One year later I can almost quantify the quality of my new life. I’ve found a wonderful home to volunteer with, not just in the Jewish Community, but the Environmental one. I am honored to sit on the Young Leadership Committee of Temple Emmanuel and be the main photographer for San Francisco Green Drinks. Each day I leave my home in beautiful Pacific Heights and within a short amount of commuting time I am right smack in the middle of my office here at Embarcadero Technologies.

Last October I was asked to be the Online Marketing Manager at Embarcadero. I work with amazingly smart, funny and compassionate people. I have the ability to be creative and at the same time am challenged to be better. And in the end, having your office 2 blocks from the San Francisco Ferry Building, your gym in basement and surrounded by natural beauty your mind wanders into a place that it may not have known before…a sort of calming ability to think clearly.

Moving forward into my 2nd year in San Francisco the Jewish New Year is here again. And I am feeling blessed that my life has a strong foundation now. I love my work, I savor the neighborhood I live in, I adore the friends and relationships I’ve built and….feel confident that I can accept the past, understand the good, the not so great – and starting to learn how to truly thinking clearly about the future.

The future is not just what we make of it, but how we harness the best possible scenarios that lie ahead. I am not writing this note to gloat, or to think that I need to prove my happiness. But I’ve seen many cross my path, new to SF, those leaving for new ventures and even those that have spent all their lives here, looking for a way to truly, oh what’s the expression: get busy livin…or get busy dyin…

I hope whether you are Jewish and celebrating the New Year, or perhaps another religion and this is just another day, that each day brings out the best in you and you find any solid foundation you may need. That you are at peace, your family, friends and loved ones know that your heart is pure and your compassion for life is great. And if you happen to stumble upon this, read this and know that you are in a good place in your life…my only request upon you…well, what Yoda asked: pass on what you have learned.

And to my Jews, my beloved Jewish Communities of NYC, SF, LA, Chicago, London, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Sydney, Melbourne, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo(!), Toronto, Vancouver, Paris, …and wherever else the Jewish people may live and breathe…SHANA TOVA!!

Much love and peace….
Michael

New features include:

• IDE Insight – a timesaving tool to easily find files, components, features and settings using simple keystrokes and search terms
• Code Formatter – to implement consistent coding styles with minimal effort
• Class Explorer – for a configurable hierarchical view of class libraries throughout a project and enabling fast navigation to declarations and implementations and now available for C++Builder
• Data Visualizers – that make debugging easier by displaying visual representations of data in definable forms
• Debugger Thread Control – to freeze, thaw and isolate individual threads within applications during debugging to track down problems faster

Coming August 11, 2009, Building Touch and Gesture Enabled Apps Preview

Fast path to 2010

Buy Delphi 2009, C++Builder 2009 or RAD Studio 2009 plus Maintenance and you’ll automatically get version 2010 when it is available.  Plus, if you buy now you’ll get another tool free!

It’s not just Microsoft Office making waves with a 2010 release product push just now you know? Database tools player Embarcadero is currently showcasing ‘sneaky peaks’ of its RAD Studio 2010 IDE enhancements, which it hopes will up the ante in developer productivity.  Actually they are calling them sneak peaks – but sneaky peaks is so much better, so let’s stick with it.

I confess to not having commented on Embarcadero for some time now, so news of IDE enhancements is solid enough for a mention or two. Rather than list product names, the augmentations centre around features such as timesaving file search functions, consistent code formatting tools and new data visualisers to make debugging easier by displaying visual representations of data in definable forms.

There’s also a class explorer which claims to provide a configurable hierarchical view of class libraries throughout a project – and a debugger thread control tool to isolate individual threads within applications during debugging to track down problems faster.

Having followed companies like Embarcadero and perhaps Sybase too for some time now, I think they both play in a relatively special place in terms of being database tool vendors as well as pure play database vendors. I suppose it’s a logical progression if you consider the history of databases over the last 25 years or so. These are databases – all grown up – if you like.

I guess my blog headline could have almost been: “When is a database not a database? When it’s a database with an extended set of development tools, tabular management technologies and debugging add ons – oh and also some extensions for robustness and security of the data itself is going to need to be synchronised with various mobile devices back to the corporate data centre.”

But that would just have been silly – so I didn’t do that.

