Re: [U2] Dump truck backup
Hi Dale Since the people objecting are not the people who actually USE your system day to day, a better approach is to look to the functionality in your system, and decide how to partition this so that you can shine up the exposed parts in ways that will add value and rebrand your software.. Which means (in practical terms) a) you don't need to do it all! Where you have green screens doing drudge work, keep them so long as they continue to work well. Talk about the training issues if you don't. Instead of changing those .. b) Is there information locked in there that can be nicely represented using web pages? I took a financial system that had 15 screens of client information, 8 screens of financial instrument data, difficult to find (no search) pages to get to the transaction history etc. and put them all into a few web pages with easy drill through that meant managers could very quickly see exactly what they wanted - that's where intelligent design and use of fonts can really win over green screen. c) You can get creative if you want with tools like Google Visualisation for anything that can be trended. It's a good face lift and can even sometimes prove useful. With the same organization I wrote pages that showed trading volumes, with lots of drill down and slicing so they could better optimise their resources in supporting those. I wrote an article in a back issue of Spectrum (www.intl-spectrum.com) that shows how to do this from UniVerse. d) As that was the view most of the management had, it was good branding exercise. Some of them are convinced they have a new system (and nobody is about to disabuse them of that notion!) Getting information out of UniVerse and into the web is very easy, and if you are worried about the learning curve check out mvScript: it's a page markup language that looks like UniBasic. e) Ditto any reports or printed output - easily done. Check out mvQuery, mvPDF or a host of other ways to do this. If you can link up a query tool (like mvQuery) that opens your system and gives a nice front end to a lot of management activity. f) Oh and make sure you sell it as an upgrade to the 'current' version. That way you can recover your time in doing this AND make them feel that they have invested in their future (i.e. they are now stakeholders). We can talk about this off line if you want. Brian -Original Message- From: u2-users-boun...@listserver.u2ug.org [mailto:u2-users-boun...@listserver.u2ug.org] On Behalf Of Dale Kelley Sent: 10 March 2014 21:12 To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org Subject: [U2] Dump truck backup This is mostly for you folks who are contractors but I'd be happy to hear from anyone. I have a customer, Nashville Metropolitan Government, for whom I have provided flea market reservation/registration and buiding event rental software. (UniVerse.) I am a 1 man shop. I look both ways before I cross the street and so far its worked out. But the issue of continuation of development and support has come up for a second time; along with it the nature of my character based software and some reactions to UviVerse as a product. This is an email from the assistant director of the Nashville fairgrounds: Subject: ITS Help Selecting New Software Importance: High Our Flea Market and Corporate Sales components have been utilizing proprietary software that is ancient, and without documentation for many years. It has not been supported by ITS, and there is only one known person in the Tennessee area that can serviced this software. With the upgrade to Windows 7, it will not operate. Obviously, we need to purchase a package that will provide the functionality we need and that can be supported by ITS. I am requesting a meeting, with the appropriate ITS staff at the earliest possible time; to identify our needs and possible software packages that can be installed. He is incorrect in most of his conclusions, but this is his perception. I have left behind a number of great systems that are now defunct because management viewed them as ancient. Does anyone else meet this attitude? My customer defended the system with the following email. Ken Who said our software was ancient? It is not, it aids in insuring the revenue stream for both Flea Market and Facility Rental, you are correct that the software is serviced by one individual since he wrote the program, his name is Dale Kelley and he has other members on his team that know the software in the event something happens to him. As far as the upgrade to Windows 7 who said that it will not operate? This is certainly not the case, the software can be updated to run with minimal effort. You can contact Dale Kelley if you like, I have copied him on this e-mail. Thank you for your time Deborah Deborah's defense included a small lie about the members of my team; I'm it. This system is written entirely in BASIC; no procs, no scripts. I always have the source code on the system; it's theirs to use as they wish. I
Re: [U2] Dump truck backup - Mouse in screens.
