All News

Aug 2012

We were informed about 32 CPU severs. Starting with the Aug Release, there will be no more limitation in the number of CPUs in the server.

Dec 2011

Special announcement - Beginning Jan 1st 2012, ASP-db source code will be available to users with active maintenance! Contact sales or support@aspdb.com for details. There is only one minor improvement in 2011. This implies that ASPdb is very stable. We are now offering source code to our users (non commercial use only). When you purchase the source code, there is no need to pay for maintenance any more.

Jan 2010

The 2010 release is a major upgrade. Highlight of new features is the PDF and XML support. Took a while to pin down a good HTML to PDF converter. XML query is getting more and more popular and we implemented the XML data as a tree. This database inside a database concept of string data certainly draws a lot of heated discussion. But in the perspective of a DB middleware developer, this is the coolest thing we haven't seen for a while. A lot of clean up including the entire class of GetData being moved to the main class, examples, manual and CG.exe. We have moved the old Ted's code masking function to CG. You must try that. Enjoy this new release.

Aug 2009

Implement Ajax into Dynamic List to simulate Remote Scripting. Add Ajax and Image verification to MyINputFlds. Both classic ASP-db and Tornado are tested for VISTA, WS2008 and also in 64 bit environment. Also implement many of the support issues. Check release history and API for more details.

Jan 2009

DB2 support is incorporated into 2009 GOLD version. Ajax is cleaned up and now supports embedded and stand alone modes. See new property dbDisplay = "CODE". DB2 support is also incorporated into the code generator now named as CG.exe. This release requires all the datasource, SQL, MYSQL, DB2, ORACLE be loaded into the development station. Contact support for special versions. A new dynalist tab is added to the CG.exe. Note that CG.exe is a tool used primary in on the spot code generation and not meant to generate the final code.

Jan 2008

A lot updates in the 2008 release. Ajax, MYSQL native support, New Ted, and we implemented about 90% of user requests.

Check the release history for this major release. Details will be described in the subscription user's email.

Jul 2007

AJAX added to both classic and DotNet versions of ASP-db. MAXLENGTH in TEXTAREA, Access2007 and Excel 2007 support

A reminder that we'll send the DLL of this release to all users to remind them that the developers are taking over ASP-db again. MMS is released of the commission to sell ASP-db beginning Feb 1st, 2007.

AJAX has been added to both classic ASP-db and Tornado. Entire Grid output is place within an AJAX name tag block to suppress the screen refresh. Since most of the ASP-db are using similar technologies 10 years ago to implement calendar, validation, RS etc.. Only selective AJAX components will be added in the future. Note that your browser must have Js enabled in order to have AJAX working.

Another JS implementation for MAXLENGTH in TEXTAREA.

We are getting into Vista and we'll share our development with the users in the coming months. Tornado now supports the 2007 office files.

Apr 2007

Office 2007

MMS is no longer our sales agent, please forward all inquires to order@aspdb.com or sales@aspdb.com. Access and Excel 2007 new OLEDB provider is implemented. More examples to cover some very unique applications.

Mar 2007

Application Examples

A few more examples in Oracle and stock data support. A new Aspx-db is under development. This development is to support injecting DB and other Tornado features into a new or an existing web page. Existing Tornado users will get it for free.

Jan 2007

Application Examples

The new year resolution of ASP-db is to provide more real life applications. Several new features are under consideration but they are primary cosmetic and of very little value and actually create incompatibilities. From the contracting jobs we did from time to time, seems like the 40 lines average is rarely exceeded. There are quite a few number of tools that is available and there are quite a few tool disappear also. Seems like newer tools, O/S, framework does not really make a better web application. It just add more alternatives and confusion and incompatibilities. 

