News and Notes from Raining Data for our customers and colleagues.

Raining Data has been delivering data management infrastructure solutions for more than three decades. Providing new and ongoing enhancements to our products and services attest to our unflagging commitment to our customers’ growing business and technology requirements.

Corporate News and Events

Newsworthy Items

“Southwood Pharmaceuticals Implements Raining Data ePedigree Compliance Solution to Enable Secure, Visible Drug Supply Chain” Read more…

Upcoming Events

Northern Health Anesthesia 2006 User Group Meeting
We are pleased to sponsor and present as a guest speaker at this event being held September 17-18, 2006 and hosted by VantageMed, a Raining Data reseller and a leading provider of healthcare information systems and services. For more information about VantageMed, please visit: www.vantagemed.com.

Pick User Group (PUG) - Save the Date! Our next PUG workshop will be held Friday, September 29 through Saturday, September 30, 2006 at Raining Data’s corporate headquarters in Irvine, California. Pick User Group workshops are free of charge, however your attendance must be confirmed in advance. For workshop details and to register, visit: www.rainingdata.com/
news/product/PUG92906.html.

This meeting’s topic is on the new features and benefits of our recently released D³ 7.5 product and will include both technical information and live demonstrations. This newly engineered update is a direct result of a collaborative effort between our maintenance and support customers and Raining Data's product development, customer service and quality assurance teams. We look forward to seeing you there!

2006 International Spectrum Series of Regional MultiValue Conferences
Spectrum's regional events will feature presentations and demonstrations by Raining Data on our latest technology product releases including D³ 7.5 and our use case study on how Raining Data is leveraging Pick technology in the automotive industry. You'll have the opportunity to see us and meet with us on the following dates: September 25-26, 2006 - Cincinnati, Ohio; October 11-12, 2006 - Seattle, Washington; November 1-2 - Sydney, Australia and November 14-15, 2006 - Iselin, New Jersey. For further details about these events and to register, please visit International Spectrum at www.intl-spectrum.com.

AJAXWorld Conference & Expo
Raining Data will be presenting the session: "Enabling Inter-Mashup Interactions Using Composite Data Services and Workflow" -- What's the real benefit of having Mashups on a page if they're not collaborative from an enterprise perspective? Mashups by nature have been isolated components with little incremental value beyond throwing a bunch of widgets on a single Web page. This session introduces the concept of interoperable mashups that can be orchestrated together into enterprise composite applications.

AJAXWorld Conference & Expo 2006 is being held October 3-4, 2006 in Santa Clara, California and will provide the opportunity for developers and IT managers to learn from technology and industry leaders about the AJAX software development model for Rich Internet Applications and the Web 2.0 era. For additional information visit, www.ajaxworldconference.com/general/
sessions.htm.

XML 2006 Conference
Raining Data was selected for presentation at this year's largest XML user event being held December 4-7, 2006 at the Sheraton Boston Hotel. Our half-day tutorial "Assemble Rich Data Services for Composite Applications" will take place on Monday, December 4th, 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. For more information and to register for this event visit: http://2006.xmlconference.org.

Rover Data
With over 200 products in inventory and the need to both build and support their unique business process applications, Campbell Scientific set their sights to reduce inventory control costs, improve their data collection efforts to reduce stock shortages, and dramatically improve customer delivery time. To attain their goal, Campbell Scientific hired Rover Data Systems. Read the full story: www.rainingdata.com/news/newsletter/ summer2006/success2.html

EDP VenSer
To every company, processing payroll on time and with accuracy is paramount. This is the situation with EDP VenSer, one of Raining Data’s resellers who have built their integrated payroll application on D³ and successfully implemented this system for their client, Grupo ADsourcing, a human resources outsourcing company. Read the full story: www.rainingdata.com/news/newsletter/summer2006/success.html

EXEControl Global Solutions
CR Wireless, Inc. (CRW), one of the highest-volume retailers of cellular communications and paging solutions in the Capital Region of New York State, has more than doubled in size with help from a powerful software system, EXEControl, which has as its backbone mvBase multi-valued relational database engine provided by Raining Data Corporation. Read the full story: www.rainingdata.com/news/newsletter/summer2006/success3.html

Omnis Conversion Successes
Based in Huizen in The Netherlands, Socho_IT specializes in software for mid-size publishers. Their Zeno_II solution is based on an Oracle database with an Omnis front-end and has an installed base of seventy publishers of newspapers and magazines in the Netherlands and Belgium. Modules are available for CRM, subscription, advertising, stock control, financials, and so on. They are very close to finishing the migration of their product from Omnis 7 to Omnis Studio and hope to expand internationally in the future. Visit their Website at: www.socho.nl.