Dale, With interavtive screens, mouse action allow you to skip over fields. This will make your actions coded behind fields not being executed. To have mouse, you need inactive screens where the actions is place on the after screen validation rather than field validation. This is the main reason for mouse not being implemented in old text base terminal interfaces. Lately systems are written where a screen will provide information as a transaction to a process that will then update the database. This allow for Front-end development to have there own validation and pass the transaction to the process to update the database. Transactions in this case is a record with a header and data. The header tell the update process what to do with the data and update the files based on that. Tipically a transaction file with a trigger program (in D3 it is a callx placed in the file dict) that run whenever a record land in the file. This is the main mis-understanding of modern day applications (Your front-end client with a remote back-end) and old legacy apps (direct interface). Normally a re-write is the only solution. e.g. begin case case header = update master ; gosub updatemaster case header = add client ; gosub addclient .. End case Groete, Regards, Christo van Rooyen GT - Systems Analyst / Designer II - Nedbank Limited Mobile: 082 925 6301 -Original Message- From: dale kelley [mailto:dalekel...@dalewkelleyinc.com] Sent: 11 March 2014 12:54 AM To: U2 Users List Subject: Re: [U2] Dump truck backup This is mostly for you folks who are contractors but I'd be happy to hear from anyone. I have a customer, Nashville Metropolitan Government, for whom I have provided flea market reservation/registration and buiding event rental software. (UniVerse.) I am a 1 man shop. I look both ways before I cross the street and so far its worked out. But the issue of continuation of development and support has come up for a second time; along with it the nature of my character based software and some reactions to UviVerse as a product. This is an email from the assistant director of the Nashville fairgrounds: Subject: ITS Help Selecting New Software Importance: High Our Flea Market and Corporate Sales components have been utilizing proprietary software that is ancient, and without documentation for many years. It has not been supported by ITS, and there is only one known person in the Tennessee area that can serviced this software. With the upgrade to Windows 7, it will not operate. Obviously, we need to purchase a package that will provide the functionality we need and that can be supported by ITS. I am requesting a meeting, with the appropriate ITS staff at the earliest possible time; to identify our needs and possible software packages that can be installed. He is incorrect in most of his conclusions, but this is his perception. I have left behind a number of great systems that are now defunct because management viewed them as ancient. Does anyone else meet this attitude? My customer defended the system with the following email. Ken Who said our software was ancient? It is not, it aids in insuring the revenue stream for both Flea Market and Facility Rental, you are correct that the software is serviced by one individual since he wrote the program, his name is Dale Kelley and he has other members on his team that know the software in the event something happens to him. As far as the upgrade to Windows 7 who said that it will not operate? This is certainly not the case, the software can be updated to run with minimal effort. You can contact Dale Kelley if you like, I have copied him on this e-mail. Thank you for your time Deborah Deborah's defense included a small lie about the members of my team; I'm it. This system is written entirely in BASIC; no procs, no scripts. I always have the source code on the system; it's theirs to use as they wish. I would be happy to provide it for review. My question: is there anyone who would have any interest in taking over this and another government customer if I should become defunct or inoperable? I know there are some great people in Tennessee, but these guys could be supported from anywhere. I would also appreciate any advice on products and time required to mouse up the screens and present non-ancient images. I intend to arrenge a meeting with the Assistant Director to attempt to address his concerns and see if I can sell some services. Dale Nedbank Limited Reg No 1951/09/06. The following link displays the names of the Nedbank Board of Directors and Company Secretary. [ http://www.nedbank.co.za/terms/DirectorsNedbank.htm ] This email is confidential and is intended for the addressee only. The following link will take you to Nedbank's legal notice. [ http://www.nedbank.co.za/terms/EmailDisclaimer.htm ] ___ U2
Re: [U2] Dump truck backup
On 10/03/2014 21:11, Dale Kelley wrote: along with it the nature of my character based software and some reactions to UviVerse as a product. You could also quietly point out, if he's worried about UniVerse, that although IBM sold it, when they did so it was near enough HALF of their DB2 division. I'm sure he's heard of DB2 - that will tell him that U2's market share is pretty much the same as IBM's currrent database market share. Surely that means there's plenty of people out there who know the system (yes I know, the problem is finding them...) Cheers, Wol ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
Re: [U2] Dump truck backup
