OF INTEREST

Walnut Creek CD-ROM has announced The Official POV-Ray CD-ROM, an officially sanctioned compilation of resources for the freeware POV-Ray raytracer by a POV-Team member. It is both PC and Mac compatible, with preformatted Mac-folder layouts. More than a simple collection of files, the Official POV-Ray CD is an indexed, cross-referenced guide to POV-Ray and 3-D computer graphics. The global index has over 10,500 lines of descriptive text for the 3113 files on the CD-ROM.

Included on the CD is Version 2.2 of POV-Ray, with precompiled binaries for MS-DOS, Macintosh, Amiga, and Linux. It also contains unofficial compiles for AXP (NT/OSF), BSDI, FreeBSD, HPUX, Inmos T800, NeXT (68k,i386,hppa), NT (i386), OS/2, Power Macintosh, MIPS R4000 (NT), RS/6000, SGI-IRIX, and Sun. The full source code for POV-Ray 2.2 is provided for those wanting to compile their own binary. The CD sells for $39.95.

Walnut Creek CD-ROM

1547 Palos Verdes Mall, Suite 260

Walnut Creek, CA 94596

http://www.cdrom.com

Microsoft has announced two new SDKs for Internet-related development. The online Internet SDK is for content providers and Webmasters who create both Web content and Web sites, while the Internet Business Development Kit is targeted for resellers and system integrators.

The Internet SDK will provide--in an online format-- information and tools traditionally delivered by disk-based SDKs. You will get access to authoring tools, such as "Blackbird;" server software, including "Gibraltar;" browser software such as the Internet Explorer; technologies such as Internet Server API (ISAPI) and OLE; and libraries with current Internet product betas.

The Internet Business Development Kit will include a beta version of the Microsoft Windows NT Internet server (code-named "Gibraltar") the Internet Assistant for Word, Word Viewer, which allows people who don't use Word to view, print, and follow hyperlinks in Word documents posted on the Internet, the Internet Explorer 2.0, an Internet browser designed for Windows 95, and a beta version of "Blackbird," which includes components for design, authoring, and distribution of multimedia applications. Also included in the kit will be reviewers guides, white papers, demo scripts, and presentations.

Microsoft Corp.

1 Microsoft Way

Redmond, WA 98052

http://www.microsoft.com

ibizkit@microsoft.com

Great Circle, from Geodesic Systems, is an automatic memory-management system for C/C++ programmers. The tool is designed to automatically eliminate bugs in C/C++ programs. Unlike manual memory management, which relies heavily on debugging, Great Circle automatically fixes memory bugs without programmer intervention. The tool supports all C/C++ constructs, including unions, multiple inheritance, polymorphism, interior pointers, arrays, composition, and exceptions. The tool, which supports most popular operating systems and C/C++ compilers, sells (in object-code format) for $300.00-$500.00 for PCs and for $700.00-$1200.00 for workstations. C++ source code is also available.

Geodesic Systems

4745 N. Ravenswood Avenue, Suite 111

Chicago, IL 60640

info@geodesic.com

ParaSoft has announced Insure++ 3.0 (formerly Insight), an automatic, run-time error-detection environment. Insure++ lets you quickly pinpoint bugs and provides information necessary them. In particular, the tool detects the "most wanted" errors: memory corruption; operations on uninitialized, NULL or "wild" pointers; memory leaks; errors that allocate and free dynamic memory; operations on unrelated pointers; and more. Version 3.0 enhancements include support for Sequent, Tandem, VMS, Lynx, and Linux platforms, in addition to the previously supported Sun, HP, IBM, DEC, SGI, and x86. Version 3.0 supports threads and precompiled headers, and also detects leaks by simply linking (dynamic or static). Insure++ 3.0 is priced from $1995.00 for a single-machine license.

2031 S. Myrtle Avenue

Monrovia, CA 91016

http://www.parasoft.com

Atemi has announced the release of its NetShade 2.0 network encryption software. NetShade 2.0 can be used in conjunction with Web browsers, e-mail systems, and other applications to secure information sent over the Internet. NetShade v2.0 is designed to work across different platforms: For example, a Windows user will be able to communicate securely with a Macintosh user.

NetShade combines the RSA public-key cryptosystem with a collection of encryption ciphers, including DES and Triple DES. Users determine which algorithm will be used to encrypt a session, depending on how much security is appropriate. Other NetShade 2.0 features include PGP-compliant authentication and on-the-fly connection management. The initial release of NetShade 2.0 will support Windows 3.1 and the Macintosh. Subsequent releases will support Windows 95, Windows NT, UNIX, and other platforms.

202 West Hill Street, Suite 3 West

Champaign, IL 61820

http://www.atemi.com

America Online has announced its AOL Developers Studio, a program that opens the AOL online platform to third-party developers, enabling them to integrate their software with AOL. The program consists of software tools for adding online functionality, technical support, and product management to assist partner development, and marketing initiatives to showcase partner products to the rapidly expanding AOL audience.

The AOL Developers Studio SDK provides the following for both Windows and Macintosh: one-button access, allowing limitless links for members to instantly launch to sites on AOL or the Internet, and also lets developers create added value to an existing software product; custom access, that lets developers control the UI while enabling members to download files and send/receive e-mail, leveraging AOL's up-to-date content, including news, stock quotes, and mail; interapplication communications, so that you can write add-on applications for the AOL service enabling users to access the power and interactivity of AOL, including e-mail, chat, instant messaging, file transfer, and other functions; and a games API, for developing interactive, multiplayer online games for players in and out of the AOL community.