Based in Tullinge, Sweden, Acquarios has been the leading payroll-system for Mac OS in the Swedish market since 1986. Their product Acquarios LÖN has now been rewritten in Omnis Studio, and they have so far upgraded almost 200 of their users and expect another 100 to switch to the new Studio-based system within the next year. Added to this, they believe they now get a higher number of new users for their high-level program for both Windows and Mac following the successful conversion process to Omnis Studio. Visit their Website at: www.acquarios.com.

Mike Bryant
Customer Support Technician – Mike is another example of the many years of real-world experience and great customer service attitude that our technicians bring to the table to help solve your support issues quickly and efficiently. Read Bio

Tech Tip

Q: In D³, how can I delete an account programmatically without user intervention?

A: To delete an account programatically without user intervention, use the User Exit 23.
Example:

001 crt "Enter account name to be deleted":;input aname
002 x=oconv(aname,'u23')
003 crt "Account ":aname:" deleted"

This user exit will delete both VME and FSI accounts; however, if an FSI account, doesn't remove the VME qs-pointer in mds,,. To remove a bogus qs-pointer, either 'delete mds,, accountname' or run 'qs.upd'.

Discussion Forums Available
Raining Data's Discussion Forums, delineated by product category, offer a complementary option for you to discuss technical issues, circulate development ideas or raise technical questions for any of Raining Data’s products. Technical Announcements can also be found on these forum pages. For more details and registration information, please visit: http://forums.rainingdata.com.

FTP site
Access to our FTP site allows you to download files and documents or upload information that you wish to share with the Pick database community. Please contact Raining Data’s Customer Support department if you require assistance.

D³ Documentation Updates
We are pleased to inform our partners that the D³ Reference Manual and D³ User’s Guide have been updated and reflect the latest enhancements and resolutions engineered into the D³ NT 7.5 product release. The User’s Guide contains in-depth information on how to store and retrieve data in a D³ database environment, and how accounts, directories, files and user data interact with each other. The Reference Manual includes D³ terms, expressions, commands and definitions.

The Reference Manual and User's Guide will be maintained on an ongoing basis and periodic updates will be included in the D³ NT service packs along with Web site updates noted by document date changes. These documents are available for download at: www.rainingdata.com/support/documentation/d3server.html and are also included on the D³ NT 7.5 CD, installed into a Documentation program group when the D³ software is installed. Installing from the download 750C.exe or 750S.exe files from the ftp site will also install these two documents by default on the D³ client or server system. The previous D³ NT Books Online has been merged into these latest generation manuals.

Maintaining your SMA
The benefits of maintaining your Raining Data Software Maintenance Agreement (SMA) are significant. With many new and enhanced products being released, this valuable program allows you to take advantage of our latest technologies at reduced costs. Customers participating in Raining Data’s SMA program are reaping the benefits of responsive service, via phone, Web or email and substantial cost savings on products and services. Raining Data’s SMA is much more than product support. It allows us to serve you better and carry on our commitment to enhance and maintain the database and middleware products we develop. Contact your local Sales representative if you would like more information.

Latest Product Releases
By delivering updates to our product suite, Raining Data preserves your existing investment and skill sets, and adds value to your solutions. As we continue to build solid software products required to effectively run your transaction-based applications, your applications become easier to integrate and interoperate with emerging GUI and Web technologies. Partners and end-users will benefit from the major enhancements in functionality and performance hat we’ve been hard at work engineering into our software. With more on the way, check out the latest released versions of our products below. Contact your local Sales representative if you wish to update or purchase new licenses.