imho, mousing up just leads to disability claims about mouse shoulder... a tax preparation service who shall go unnamed has a hideous package that *cannot change fields* unless you use the mouse, which means every time you type you have to reach over and grab the damn thing to go to the next field i cannot tell you how many times i had to rub my wife's shoulder with bengay before she finally quit - took five years for the lump in the middle of her shoulder blade to heal On 3/10/2014 2:11 PM, Dale Kelley wrote: This is mostly for you folks who are contractors but I'd be happy to hear from anyone. I have a customer, Nashville Metropolitan Government, for whom I have provided flea market reservation/registration and buiding event rental software. (UniVerse.) I am a 1 man shop. I look both ways before I cross the street and so far its worked out. But the issue of continuation of development and support has come up for a second time; along with it the nature of my character based software and some reactions to UviVerse as a product. This is an email from the assistant director of the Nashville fairgrounds: Subject: ITS Help Selecting New Software Importance: High Our Flea Market and Corporate Sales components have been utilizing proprietary software that is ancient, and without documentation for many years. It has not been supported by ITS, and there is only one known person in the Tennessee area that can serviced this software. With the upgrade to Windows 7, it will not operate. Obviously, we need to purchase a package that will provide the functionality we need and that can be supported by ITS. I am requesting a meeting, with the appropriate ITS staff at the earliest possible time; to identify our needs and possible software packages that can be installed. He is incorrect in most of his conclusions, but this is his perception. I have left behind a number of great systems that are now defunct because management viewed them as ancient. Does anyone else meet this attitude? My customer defended the system with the following email. Ken Who said our software was ancient? It is not, it aids in insuring the revenue stream for both Flea Market and Facility Rental, you are correct that the software is serviced by one individual since he wrote the program, his name is Dale Kelley and he has other members on his team that know the software in the event something happens to him. As far as the upgrade to Windows 7 who said that it will not operate? This is certainly not the case, the software can be updated to run with minimal effort. You can contact Dale Kelley if you like, I have copied him on this e-mail. Thank you for your time Deborah Deborah's defense included a small lie about the members of my team; I'm it. This system is written entirely in BASIC; no procs, no scripts. I always have the source code on the system; it's theirs to use as they wish. I would be happy to provide it for review. My question: is there anyone who would have any interest in taking over this and another government customer if I should become defunct or inoperable? I know there are some great people in Tennessee, but these guys could be supported from anywhere. I would also appreciate any advice on products and time required to mouse up the screens and present non-ancient images. I intend to arrenge a meeting with the Assistant Director to attempt to address his concerns and see if I can sell some services. Dale -- View this message in context: http://u2-universe-unidata.1073795.n5.nabble.com/Dump-truck-backup-tp42827.html Sent from the U2 - Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
Re: [U2] Dump truck backup
While I know that mouseable screens provide no improvement in functionality I would try to keep it at least as good as it is. Old users could still use the keyboard but them winders people could click their way. Is that possible? On 03/10/2014 05:09 PM, Allen Elwood RR wrote: imho, mousing up just leads to disability claims about mouse shoulder... a tax preparation service who shall go unnamed has a hideous package that *cannot change fields* unless you use the mouse, which means every time you type you have to reach over and grab the damn thing to go to the next field i cannot tell you how many times i had to rub my wife's shoulder with bengay before she finally quit - took five years for the lump in the middle of her shoulder blade to heal On 3/10/2014 2:11 PM, Dale Kelley wrote: This is mostly for you folks who are contractors but I'd be happy to hear from anyone. I have a customer, Nashville Metropolitan Government, for whom I have provided flea market reservation/registration and buiding event rental software. (UniVerse.) I am a 1 man shop. I look both ways before I cross the street and so far its worked out. But the issue of continuation of development and support has come up for a second time; along with it the nature of my character based software and some reactions to UviVerse as a product. This is an email from the assistant director of the Nashville fairgrounds: Subject: ITS Help Selecting New Software Importance: High Our Flea Market and Corporate Sales components have been utilizing proprietary software that is ancient, and without documentation for many years. It has not been supported by ITS, and there is only one known person in the Tennessee area that can serviced this software. With the upgrade to Windows 7, it will not operate. Obviously, we need to purchase a package that will provide the functionality we need and that can be supported by ITS. I am requesting a meeting, with the appropriate ITS staff at the earliest possible time; to identify our needs and possible software packages that can be installed. He is incorrect in most of his conclusions, but this is his perception. I have left behind a number of great systems that are now defunct because management viewed them as ancient. Does anyone else meet this attitude? My customer defended the system with the following email. Ken Who said our software was ancient? It is not, it aids in insuring the revenue stream for both Flea Market and Facility Rental, you are correct that the software is serviced by one individual since he wrote the program, his name is Dale Kelley and he has other members on his team that know