Open Access Newletter
October/November 1996
Meeting : 5 November 1996
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Melbourne Cup Day! The meeting started with a presentation about Borland's Delphi software - see a full report below.
News from overseas
SPI's World Wide Web page has gone (actually taken over by another company). A company called Software Products GmbH in Germany has a Web site which mentions Open Access and Windowbase (http://www.spg-gmbh.com/). Unfortumately at this stage the Web site is only in German. They do, however, advertise a package of OA C-calls with dozens of very useful functions. For example, it looks like many of the date functions available under programmer, such as DAYOFWEEK, can be used in a database screen mask or print form. Michael Paine is seeking further information.
Note that Michael's new Web page was incorrect in the last newletter. It is http://www1.tpgi.com.au/users/mpaine.
Questions & Answers
Screen garbled when jumping between OA and Windows applications
Possible that the video memory is being corrupted by the Windows application. Windows tries to use portions of memory normally reserved for video and this can sometimes cause problems for DOS applications. Try changing the PIF file which is used to load OA from Windows: Load the PIF editor (usually in the MAIN group); FILE/OPEN  c:\oa4\oa4.pif  ; go to the  ADVANCED screen; click on the item "Retain video memory" (press F1 for help on this item); FILE/SAVE. If this doesn't work there could be a memory manager conflict - check your DOS manual (what is that, I hear you say!) for advice about EMM386.SYS and reserving memory.
Backing up your Windows configuration
To restore the appearance of your windows screen after someone else has been playing with it save copies of the following files in another directory:  IN.COM, *.GRP and *.INI (these should all be in c:\windows). To restore the configuration copy the files back into c:\windows. Keith uses this trick for the PCs he uses in classroom training.
Another tirck is to set the above files to read only, using  the ATTRIB DOS command (or XTREE).
Problems with new network operating system
At least one corporate OA user has experienced some problems with the latest release of Netware. We are seeking further details.
Another odd problem with a new operating system is that the EXECUTE command in Complier seems to have a delay - the  program does not exit to DOS straight away but continues with the OA program. The DOS exit is made when the program finishes - very strange! Keith "overcame" the problem by using the MACRO command instead of EXECUTE.
Watch those MF files
Previous newsletters have reported on the hazard of corrupted database memo files. You are reminded that the date stamp on a memo file (*.MF) is not always the same as that of the *.DF and *.IF files so be careful when copying between PCs.
Windows 95
If you wish to have the ability to run your PC under your old DOS Win3.1 system then note the option to do this when installing Windows 95. When WIN95 is booting press the F4 key to have the option of booting to DOS. Alternatively, pressing F8 takkes you step by step through the booting proceedure.
One user has found that a database operation on about 100,000 records took about 1 hour under DOS/WINI3.1 but only 13 minutes under WIN95. On the down side he is having problems printing from OA when using WIN95.
WE WOULD LIKE TO HEAR FROM ANYONE WHO HAS TIPS ABOUT USING OA UNDER WINDOWS 95.
Virus News
The World Wide Web is giving new opportunities for the spread of computer viruses as people download files of unknown origin from sites around the world. Until recently the main ways that  viruses activated was by booting (usually accidentally) from floppy disks with infected boot sectors or by running infected EXE, COM or overlay files. It was pretty straight forward checking these executeable files before running them for the first time with one of many virus scanners available.
One new threat is from viruses imbedded in Word for Windows documents. These are in the form of a macro which executes as soon as the document is opened in Word for Windows. The effect of such a macro can range from displaying a silly message to corrupting  a hard disk (while displaying a silly message!). Recent updates to popular virus scanners now include the scanning of DOC files. Be warned, however, that it appears very easy for the electronic vandals to create new destructive Word for Windows macros. The same problem might also happen with an Excel spreadsheet or any other popular program which has a macro language capable of system commands - particularly where the macro is embedded in the document/datafile.
Programs like Ami Pro have separate macro files, and the option to disable a macro when opening a document so the risk of infection is reduced.
The are rumours of viruses embedded in the Java script which is used to create fancy Web pages. So far these rumours have proved to be unfounded but apparently there are some security problems with Java "applets" - such as the ability to send information about  recent Web page accesses from a person's PC to the host computer (COOKIES.TXT which is created by Netscape Navigator was rumoured to have this purpose).

 Web sites with virus information:
http://www.dolfin.com/f-prot/fpmain.htm,  http://www.datafellows.fi/ and http://www.geko.net.au/~cvc/

Borland Delphi
Our thanks to Greg Davids and Jeremy Guard from Alink for an excellent demonstration of  Delphi - particularly at short notice when the Borland representative was unable to attend.
Delphi is an application development package which is similar to Visual Basic. It has tools for creating Windows forms but its main power is the use of Pascal programming language and its ability to "talk" to a variety of databases.
An application can be developed using point and click techniques. All the time the underlying pascal code is being created and modified and the developer can go directly to this code to achieve more sophisicated results.
Delphi is not suited to simple database jobs such as creating a single contact database - it can do this of course, but there are simpler products available. It appears to be a very good choice for major database applications.
The basic version of Delphi, which retails for about $300, uses Paradox and dBase databases Therefore you can easily convert your Open Access data to dBase format and manipulate it using Delphi. 
The Developer version (around $800) can "talk" to OBDC compliant databases and can create or convert between a wide range of databases (but not Open Access). It also has a useful SQL Explorer which can analyse the fields and structure of a database when "browsing" directories. 
The Client/server version is intended for corporate databases and retails for about $3000.
Applications compiled in Delphi can be distributed as EXE files. If database operations are performed then some DLL files will also need to be distributed, together with the relevant data files. Updating the program is as simple as distributing a new EXE file, although changes to the database structure are a little more complicated.
Delphi has several "wizards" (e.g Report Smith) for creating forms and reports.
Overall - a very good package for the serious database application developer.
The Alink company develop a range of database applications from small business to major corporate systems. They recently released a "Complaint Management System" for logging and analysing customer complaints. They can be contacted on 02 94134069, email alink@alink.com.au.

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