8619 Westwood Center Drive

Vienna, VA 15469

SDKPartner@aol.com

Starfish Software, the new company headed by Philippe Kahn, has released its Dashboard SDK, an API with C/C++ and Delphi 32 source code. The Dashboard SDK will let you create Dashboard Loadable Modules (DLMs) that can be executed from Dashboard 95, a Windows 95 application that gives users better organization of their work area, instant access to frequently used applications, and a common interface across Windows 3.x, Windows NT, and Windows 95. One benefit of DLMs is that they provide single-click access to a custom or vertical-market application.

Starfish Software

1700 Green Hills Road

Scotts Valley, CA 95066

http://www.starfishsoftware.com

IST's OpenExchange DLL 1.0, a programming library for importing and exporting data, lets you read and write spreadsheet files in all major formats without the overhead of OLE or DDE. You can use the DLL, for instance, to read data into memory variables, then use that data to update your database with your own existing drivers. Likewise, you can output data to a new file from memory, or transfer data directly from one file into another. The DLL is compatible with Visual Basic, C++, Delphi, PowerBuilder, Visual FoxPro, Clarion, and other development environments, and supports all major spreadsheet files (Excel, Lotus, Quattro Pro, dBase, and others). The DLL sells for $295.00.

Joplin, MO 64803

74777.2651@compuserve.com

Ventana Communications has announced a pair of book/CD-ROMs for Windows developers, one covering Delphi and the other Visual Basic. Written by Harold Davis, the Delphi for Windows Power Toolkit covers dynamic-memory allocation and management, creating DLLs, applying VBX controls, using DDE and OLE, and the like. The Visual Basic 4.0 Power Toolkit, authored by Richard Mansfield and Evangelos Petroutsos, focuses on working with databases (SQL, data control, and the like), OLE Automation, workgroup networking (MAPI, POPMAIL, TelNotes), and various API issues (bitmapped graphics, managing .INI files, and more). The CD-ROMs include companion code, custom controls, shareware, sample files, and utilities. The book/CD-ROM packages sell for $49.95 each.

Ventana Communications

Research Triangle Park

http://www.vmedia.com/index.html

Microhelp has announced its OLETools, a collection of OLE controls for programmers using development environments such as Visual Basic, Visual C++, and similar tools. The OLETools package includes more than 100 16- and 32-bit OLE controls. Among the categories of controls are those for: interface, data and time, multimedia, and miscellaneous (networks, subclassing, gauges, dials, and the like). OLETools sells for $189.00.

The company has also announced Code Complete, a suite of tools including Splash Wizard (to add splash screens and built-in version checking), Code Analyst (for code dissecting and cross referencing), and AutoCoder (for standardizing module and function headers in team-development environments). Code Complete sells for $249.00.

4211 J.V.L. Industrial Park Drive NE

Marietta, GA 30066

76325.3207@compuserve.com

Gryphon Microproducts has released W3MAGIC for World Wide Web development. W3MAGIC is a programming language that adds over 100 new high-level tags and functions to HTML, from animation and dynamic buttons to counters and user logs. It allows you to protect your data and code by encrypting it. Encrypted code can be executed just like normal HTML, but appears unintelligible when copied. The language works with all browsers.

In addition to providing special effects such as animation, wipes, fades, and pushes, W3MAGIC lets you gather statistical information about visitors to your page, including counters and user identification by country, originating link, browser type, and pages accessed. It can display random text, random GIFs, and dynamically generated graphs, and can perform table lookups.

W3MAGIC, which sells for $399.00, is available for Solaris, Sun, PC Linux, BSDI UNIX, AIX, BSDI, FreeBSD, and Novell UNIX. An account with cgi-bin access is required to use this tool.

Gryphon Microproducts

12808 Ruxton Road

Silver Spring, MD 20904

http://www.fox.net/~w3magic/

SuccessWare has announced an SDK for its SuccessWare Database Engine 2.0 (SDE2) (formerly known as ROCK-E-T), a replaceable database engine for Visual Basic 4.0, Visual C++, and any DLL/OCX development environment. The SuccessWare Database Engine technology allows for a common xbase-style (record-based) data navigation and syntax during program development with minimal concern for the ultimate format of the database. This leads to movement between database environments with little or no code modification. Also supported is database-compatible concurrent-access locking on networks.

SDE2 supports table, index, and memo files for CA-Clipper (NTX), FoxPro 2.x (IDX/CDX), and HiPer-SIx (NSX) systems. It also supports freeform-text searching; fixed-length fields that automatically expand to meet the input requirements; image/BLOBs storage and retrieval without any intermediate files; conditional indexes; instant index filters for absolute control over the database views; and record-level data encryption.

The SuccessWare Database Engine 2.0 SDK is priced at $299.00 per developer license for multiuser-application creation. It is royalty-free.

SuccessWare International

27349 Jefferson Street, Suite 110

Temecula, CA 92590

74774.2240@compuserve.com

NobleNet has announced its OneDriver ODBC SDK, which allows you to customize external functions on either the client side or server side (or both) of a client/server database application. This permits deployment of applications in two-sided (thin or fat client) and two-model (two or three tier) architectures, including Oracle, Sybase SQL Server, Informix, and others.

The SDK conforms to Microsoft ODBC 2.0 and is backward compatible with 1.0. The OneDriver ODBC SDK provides a universal, client-based ODBC-2.0 driver that automatically receives and interprets database calls and responses and an SQL-based source-code module that lets you customize access to external functions. Depending on the application functionality desired, processing is directly or indirectly remote to a server-based ODBC driver library. The library is used to access the selected database or databases via C source code that mirrors the SQL code on the client. The OneDriver ODBC client-side driver is WinSock compliant, runs on both TCP and IPX, and has been certified on over 20 WinSock-compliant products.

337 Turnpike Road

Southboro, MA 01772

sales@noblenet.com