 From the February 2001 issue of The Quick Answer newsletter. (Download February 2001 issue as Acrobat Reader PDF in self-extracing executable.) Q&A Conference Packs House. Users and Developers from Around the World BY Wednesday,
January 10—two days before the big event—organizers of The International Q&A
Users Conference 2001 were beginning to worry. A powerful Pacific storm—the worst in
years—had just smashed into southern California, pummeling the state with gale force
winds and record rainfall. Widespread flooding, power outages and even rare West Coast
tornado watches were making national headlines. Airport traffic delays were increasing.
Freeways were turning into underwater parking lots. And the National Topic One—Surviving with Q&A Bill Halpern
Tom Marcellus
Erika Yoxall Jeff Noreman John Dow Alec Mulvey The crowd goes boating Super-Sunday—The Unveiling! Who exactly are these people? During the Friday night get-acquainted party and all day Saturday, the speakers were privately approached by attendees with all sorts of questions about the new product. Lips, however, were sealed. “You’ll just have to wait until Sunday,” they were told. For many, the extended Sunday presentation was what had brought them across the country or halfway around the world to discover. And discover they did! Tom Marcellus opened the Sunday session by describing the chain of events beginning in 1998 that led to the decision to develop an all new Q&A successor database manager. He told attendees how negotiations with Symantec for the purchase of Q&A had broken down, and how it had stopped selling and supporting Q&A, leaving Q&A users with nowhere to turn at a time when near-future operating systems and computers would no longer run legacy DOS programs like Q&A. Bill Halpern then took the podium to tell the audience all about the new company, Lantica Software, LLC (www.lantica.com), which has been working on the new product for 18 months. Bill described the company’s objectives with the product—code-named “Sesame”—saying that its first and foremost mission will be to provide a solid, sensible upgrade path—a powerful 32-bit solution—for Q&A users running virtually any operating system now and to come—Windows 95/98, NT, ME, 2000, and even Linux/Unix! Bill then introduced Lantica’s founding members and principals—himself, Alec Mulvey, Tom Marcellus, Cliff Sobin, Erika Yoxall, Andreas Goebel (the creator of Q&A 5.0 for DOS), John Dow and Mark Lasersohn. Bill went on to describe the product’s state-of-the-art client-server architecture, making it fast, efficient, and natively networkable on a peer-to-peer, server-based or multiple server-based system, whether the server is down the hall, on the same computer as the client (single user), or on a remote Web server! “Faster than Q&A,” was how Bill answered an attendee’s question about speed. Bill then showed a typical Q&A programming statement on the screen and followed it with the statement in the new product to perform the same task. The syntax of the two programs was identical! That’s right!—programming in a Q&A database will convert in the new product right along with the form design, reports, field formatting and other specs. Though the full programming language has not yet been fully implemented, it will be possible in Sesame to have on-field-entry and on-field-exit statements in the same field (something you can’t do in Q&A). What’s more, the new product will feature a host of powerful new programming capabilities, such as true variables that don’t require “temporary” fields to store interim calculations, sortable multi-dimensional arrays in memory, and loops that don’t need separate fields with Q&A-like Gosub/Return statements in them. A member of the audience piped up: “How much will it cost?” About the same as Q&A has been traditionally priced, replied Bill. Sesame development team leaders Erika Yoxall and Mark Lasersohn then continued the demo. Using two networked computers—one set up as a server, the other as a client—they took attendees on an extended live tour of the Alpha version of “Sesame.” They saw how easy it was to switch the PCs between client and server mode or run both modes on the same PC. They saw, up close, its familiar Q&A-like menu system and friendly form-based interface. Sample databases with records being added and updated were shown, including a form with an embedded subform that demonstrated the product’s relational capabilities. Applause at every turn. During the final part of the demo, Alec Mulvey stepped up and searched a “Sesame” database exactly the same way you’d search a Q&A database. Same retrieval parameters; same syntax; same results. Nothing new to learn. The audience loved it! A huge round of applause followed the morning-long presentation. The atmosphere remained palpably electric for more than half an hour as attendees talked excitedly to Lantica team members and among themselves before finally heading downstairs for lunch. Here was a real future for their Q&A applications. Here was a product they could use! Sunday afternoon, round tables were set up so that attendees could sit down with the speaker of their choice and get their nagging Q&A and Lantica/Sesame questions answered in a workshop setting. The investor relations table was among the busiest! All in all, it was a very successful conference and received rave reviews from those who made the investment to attend. Post-conference survey forms told the story: On a scale from 1 (low) to 5 as to how much they enjoyed the event, the responses averaged a stellar 4.8! Here are a few typical remarks from those surveys on the new product demo session:
In the months to come, The Quick Answer will be bringing you regular updates on the progress of the new Q&A-compatible database manager. We’ll be talking about conversion from Q&A, powerful additions to the programming language, using the new relational capabilities, and much, much more. So stay tuned!
