaded again during the next synchronization, and it will be used to replace the row previously INSERTed. Changes are not lost, but that's another story.

Followup

Quote Of The Week...

"Are you Chris' father?"
- Brad Fiske, iAnywhere Solutions RIG driver, asking about my relationship to Chris Kleisath, Director of Product Managment, iAnywhere Solutions


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