the software in the event something happens to him. As far as the upgrade to Windows 7 who said that it will not operate? This is certainly not the case, the software can be updated to run with minimal effort. You can contact Dale Kelley if you like, I have copied him on this e-mail. Thank you for your time Deborah Deborah's defense included a small lie about the members of my team; I'm it. This system is written entirely in BASIC; no procs, no scripts. I always have the source code on the system; it's theirs to use as they wish. I would be happy to provide it for review. My question: is there anyone who would have any interest in taking over this and another government customer if I should become defunct or inoperable? I know there are some great people in Tennessee, but these guys could be supported from anywhere. I would also appreciate any advice on products and time required to mouse up the screens and present non-ancient images. I intend to arrenge a meeting with the Assistant Director to attempt to address his concerns and see if I can sell some services. Dale -- View this message in context: http://u2-universe-unidata.1073795.n5.nabble.com/Dump-truck-backup-tp42827.html Sent from the U2 - Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
Re: [U2] Dump truck backup
Very possible if you're using a terminal emulator that will pass through mouse codes and an input routine that can be taught to interpret them. The biggest problem I had with that was that old-school users wanted to Enter from field to field, and Windows users wanted to Tab from field to field, and Enter to submit the page. I just told them to get out the boxing gloves and whoever won would get their way. :-) IMHO, the assistant director is very short-sighted and will move on to something else when it all hits the fan. Good luck! Charlie Noah Tiny Bear Wild Bird Store Home of Safety Net Shipping http://www.TinyBearWildBirdStore.com Toll Free: 1-855-TinyBear (855-846-9232) On 03-10-2014 5:54 PM, dale kelley wrote: While I know that mouseable screens provide no improvement in functionality I would try to keep it at least as good as it is. Old users could still use the keyboard but them winders people could click their way. Is that possible? On 03/10/2014 05:09 PM, Allen Elwood RR wrote: imho, mousing up just leads to disability claims about mouse shoulder... a tax preparation service who shall go unnamed has a hideous package that *cannot change fields* unless you use the mouse, which means every time you type you have to reach over and grab the damn thing to go to the next field i cannot tell you how many times i had to rub my wife's shoulder with bengay before she finally quit - took five years for the lump in the middle of her shoulder blade to heal On 3/10/2014 2:11 PM, Dale Kelley wrote: This is mostly for you folks who are contractors but I'd be happy to hear from anyone. I have a customer, Nashville Metropolitan Government, for whom I have provided flea market reservation/registration and buiding event rental software. (UniVerse.) I am a 1 man shop. I look both ways before I cross the street and so far its worked out. But the issue of continuation of development and support has come up for a second time; along with it the nature of my character based software and some reactions to UviVerse as a product. This is an email from the assistant director of the Nashville fairgrounds: Subject: ITS Help Selecting New Software Importance: High Our Flea Market and Corporate Sales components have been utilizing proprietary software that is ancient, and without documentation for many years. It has not been supported by ITS, and there is only one known person in the Tennessee area that can serviced this software. With the upgrade to Windows 7, it will not operate. Obviously, we need to purchase a package that will provide the functionality we need and that can be supported by ITS. I am requesting a meeting, with the appropriate ITS staff at the earliest possible time; to identify our needs and possible software packages that can be installed. He is incorrect in most of his conclusions, but this is his perception. I have left behind a number of great systems that are now defunct because management viewed them as ancient. Does anyone else meet this attitude? My customer defended the system with the following email. Ken Who said our software was ancient? It is not, it aids in insuring the revenue stream for both Flea Market and Facility Rental, you are correct that the software is serviced by one individual since he wrote the program, his name is Dale Kelley and he has other members on his team that know the software in the event something happens to him. As far as the upgrade to Windows 7 who said that it will not operate? This is certainly not the case, the software can be updated to run with minimal effort. You can contact Dale Kelley if you like, I have copied him on this e-mail. Thank you for your time Deborah Deborah's defense included a small lie about the members of my team; I'm it. This system is written entirely in BASIC; no procs, no scripts. I always have the source code on the system; it's theirs to use as they wish. I would be happy to provide it for review. My question: is there anyone who would have any interest in taking over this and another government customer if I should become defunct or inoperable? I know there are some great people in Tennessee, but these guys could be supported from anywhere. I would also appreciate any advice on products and time required to mouse up the screens and present non-ancient images. I intend to arrenge a meeting with the Assistant Director to attempt to address his concerns and see if I can sell some services. Dale -- View this message in context: http://u2-universe-unidata.1073795.n5.nabble.com/Dump-truck-backup-tp42827.html Sent from the U2 - Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org