|
Conference
Video Sets Now Available. |
Weather Service was forecasting that the storm would
continue into the weekend. But by Friday, January 12 the tempest subsided, and what poured
into Southern California instead were more than 150 Q&A devotees from as far away as
Europe, South Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand—the largest gathering of
Q&A users and developers ever. And as it turned out, not one of them was the least
regretful that they made the long journey. 
presentation on surviving with Q&A in light of today’s
new operating systems and PCs, Bill covered a wide range of vital issues that are
increasingly affecting all Q&A users: How to set up Q&A to run optimally in
Windows 98, 2000, NT and ME. Important system settings you’d better not ignore. The
correct way to configure your Q&A desktop Shortcut and properties. How to coax
essential Expanded Memory from a computer that refuses to provide it. Which new computers
to avoid purchasing. The options you have for solving the “too large hard drive
partition” problem and why you put your data at risk by neglecting this issue. Bill
then spoke on resolving database corruption problems with Q&A 5.0, and offered several
much-welcomed suggestions on resolving common printing problems when using Q&A for DOS
with troublesome inkjet printers. 
Internet access in recent years, the Web has become the preferred
low-cost medium for wide-area data dissemination in companies looking for a competitive
edge in sales and service. Attendees eyes were glued to the projection screen as Tom
worked with actual Q&A databases, demonstrating easy, practical ways to output Q&A
data to “Web-ready”-formatted files that can be immediately uploaded to a Web
server at any interval for instantaneous access by anyone anywhere. Tom showed that
Q&A has the tools to do it— you just have to know where they are and how to use
them. Several of Tom’s demo databases, along with the Web files he used during his
presentation, were on the CD attendees received. 
information. But when it comes time to summarize and commit that information to
paper, Q&A’s Report module too often just doesn’t have the capabilities to
produce the kind of output format—or look—needed to communicate the data in the
clearest, most effective way. And Q&A for DOS’ inability to take advantage of the
advanced capabilities of today’s printers only compounds the problem. An attractive
solution, expertly demonstrated by Erika Yoxall of Hammer Data Systems during her
presentation, involves designing the report in Microsoft Access’ powerful graphical
report writer, then clicking on a button to flow in the data from the Q&A database.
Q&A data. Access container. Who would have thought? But the result?—gorgeous,
professional-looking report output enhanced with pictures, colors, lines, boxes and
shading. Erika’s demo files on the conference CD that attendees took home are
designed to help simplify setup. 
us would rather not step
into. So we call in a network expert like Jeff Noreman of Nexus Unlimited. As Jeff pointed
out to a round of hearty laughter—where computer networks are concerned: if it
ain’t broke, it will be! And it was laughter and learning for the next 90
minutes. Where do you begin when you want to network two or more PCs? What do you need to
do in and with Q&A to safely and efficiently share your files? Peer-to-peer vs.
standalone server—which is best for you? Should you use Windows built-in networking
or buy a networking software package? How do you setup network resource sharing for
printers, Internet connections and the like? Home and home/office networks—how are
these different? How do you choose a reliable network interface card? What about cabling
vs. telephone and electrical line networks? Jeff covered all the essentials, including
productive networking tips as well as traps to avoid. Conference attendees were treated to
a real clinic on practical networking by the guy the Q&A experts call when
“It’s the Network Again.”
developed a small army of powerful utility programs that do everything from
analyzing and repairing Q&A database corruption, to extracting data, changing multiple
passwords in a single pass, and copying report designs from one database to another.
During his presentation, John demoed a number of his most popular utility programs for
Q&A, showing their valuable diagnostic and time-saving capabilities. Judging by the
periodic flurry of note-taking, for many attendees the solutions to their recurring
Q&A problems were right there on the screen in one or more of John’s demos. And
they went home with the same demo files on their conference CDs 
Alec’s unflappable British wit, coupled with his
wide-ranging expertise as a long-time Q&A developer, trainer, and computer
applications consultant, had the audience in stitches as he gave a very well received
big-screen demo on integrating Q&A data with Microsoft Word. A barrier for Q&A for
DOS users who need enhanced output has long been the lack of a truly WYSIWYG word
processor in which to design and print graphically-enhanced merge letters, mailing labels,
forms and the like. Added to that is the lack of Q&A printer driver support for the
advanced capabilities found in today’s printers. Though most attendees had Microsoft
Word on their computers, many didn’t know how (or even if) they could merge their
Q&A data with it. Alec’s detailed, step-by-step demonstration proved how easy it
actually is.