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| Resources for Your Developer Toolbox |
| Theresa W. Carey |
Monitor Your Network
.gif) TamoSoft Inc. is publishing CommView 3.0, a network monitor and packet analyzer. This product is compatible with Windows® 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT® 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. CommView presents a picture of the network traffic, which helps you pinpoint security flaws, LAN bottlenecks, and other network-related problems. Version 3.0 features a multilevel protocol decoder capable of decoding over 20 network protocols, compatibility with wireless Ethernet adapters, new filters, and the ability to exchange data with your applications.
CommView captures and analyzes packets of data passing through your dial-up connection or Ethernet card and allows you to view all network connections. With CommView you can see the list of network sessions, IP addresses, ports, and examine individual packets. You can reconstruct any TCP session between two hosts and watch the data being exchanged on the application level.
CommView also allows you to view vital real-time network statistics, such as protocol distribution and bandwidth utilization charts, or the top LAN talkers table.
TamoSoft Inc.
P.O. Box 1385
Christchurch 8015
New Zealand
https://www.tamos.com
Tweak Your Windows XP Settings
.gif) Totalidea Software has released Tweak-XP, an application that lets you improve the productivity of Windows XP. In addition to tuning Windows XP to run faster, Tweak-XP's functions let you tailor the Windows interface to meet your needs. Tweak-XP gives you access to hidden Windows XP settings, such as altering the Windows XP taskbar and desktop settings, customizing the Start menu, and enabling performance options.
While Windows XP includes the ability to perform simple ZIP file functions, Tweak-XP lets you check the integrity of ZIP files and repair damaged archives. You can even convert simple ZIP archives into auto-extracting files.
The System Optimization Wizard will automatically inspect your computer's hardware and fine-tune the Windows XP settings so that processing speed will be optimized. Tweak-XP lets you lock applications so others cannot run them and lets you hide folders so they cannot be seen by other people or programs. Use Tweak-XP to optimize the physical memory in your computer, cleaning out application leftovers.
Tweak-XP comes with English, German, French, Italian, Dutch, and Hungarian interfaces. The program lets you synchronize your system time to an atomic clock, add animation and skins to the Microsoft® Internet Explorer toolbar, remove Internet history files and cookies, rename multiple files with a single mouse click, generate random passwords, destroy sensitive files without leaving a trace, find and remove unnecessary files from your hard drive, and perform many other tweaks and optimizations.
Totalidea Software
U.S. Inquiries: Emetrix
1648 Willow Drive
Kaysville, UT 84037
888-447-1175, 801-444-7176
https://www.totalidea.de
In-Memory SQL Database
.gif) QuiLogic Inc. has developed SQL-IMDB, a solution to the problems of shared application variables and the management of complex data structures. SQL-IMDB is an in-memory database with a SQL interface that can be used by multiple applications to store and manipulate data at main memory speeds.
To an application, SQL-IMDB looks much like any other database server, complete with multithreading, transaction processing, and Unicode support. It supports a significant subset of the SQL92 definition, including SELECT, UPDATE, INSERT, and DELETE, plus WHERE, GROUP BY, HAVING, and ORDER BY, and CREATE and DROP TABLE. The difference is that everything is stored in memory (local or shared, for cross-application availability) and managed by the DBMS optimized for disk-free operations. The system avoids I/O buffers and complex, disk-oriented data structures, and uses a compressed version of the TST-Tree indexing algorithm. It's also optimized for small-to-medium queries, and for prepared queries which are resubmitted with varying parameters.
The result is a system that's not only useful for sharing data between applications, but also for replacing traditional data structures such as hash tables, lists, and arrays, and it can even export its data to disk if required. SQL-IMDB runs on Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.51 and later, and provides ActiveX® and C/C++ procedure interfaces.
QuiLogic Inc.
Faberstrasse 19 H
A-6230 Brixlegg
Austria
+43 533-763898
https://www.quilogic.cc
Automatic Code Completion Add-in
.gif) Nilgirihouse.com recently released Dexter, an add-in designed for professional software developers that provides automatic code completion for all Microsoft development environments. Dexter can be used with Visual C++®, Visual Basic®, Visual Basic for Applications, Visual InterDev®, Visual J++®, and Visual Studio® .NET. Configure Dexter to your programming style or desired layout. When you begin to type a language statement (for example, an if or while statement) and press the space bar, Dexter will automatically complete it for you in a manner you have previously defined. The program is designed to reduce errors and ensure a consistent programming style.
Nilgirihouse.com
10 Longfield Road
Ealing, London
England W5 2DH
https://www.nilgirihouse.com
Pre-Deployment Configuration Suite
.gif) InstallShield Software Corporation has announced the availability of InstallShield AdminStudio 2.0, a suite of pre-deployment software configuration capabilities designed to help systems administrators migrating to Windows 2000, Windows XP, and the Windows Installer Service. AdminStudio combines a wizard-driven, checklist-style environment with InstallShield's installation technology. The product enables administrators to obtain standards-compliant Windows Installer setups and reduces desktop total cost of ownership.
AdminStudio's built-in application repackager allows administrators to easily convert applications to the new format by collecting before and after snapshots of an application's installation sequence to create a new .msi-based file, which is required by Windows Installer. AdminStudio captures critical system changes such as registry modifications, shortcuts, file additions, environment variables, driver changes, and Windows NT services. Administrators can also repackage multiple installations into a single Windows Installer package.
AdminStudio gives administrators the ability to customize their applications prior to deployment using Microsoft transforms (.mst files). Using a drag-and-drop-style interface, administrators can add or remove files, registry entries, shortcuts, and other application pieces, easily creating customized configurations. AdminStudio also creates silent installation routines for unattended installations.
AdminStudio's built-in conflict resolution functionality, called ConflictSolver, checks for potential conflicts between setup packages and existing applications that could affect proper application behavior after deployment. ConflictSolver tests for a variety of different conflicts, including registry entries, INI files, ODBC resources, Windows NT services, product/package codes, file extensions, and more.
InstallShield Software Corporation
900 National Parkway, Suite 125
Schaumburg, IL 60173
847-240-9111
https://www.install.com
Send your New Stuff to Theresa at newstuff@microsoft.com. |
Theresa W. Carey is a freelance writer who lives in California. Her byline has appeared in Barron's and PC World.
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