Re: [U2] Dump truck backup
AccuTerm has some features that let you add mousing to green-screen apps. One is pattern-based and requires no changes in the app. You define a list of relevant patterns and when the user clicks on one, some action takes place. For example, if your text screen prompts are in the form of 1) 2) xxx, you can define a pattern like a blank followed by one or two digits followed by an open parenthesis followed by a blank, and define a click action to send the digits followed by a RETURN. There is also direct mouse support - turn on the mouse input using an escape sequence and when the user clicks, it looks to the app like a function key followed by a cursor position. The U2 app needs to associate the position with an appropriate action. You can also use AccuTerm's visual styles to give a green-screen app a GUI-like appearance. Visual styles are triggered by screen attributes (reverse, dim, underline, etc.). Peter Schellenbach http://www.asent.com ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
Re: [U2] Dump truck backup
Charlie, you're right. He's already retired Metro and can only work so many hours. (He's almost as old as I.) On 03/10/2014 06:01 PM, Charlie Noah wrote: Very possible if you're using a terminal emulator that will pass through mouse codes and an input routine that can be taught to interpret them. The biggest problem I had with that was that old-school users wanted to Enter from field to field, and Windows users wanted to Tab from field to field, and Enter to submit the page. I just told them to get out the boxing gloves and whoever won would get their way. :-) IMHO, the assistant director is very short-sighted and will move on to something else when it all hits the fan. Good luck! Charlie Noah Tiny Bear Wild Bird Store Home of Safety Net Shipping http://www.TinyBearWildBirdStore.com Toll Free: 1-855-TinyBear (855-846-9232) On 03-10-2014 5:54 PM, dale kelley wrote: While I know that mouseable screens provide no improvement in functionality I would try to keep it at least as good as it is. Old users could still use the keyboard but them winders people could click their way. Is that possible? On 03/10/2014 05:09 PM, Allen Elwood RR wrote: imho, mousing up just leads to disability claims about mouse shoulder... a tax preparation service who shall go unnamed has a hideous package that *cannot change fields* unless you use the mouse, which means every time you type you have to reach over and grab the damn thing to go to the next field i cannot tell you how many times i had to rub my wife's shoulder with bengay before she finally quit - took five years for the lump in the middle of her shoulder blade to heal On 3/10/2014 2:11 PM, Dale Kelley wrote: This is mostly for you folks who are contractors but I'd be happy to hear from anyone. I have a customer, Nashville Metropolitan Government, for whom I have provided flea market reservation/registration and buiding event rental software. (UniVerse.) I am a 1 man shop. I look both ways before I cross the street and so far its worked out. But the issue of continuation of development and support has come up for a second time; along with it the nature of my character based software and some reactions to UviVerse as a product. This is an email from the assistant director of the Nashville fairgrounds: Subject: ITS Help Selecting New Software Importance: High Our Flea Market and Corporate Sales components have been utilizing proprietary software that is ancient, and without documentation for many years. It has not been supported by ITS, and there is only one known person in the Tennessee area that can serviced this software. With the upgrade to Windows 7, it will not operate. Obviously, we need to purchase a package that will provide the functionality we need and that can be supported by ITS. I am requesting a meeting, with the appropriate ITS staff at the earliest possible time; to identify our needs and possible software packages that can be installed. He is incorrect in most of his conclusions, but this is his perception. I have left behind a number of great systems that are now defunct because management viewed them as ancient. Does anyone else meet this attitude? My customer defended the system with the following email. Ken Who said our software was ancient? It is not, it aids in insuring the revenue stream for both Flea Market and Facility Rental, you are correct that the software is serviced by one individual since he wrote the program, his name is Dale Kelley and he has other members on his team that know the software in the event something happens to him. As far as the upgrade to Windows 7 who said that it will not operate? This is certainly not the case, the software can be updated to run with minimal effort. You can contact Dale Kelley if you like, I have copied him on this e-mail. Thank you for your time Deborah Deborah's defense included a small lie about the members of my team; I'm it. This system is written entirely in BASIC; no procs, no scripts. I always have the source code on the system; it's theirs to use as they wish. I would be happy to provide it for review. My question: is there anyone who would have any interest in taking over this and another government customer if I should become defunct or inoperable? I know there are some great people in Tennessee, but these guys could be supported from anywhere. I would also appreciate any advice on products and time required to mouse up the screens and present non-ancient images. I intend to arrenge a meeting with the Assistant Director to attempt to address his concerns and see if I can sell some services. Dale -- View this message in context: http://u2-universe-unidata.1073795.n5.nabble.com/Dump-truck-backup-tp42827.html Sent from the U2 - Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org