The corporate blurb – and jolly fine stuff it is too – tells us that, “Throughout August, Embarcadero will be showcasing sneak previews to show what’s in store for RAD Studio 2010 with its new 2010 versions of Delphi, C++Builder and Delphi Prism.”

Posted by Adrian Bridgwater

http://bit.ly/DmH63

Embarcadero Demonstrates Its Continued R&D Investment and Innovation in the RAD IDE Business

SAN FRANCISCO—(BUSINESS WIRE)–Embarcadero Technologies, a provider of database tools and developer software, today announced the first of three Embarcadero^®RAD Studio 2010 sneak previews. The first sneak preview showcases the integrated development environment (IDE) enhancements in the new release, some of the more than 120 that improve developer experience and productivity. New features include:

• IDE Insight – a timesaving tool to easily find files, components, features and settings using simple keystrokes and search terms
• Code Formatter – to implement consistent coding styles with minimal effort
• Class Explorer – for a configurable hierarchical view of class libraries throughout a project and enabling fast navigation to declarations and implementations and now available for C++Builder
• Data Visualizers – that make debugging easier by displaying visual representations of data in definable forms
• Debugger Thread Control – to freeze, thaw and isolate individual threads within applications during debugging to track down problems faster

“The productivity gains from these enhancements will save developers time as they find files easier and understand code better,” said Michael Swindell, vice president of products, Embarcadero Technologies. “By increasing productivity, Embarcadero is helping developers to meet the challenging business demands, faster and with increased innovation and understanding.”

The IDE enhancements will benefit Embarcadero^® All-Access™ with the upcoming versions of Delphi and C++Builder as well as Delphi 2009 and 2007 added into the version mix and accessible from within the All-Access client. Embarcadero All-Access enables customers to select from one of four All-Access levels providing on-demand access to the entire Embarcadero tool chest.

The Borland and CodeGear IDE tools business lives on with Embarcadero’s strong commitment to continued innovation in the product roadmap. Throughout August, Embarcadero will be showcasing sneak previews to show what’s in store for RAD Studio 2010 with its new 2010 versions of Delphi, C++Builder and Delphi Prism™. To view the latest sneak peek blogs and videos on RAD Studio 2010, visit www.embarcadero.com/rad-studio-2010.

About Embarcadero Technologies

Embarcadero Technologies, Inc. is a leading provider of award-winning tools for application developers and database professionals so they can design systems right, build them faster and run them better, regardless of their platform or programming language. Ninety of the Fortune 100 and an active community of more than three million users worldwide rely on Embarcadero products to increase productivity, reduce costs, simplify change management and compliance and accelerate innovation. Founded in 1993, Embarcadero is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices located around the world. Embarcadero is online at www.embarcadero.com.

Embarcadero, the Embarcadero Technologies logos and all other Embarcadero Technologies product or service names are trademarks or registered trademarks of Embarcadero Technologies, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Database and software development tool maker Embarcadero will fully support the Windows 7 API and multi-touch technology in upcoming versions of its rapid application development (RAD) products.

Embarcadero’s C++Builder, a RAD C++ development environment for Windows, along with the Delphi RAD Visual development environment for Windows software and database applications, will have interfaces to work with the APIs, said David Intersimone, the company’s vice president of developer relations and chief evangelist.

Both products will have a gesture management component for Windows 7 that will abstract out its multi-touch capabilities from the Windows API to make it easier for developers to use those features in their applications, he said.

“Developers drop it down on any form in an application, and it becomes gesture-enabled. They just set properties and hook on the gesture event that takes place,” Intersimone said. Developers can also create custom gestures to override predefined ones, he added.

The gesture manager also supports single touch for older touch-based systems, such as kiosk screens, and can use a standard mouse in replace of a finger. Older touch-based systems lack Windows 7’s touch-screen technology and treat gestures as mouse input, he explained.

Microsoft released Windows 7 to manufacturing on July 22. Embarcadero must wait until Microsoft finalizes the Windows 7 software development kit before it can finalize its products, Intersimone said. The SDK usually ships a few weeks after Windows goes RTM, he added. He would not provide a timeframe for the products’ availability.

Washington, July 27, 2009–The Association for Retail Technology Standards, the standards division of the National Retail Federation, announced today that it is adopting Embarcadero Technologies’ award-winning suite of database software tools, including its ER/Studio Enterprise data modeling tool, DBArtisan database administration tool, and Change Manager database change management tool. ARTS will use the tools to build industry-standard data models and XML schemas for the retail industry and to maintain its existing library of 17 schemas associated with its operational and warehouse models.