Oct 2006

Add new Stock Ticker feature

Received suggestions to implement the Yahoo stock/option ticker retrieval. This Yahoo source is becoming the de facto standard in retrieving the non real time stock tickers. One method and two properties are provided to perform the tasks - ASPdbGetStockTicker, dbStockTicker and dbStockTickerTemplate. There are 70 different ticker values arranged in a very simple index table. For example, 68 = Symbol; 70 = Volume etc.. As usual, beside the default formats,  a user template is provided to allow user controlled flexible formatting. Many examples are given including one that shows how to embed this function in your web page. Go to the API page to examine the new functions.

Sep 2006

More Application Examples

More examples taken from everyday support added to the on-line manual like real time device to retrieve data (see Data Export of Special Topics); Custom error control.

Jun 2006

More Application Examples

A good work out in dbDownload to support SP and Aggregate. Now, you can control the html tags stripping as well as download MagicCell. The manual is updated to reflect these changes. MySQL 5 version of the DLL is also included since May.

Apr 2006

More Application Examples

More interesting application challenges from various users in embedding ASP-db grids in VS controls, Download in StoredProc and time stamping GridUpdate grid.

Feb 2006

ASP 2.0 Support

The Feb release includes the ASP 2.0 DLL. Turns out some 2.0 beta code does not work in the actual release. VS2005 has some new convenient features as well as the usual re-arrangements that needs getting used to. See Using Tornado with VS.Net 2005. Remember to obtain your id6 file from sales/support.

Dec 2005

2005 Final Release

This final 2005 release is posted. A few more minor bug fixes. The DLL is getting pretty stable and covers a much wider area then last year. In 2006, the first initiative will be the DotNet 2.0 Compatibility. As for new features, we still need to wait for more mature releases from MS.

Oct 2005

DotNet 2.0, VS2005 and Classic ASP

All previous 'Patch releases' included in this release. Several major chart types are now streamlined. Continue to assist users to migrate to DotNet versions. A new designer is in beta and should be much better than the old one. The editor is deleted and MS-SP is improved to include parameter support. The one thing we discovered is that some suers are not cleared about single and code-behind web form programming. Many pubic  articles are confusing and incorrect. We do some write up  to clarify this important issue. VS should be used to  program Asp-db (classic or DotNet).

Aug 2005

DotNet 2.0, VS2005 and Classic ASP

Last month we presented the latest Tornado API and Code Gallery which cleaned up the code in preparation to go into DoNet 2.0. The DotNet 2.0 DLL is ready and is running in the test Beta2 site offered by the ISP. Contact frank@aspdb.com for access. The Code and appearance is identical to the existing version. So, Tornado users can go into VS2005 and DotNet 2.0 with no Tornado code changes.

We are phasing out the Free Classic Application support which our sales team is supplying to our Classic ASP-db customers. This free application support has always been a good will gesture from our very knowledge sales team. That does not mean Classic ASP-db is obsolete. Classic ASP-db is still supported and if there is a bug, we'll fix it. All Classic customers are encouraged to go up to ASP-db.Net. So, Classic ASP-db customers will need a service contract in order to get application support. Contact frank@aspdb.com for details.

Jul 2005

New API manual

A new MSDN style API  manual is available (http://www.aspdb.com/tornadomanual/index.html). The old fashioned classic manual will be retired after a while. The new MSDN style manual comes also in a stand alone Tornado.chm file (http://www.aspdb.com/tornadomanual/tornado.chm) that is identical to the Web version except that it cannot execute the code live. Only the code is listed. All the example codes are checked out and all of them worked with the latest C# DotNet1.1 Dll. Check out the release history for new features. You can now easily inject the Tornado Code into the code-behind web controls. Sort has been overhaul to support both ordinals and fieldnames. Grid edit is fixed up to support JS(), startup etc. Al these are from users input.

Jun 2005

Blobs and Calendar

New release for May is out. Please go get it. Some work done in BLOB applications. The Auto option will now auto detect gif, jpg, png and pdf. Tested on Acrobat 5 and 6 and works fine. The year old event calendar problem in Ws2003 is solved. The problem turns out to be the Java security of WS2003. See manual write-ups. 

Mar 2005

RFID! RFID!