July 2006 – D³ NT 7.5 Product Release Announcement
Raining Data is pleased to announce the general availability of D³ NT 7.5.0. This version of D³ is the result of a collaborative effort between our SMA customers and Raining Data’s Product Development, Customer Service and Quality Assurance teams. After extensive testing by our customers with real live applications, you will be pleased to learn that D³ NT 7.5.0 contains significant enhancements and product fixes making this release the most robust and scalable D³ database product on the Windows platform. Read more…

July 2006 – Pick Data Provider for .NET and Pick Reporting Services Connector 3.1 Product Release Announcement
Based on specific requests from our customers, we have incorporated support for our mvBase database platform into these product releases. In addition, there is major performance improvement in Pick Reporting Services Connector 3.1 when enerating reports. Read more…

July 2006 – FlashCONNECT 3.7 Product Release Announcement
We are pleased to announce the general availability of FlashCONNECT version 3.7, which delivers significant improvements in open connectivity making it a desirable platform for accessing your application via the Internet, intranet, or extranet using a standard Browser. Read more…

Web Client for Windows Firefox
We are delighted to announce that the Omnis Web Client is available for Firefox on Windows, adding to the existing wide selection of browsers and platforms the plug-in already supports. We have added the Omnis Web Client to the Firefox Add-ons Website, which allows you to download and install the plug-in into your Firefox browser. Get the new Add-on at: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2997/. The Omnis Web Client for Firefox will be included in the Omnis Studio 4.2 release.

See Omnis in Action on the Web!
We are delighted to announce a new series of Webinars beginning at the end of August 2006 and continuing for several weeks. These Webinars are designed to help teach you more about Omnis Studio, whatever your level of Omnis knowledge, and will feature a variety of topics ranging from an introduction to Omnis Studio to extending Omnis to the latest technologies. For complete schedule and registration information visit: www.omnis.net/developer/webinar_en.html.

New Studio Release - Omnis Studio 4.2 and Web Services Component
This version includes new features and enhancements to the Omnis Studio product for up-to-date hardware compatibility, Web Services integration and SQL extensibility. Key improvements include:

• Omnis Web Services - a brand new plug-in, available for purchase, to allow Omnis to act as a client or a server for Web Services (requires Studio 4.2).
• Mac Intel Support - Omnis is now a so-called 'Universal Application' meaning Omnis Studio 4.2 will run on the new Mac Intel processors as well as the older PowerPC chips.
• Direct HTTP access - Studio 4.2 includes a basic HTTP server, incorporated into the Omnis executable, which can handle Web Service and ultra-thin client requests sent directly to Omnis (https not supported).

For further details about the Omnis Studio 4.2 release, visit: www.omnis.net/news/studio42.html.

With the introduction of the Web Services plug-in for Omnis Studio 4.2, developers will be able to incorporate tried and tested third-party business functionality provided as Web Services into their own Omnis applications, or they can provide existing Omnis functionality to many new markets via Web Services.

For more information about the new Omnis Web Services component, visit: www.omnis.net/products/components/ows.

The New StudioTips.net
Studiotips.net, a great resource providing searchable, on-line Studio tips, code snips, tutorials, demos and utilities, now replaces the "Lite" version of StudioTips previously downloadable from the Omnis Web site. Many resources are free, including a Studio 101 tutorial, or you can sign up to receive even more valuable information including the StudioTips library (containing the tips on the Web site and sample code), further tutorials and several other useful Omnis libraries. The StudioTips.net Web site is provided by Doug Kuyvenhoven of Vencor Software based in Canada. We recommend you take a look at Studiotips.net and consider becoming a "StudioTips Member", which would entitle you to full, unrestricted access to the site and several other "members only" resources.

Reminder - OmnisCentral is there for you!
The newly branded OmnisCentral continues to be an instrumental resource and central gathering place for the Omnis developer community to communicate, learn and share technical information and development experiences. It costs nothing to join and all that is required is registration through the Portal Membership form. To register and to learn about all the membership benefits, please visit the OmnisCentral Web site at:
http://omniscentral.com.

OzOmnis 2006
This year’s Australian/New Zealand and South East Asian Omnis Developers Conference will be held from October 28 – November 1, 2006 at the Westpac Conference Centre in Ingleside, NSW, Australia. Sessions on Omnis and other technical issues will predominate. This year boasts many more tracks and several repeated tracks. For complete conference details, please visit: www.ozomnis.com

US Training
Check out our Training class schedule and bookmark the Training and Education section of our Web site for up-to-the-minute class listings and schedule.

UK Training
The free Technical Thursday training seminars continue with success in the UK Sales office. To attend any of the seminars, please contact the UK sales office at uk_sales@rainingdata.com. Check out our Training class schedule for additional classes and sessions being offered in the UK.