“Through our agreement with Embarcadero, we will now have the optimum tools to develop new data models and XML standards as well as enhance what we already have in place,” said Richard Mader, executive director of ARTS. “We’ve heard loud and clear from our volunteer committee that they could benefit from tools that allow for multiple concurrent users and that generate formats which are compatible with other modeling tools. Now we’re able to answer that call.”

“We’ve invested significant time and effort into building a rich collaborative environment to support the worldwide base of ARTS members who contribute to the development of retail technology standards,” said Kirstin H. Wright, Chief Visionary Officer for Retail Anywhere and chair of the ARTS Data Model Committee. “The Embarcadero toolset will support this effort by enabling us to effectively harness our richest resource, our members, and make efficient use of their valuable time to build ARTS standards bigger, better and faster.”

“ARTS delivers a great service to its members by offering them valuable data model templates and XML structures that give them a head-start on their retail systems projects,” said Jason Tiret, director of modeling and design solutions, Embarcadero Technologies. “Our tools will help ARTS continue to advance their standards efforts and, with features like the Repository included with ER/Studio, its global committee members can better collaborate on the ARTS Retail Data Model.”

The ARTS Retail Data Model, currently in version 6.0, is in use around the world, supporting a full range of computer applications to operate retail businesses across multiple segments such as Shell International Petroleum Company, McDonalds, Nike and many others.

ARTS expects to fully convert its data models to ER/Studio by the end of July. All future versions of the Data Model beyond 6.0 will be developed in ER/Studio, but will also be available to members using other tools.

Embarcadero Technologies, Inc. is a leading provider of award-winning tools for application developers and database professionals so they can design systems right, build them faster and run them better, regardless of their platform or programming language. Ninety of the Fortune 100 and an active community of more than three million users worldwide rely on Embarcadero products to increase productivity, reduce costs, simplify change management and compliance and accelerate innovation. Founded in 1993, Embarcadero is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices located around the world. Embarcadero is online at www.embarcadero.com.

The Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS) is an international membership organization dedicated to reducing the costs of technology through standards. Since 1993, ARTS has been delivering application standards exclusively to the retail industry. ARTS has four standards: The Standard Relational Data Model, UnifiedPOS, IXRetail and the Standard Requests for Proposal. Membership is open to all members of the international technology community- retailers from all industry segments, application developers and hardware companies. www.nrf-arts.org.

An Offer This Good Won’t Last Forever. This One Ends August 24, 2009.

It’s simple – purchase any qualifying Embarcadero product and select another tool FREE. You can choose from over 16 of Embarcadero’s industry-leading, multi-platform database and application development tools, including DBArtisan®, ER/Studio®, Rapid SQL®, DB Optimizer®, and more.

Not sure what product you want for free? Visit the interactive promo information pageand click on the “What Can I Get For Free” link to access our easy, online tool to explore and decide.

Create your own perfect combination:

• Buy DBArtisan – get a free copy of Embarcadero® Change Manager™ to simplify database change management
• Buy ER/Studio – get a free copy of Rapid SQL to speed database prototyping and development
• Buy Rapid SQL – get a free copy of JBuilder®, the highest-rated, enterprise-class Java IDE for building Java applications

Whatever your choice may be, there has never been a better opportunity to get the tools you need to design, build, and run your systems better while minimizing the impact to your software budget.

Get More. Do More. For Less. But act quickly! Offer ends August 24, 2009.

]]> http://michaelfindling.com/buy-one-get-one-free-database-tools-developer-software/feed 0 http://michaelfindling.com/its-challenge-systemwide-optimization-or-bust http://michaelfindling.com/its-challenge-systemwide-optimization-or-bust#comments Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:29:15 +0000 Michael Findling http://www.michaelfindling.com/blog/?p=674 Empowered with the right tools, IT can optimize application and database performance.

by Greg Nerpouni

The development of database-backed applications continues to accelerate despite shrinking IT budgets, and the distinct separation of duties between database professionals and application developers continues to blur. With DBAs becoming more focused on meeting production service level agreements (SLAs), application developers — who are fluent in languages such as Java and C++, but admittedly not in SQL — are being forced to pick up the slack and write their own SQL.

Read the full version by clicking the thumbnail below…