New release for March is out. Please go get it. Only C# versions are released as it is getting stable enough and we do not need the old leaky VB version anymore. If you have a problem in running your existing code using the VB DLLs, let me know as it’ll be my first priority to fix that.

The effort to apply Tornado in RFID application is heating up. The reason of mention RFID applications is that I am actually doing a project using Tornado and I am in the shoe of the user instead of the developer. The RFID project has two parts, several WinForm modules to control the readers and some ASPX modules to generate reports. The hard work is done in the WinForm modules talking to the RFID readers in collecting and filtering data at a very high throughput rate. There are numerous TCP/IP client and server modules in emulating, simulating and filtering the tag data. All these WinForm modules are very difficult and kind of “no glory” work as it is invisible. All data are saved to the DB and after that, it is all Tornado doing the fancy work generating all kinds of text and graphics reports. As usual, all of these reports are only a few lines of code and I got the feeling that the audiences in the show do not believe that and think I must be “canning” that for the show. I guess only true Tornado users know what is going on. One of the activities is to product a real time chart using the Hyperlinked charts to indicate the number of tags passing through each reader of each station. Please note that all charts are hyperlinked in Tornado. This one really knocks the shocks off most audiences. The 3-D bar chart updates itself every one second and it shows the running accumulative count of the tags. If I can find a way to configure an example, I’ll post that.

During the development of this project, I was looking for a few nice looking buttons and panels to dress up the WinForm modules and I was downloading trail versions of various ASP.Net “components”. I discovered most of them come with the web modules also like grids, dropboxes reports, charts etc. I took some time to look at these competitions and see how Tornado is stacking up against them. After all they are selling at a fraction of Tornado’s price. After some time I find out that I am still struggling with many of these very fragmented components. I realized that these are really small components and you have to spend a lot of time to integrate them. So, at the minimum, the efficiency of ASP-db is way ahead.

Jan 2005

Year 2005 Resolution

What have we learned from 2004? We learned that a good portion of the new users are buying the Classic ASP. This one is really a big surprise all along. I guess the new positive features of DotNet cannot offset the negatives ones (Slow JIT compile, Missing ADO, incompatible JVM (2003), leaking session variables in VB.Net.... etc.). Our advise is that if you already have functional stable ASP applications or you have small applications, it does not pay to upgrade to ASP.Net. What about the coming ASP.Net 2.0 and VS2005? , we'll upgrade when the release is mature and widely accepted. As mentioned in the 2004 summary, in 2005, we'll make the ASP-db users more productive by presenting more application examples in 2005. Stick to the set of C# DLL test files (VB & C#) as we'll build on that to make it a rich resource for you. So, send in your request if you want to know the best way to use a certain feature. For example (already covered) - how to do a Divide-By-Zero magiccell? How to do an EditMagicCell? How to plot a chart with all negative values?.....

Dec 2004

2004 summary

2004 has been a relative busy year with majority of the work done in implementing user's input. As usual, when users send in their wish list in detail, they are usually great ideas. ASP-db is pretty much a tool rather than a component. While a component is a 50% helper, a tool is at the 80% mark. That is why you can make a 3 lines application with ASP-db. The major focus in 2005 is still to get users to use a higher percentages of ASP-db. I would say 75% of users are now using < 50% and 50% users are using < 30% of ASP-db. Documentation is a big part of it as there is no way to document applications in a generic manner. Many time, the features under implementation are approaching application rather then component. If you have any showcase applications that can be used as a full scale demo, please contact us. We can use that as an case study opened to all users.

Aug 2004

New C# version

The new C# version of Tornado is available. This version is very clean and 25% lighter in weight. You'll need a C# id file in order to use it.  Contact support to obtain one. The new DLL will not affect any VB apsx code. The only requirement is that dbUnit must be defined. As for C# aspx code, you need to change the properties to lower case.   Grid edit properties are now separated from the normal edit as they should be. CSS skin has been re-designed to make it look better. The old CSS is still available.  New features in Text and Memo field popup. No need to program them any more. User can now control the Edit SQLs such that ';' is a valid character in the fields.

May 2004

ASP-db is adopted by Airgatetech as the core middleware engine for reader and backend databases.

RFID

Tornado is licensed by Airgate Technologies to develop their RFID middleware. This RFID version is separated from the convention version and will include many RFID functions like date reader interface and customized RF tag queries. Contact Airgate Technologies for details. Several bug fixes in the May release. The next release will be the C# version. It is very light weight and run faster then the VB version.

Mar 2004

Enhancement, Enhancement!

The March release is getting to become April release. It take extra time because a lot of  enhancements and fixes. Sincere thanks to many users for their 'very patient' debugging to make Tornado more perfect. A couple more CSS cool styles. We are making some country CSS styles just for fun and they look pretty good. Try the USA style! The C# version of Tornado can not make it this round and hopefully will be available in the next release. C# does not have the session memory leak problem of VB and is very clean. While porting from VB to C# is relative easy. Porting from C# to Java is difficult. We'll fill in the details when we get closer to the JSP-db.

Feb 2004

Free Tornado Version! More Examples and More Enhancements. MyASP-db?

The Tornado FREE version download is picking up a fast pace. If you experience a slow server response, please be patient and try again. The major goal this year is to get user up to speed before we produce more advanced features. Our approach now is to produce detail tutorial in how to use many of the advanced Tornado functions. We acknowledge that many times, it looks simple and familiar to the developers but it is not so clear to the users. We have several items on the table and one of them is the user control MyASP-db library as mentioned last month. This implementation is done and is in testing. This feature will also provide Tornado users a DLL shell to house their own business functions.

Jan 2004

Free Tornado Version! New exciting features!

The Tornado Office version is discontinued and re-packaged as a FREE version. This FREE version works on ACCESS only and has most of the goodies except the advanced Java Applet components. There is no restriction of any kind and there is no nag screen either. The purpose of this Free version is to promote the DotNet framework in which we have found to be very stable compare to the classic ASP framework.

Most of the active patch features are implemented in the first 2004 release. Make sure you upgrade to Tornado.id4. Check the Release History for details. Selectbox mode is enhanced. Now you can specify the initial selected via item number or item value. The ASPdbDS property is enhanced to support LookUp values sort. This is not a trivial task and I bet you cannot do it with the VS Web Controls (easily!). Custom DBType now enables you to define your Datasource format. Lookup datasource is enhanced to include user, global.asax and system common. These three datasource format actually applies to all ascii datasources.

A new feature called MyASPdb is in development. This is one of the more exciting features of the Tornado development. It enables user to mask and validate in their own terms. Check out the MyASPdb write-up in the manual for more details.

In 2004, the prime focus will be in holding user's hand to use ASP-db more effectively instead of pumping out more advanced features. There will be a 'Solution Corner' to address the most common and not so common tasks. Send in your comments and suggestions!

Sep 2003

New Site, New Release, New features, New Discount offer, New Search, New Demo

DotNet 1.1 version for your Windows Server 2003 is now available for download. Just put in your registered name or email address in the front page's 'Get Updates' input box.

As you noticed that we have a new site layout. Less crowded and more up to the point. We have a lot of new enhancements and you can even see them in action in the front page. Look at the "get quotes", "extend subscription" and "get updates". These tiny applications are done with very few lines of code.  Check Release History for more details. A new "quick and by no means dirty" "Full Text Search" is available in the splash page. This "Search" is implemented by a new feature of Tornado and I counted 18 lines of code. No Index server, no queries, no maintenance, no nothing. I setup search for Tornado and Classic ASP in about 5 minutes after the ASPdbSearchFiles method and property are documented. See the examples in the Demo.

Whether you are new to ASP-db or you a guru of Tornado, you must go through the Newly made Demo. I took time to explain more and I'll add  to this demo example pool from time to time. It replaces the old example gallery in which you can get lost real quick as I am trying to cover too much in too little space. I will be doing more progressive type examples to give the new or potential users a better chance to absorb the new stuff.

We are offering a 2 for 1 discount again. Call our sales folks to place your order.

Jul 2003

New modules - Normal and event calendar, Tab menu and upload. The 'Upload' modules exists in Classic ASP-db and is now official 'ported' to ASPdb.Net. Of course, instead of an offline module, it is now integrated and is more simple to use. An auto email option is added and it make sense. You can always use the normal email module to implement a more complex email function using DB data and custom templates. But for a simple report with full uploaded files info, one is built-in for you. The tab menu is unique cause it has a multiple row option and at time of this write-up, there is no such options elsewhere. In addition to the tab menu, the display frame is integrated in ONE file such that you do not have to program them separately. IFRAME is used so that we can perform the entire tab function in ONE file instead of the 3 files normal frame. The draw back is that NS4.75 cannot use it cause it does not support IFRAME.

May 2003

TED3 (Tornado Editor and Designer) is finally released after a lot of directions changing. We decided to combine the Designer and the Editor to create a more integrated environment. The Designer is being used to test all the code in support cases and up to this point, it is very 'functional'. Why release a piece that is only 'functional' rather then perfect? The Designer is never going to be perfect as it changes with the core product as well as examples that made the rank are going in. That means eventually, all the examples in the Example Gallery and QuickStart will be going in the Editor and will be available at fingertip. This piece helped me a lot as I am sure it'll help user of all levels. Every time a good question is asked, the solution will go into the TedCode3.ini file. Download this file and you'll have instant access to it. The problem of putting it on the web site or a hardcopy manual is that you would not be able to find it. W2003 version will be available upon special request. All the code has to be re-compiled and for the TED3, some controls have to be replaced by those in W2003. So I suppose if you are using VS to develop your code, you have to re-compile and also verify all your code. I do not find any good reason yet to perform this O/S upgrade as we discovered a few things are not working right once in a while. According to the information in the user group meeting, MS indicated that their next major release of DotNet and VS will be so efficient that they heard that it can save up to 50% of the code! I am sure that'll be another re-write.

DotNet is Dead?

That is what the W2K News say in their May issue. Actually, the name is kill, not the product. The article indicates that different interviews with The two top dogs of Microsoft at different time yielded different answers to the same question - What is DotNet? If these two guys doesn't know, so, do you and I need to know? But you must know one thing about DotNet that we reported all along but you never heard Microsoft advertise it - the stability of the DotNet server is the most stable one Microsoft ever produced. We derived the idea from this experience that we should concentrate our effort in developing the DotNet version of ASP-db. That turns out to be not a wise decision as most user is still interested in the ASP version. Many questioned about how to justify installing 21MB of DotNet Framework plus a new programming mode to do the same work. I think they'll come around when they are sick and tire of rebooting their ASP servers. We know that when they make the upgrade move, ASP-db will be there for them and they do not have to re-write their code.

What is Cooking?

A lot of enhancement in the May 2003 release. Some of my favorites are - TED3, Doc file report template, negative stackchart plot (this one breaks most existing charting packages), improved documentation, Menu, new Tree, Event calendar. Many of these new features/component is a result of suggestions from the users. These new features are quite a bit to catch up for the users cause they are very deep with special effects not available anywhere else. I am very thankful to several users whom beat us up pretty bad in the editing and validation in grid and normal mode. The next big feature will be the PDF printing. I checked out a few of the PDF engines on the market and I am not impressed at all. You need to be a programmer and use code to draw or position the entities which is not acceptable by ASP-db standard. We are striving for a simplified way to do that.

Jan 2003

Tornado shipped and growing

Old News

ASP-db wins again! 

For the second year in a row, ASP-db has won the prestigious Best Database Product award from the editors at ASPconvention.com. An Excellence Award plaque was presented to Frank Kwong at this year's ASP Connections convention in Phoenix May 1st.

ASP-db at the DevConnections Conference